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INTRODUCTION
- This is about Before The Architect (BTA) home designers' custom house designer tools and related info.
WHO, WHERE, AND WHEN
- BTA operates in cyberspace from early in the morning until late afternoon - mid-evening, that is, rarely after 6AM and sometimes much earlier and usually until about 6PM, 7 days a week (time off for groceries and taking after a granddaughter and grandson - mostly The Missus' job).
- The author does all the drawing.
- His partner does all the serious designing - always on call.
- Their launching pad is a small room that glows in the night's darkness from little green, yellow, and red cyberlights on their custom home designer cybergear.
WHAT
- BTA
- Runs three computers -
- 2 Dells, His and Hers more or less
- 1 HP in a server mode
- Works three printers -
- Large format
- Color
- Black & white
- Operates two workstations
WHY
-
Practically
-
To support uninterrupted designing with clients, especially, but not exclusively, for hardware failures and way less than realtime remediation
-
To author, edit, and publish and e-book (now 738 pages in its latest edition)
-
To author e-articles published on Searchwarp.com
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To author and edit a website nearing 1000 pages
CUSTOM HOUSE DESIGNER CYBERSPACE OBJECTIVES
- BTA's cybersetup is built to achieve three custom house designer objectives devoutly to be wished
- Lots of redundancy - the more the merrier
- Limited opportunity to lose custom home designer data files - either drawing files or correspondence files
- Limited opportunity to severely interrupt work for virus-spyware-malware infiltration
Comment: The principal, overarching goal here is to engage and work through a project without downtime for failures of hardware and software that's all but bound to happen and happen again. Redundancy is BTA's friend.
- BTA's current home design tools and tips have developed through 4 capable cybertech guys.
- The bad news -
- The first three moved away from person-to-person cybertech to what each regarded as greener pastures –
- Conference imaging
- Telecom changeouts
- Retail register and security (this one could be back some day . . . some day)
- The good news -
- Each contributed, including the fourth now, to meet all three custom house designer cyberspace objectives admirably.
- Redundancy comes from the network of both work stations and the server, all three computers outfitted with virtually identical, basic software
- Lost data opportunities shrink remarkably with not only C-drives on the two Dells, but also a pair of drives in the HP run in RAID mirror image and an external data drive with programmed backup
- Bugus interruptus is narrowed by a superior bug screen and, to a lesser extent, controlled access of the server directly to the Internet
- Take a look at this schematic and key to see a lot of info on whassup with BTA's home design hardware -
Before The Architect's Cyberville Schematic
KEY:
COMCAST = CABLE GUYS
UPS(2) = 2 BY APC - 6-HOLER AND 8-HOLER, DAISY-CHAINED
MODEM = RCA BY THOMSON, MODEL DHG535-2 (INTEGRAL TO PHONE, INTERNET, AND HDTV SERVICE)
RTR = ROUTER BY LINKSYS, BROADBAND FIREWALL ROUTER W 4-PORT SWITCH/VPN ENDPOINT WIRED, BEFSX31
SVR = HP PAVILLION MEDIA CENTER a1540n, AMD ATHLON 64X2 DUAL CORE PROCESSOR 4200+, 1.93GB RAM, SECOND 250GB/7200 RMP RAM IN RAID IMAGE ON SERIAL ATA PCI CARE, EXTERNAL FLOPPY, USB JUMP DRIVE, INTERNAL DVD/CD-R
XD = NOISY EXTERNAL DISC DRIVE, 111GB, CUSTOM WITH BACKUP SOFTWARE
PR1 = HP 700 DESIGNJET PRINTER (LARGE FORMAT)
PR2 = HP LASERJET P1006 PRINTER - BLACK ONLY - DEFAULT - PAIN IN THE BUTT, REQUIRING TURN-ON AT APPLIANCE AND NOT FROM CENTRAL CONSOLE
PR3 = HP7110 OFFICE JET ALL-IN-ONE PRINTER
PC1= DELL PENTIUM 4, CPU 2.66GHz, 2.06GB RAM, XP HOME EDITION V2002 (SERVICE PACK 2), EXTERNAL FLOPPY, INTERNAL DVD/CD-R, EXTERNAL JUMP DRIVE
MN1 = VIEWSONIC VG2230WM 22: WIDESCREEN LCD
KB1 = MICROSOFT NATURAL ERGONOMIC KEYBOARD 4000MULTIMEDIA KEYBOARD
MS1 = LOGITECH MX LASER MOUSE, WIRELESS
PC2 = DELL PENTIUM 4, CPU 2.46GHz, 1GB RAM, XP HOME EDITION V2002 (SERVICE PACK 2), EXTERNAL FLOPPY, INTERNAL DVD/CD-R, EXTERNAL JUMP DRIVE
MN2 = PLANAR 18" FLAT SCREEN MONITOR
KB2 = MICOR INNOVATIONS INTERNET ACCESS ELITE, 126-KEY INTERNET & MULITIMEDIA KEYBOARD W/ 22 HOT KEYS, MODEL KB565BL
MS1 = LOGITECH G7 LASER MOUSE
S/W = BELKIN FLIP ON PC1 AND PC2 AND PRO SERIES VGA MONITOR SPLITTER "Y"
- Note that the flat screens are distinctively superior to CRTs in BTA's opinion - clear, bright, presents all screen views without fading, without shredding text characters, without only barely distinguishing grays.
HOW THIS WORKS
Comment: BTA has seriously considered going to color printing and has backed off so far several times for three reasons –
- Significantly higher maintenance than the black & white, large format plotter
- No market-driven pull into color output; BTA often draws in color to distinguish objects in more mature presentations, but usually converts to black and white on output to third parties unless color can help to highlight a home design or home building aspect of immediate interest and attention
- Less and less large format plotting hereabouts altogether, with clients increasingly inclined to get BTA's 1200dpi .pdfs for local reproduction at Kinko's and the like
- The two PCs and the SVR have the same or equivalent software resident; therefore, daily work can be done directly on the SVR or at either workstation on either PC
DUMPED HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE
- Along the way, some hardware and software hasn't cut it for BTA
- Dumped hardware includes among others
- USB print server - wore out 2 in just a couple of years
- PS/2 print server - opted for USB connectivity overall
- CRT monitors - better AUTOCAD fidelity with flat screen
- 1 rectilinear keyboard for ergonomic (KB1) - ease of use over long hours of working
- A touch-sensitive AutoCAD command panel that failed to operate in USB environment, and the manufacturer wouldn't/couldn't provide a workout driver
- Dumped software includes among others
- Several hard drive and registry cleaners that either didn't clean up the leftovers or ate software and good data
- Several viral pest blockers and killers, including some well-known, that missed major insults, hogged and interrupted workstation tasks, corrupted loading, writing, or drawing workproduct under way during the blockers' and killers' active moments
- AutoCAD-compatible, nonmanufacturer-authored image libraries and home design tools for cabinetry, colorization, landscape, distinctively drawn lines, exterior clad, lighting, etc. that involved poor or nonexistent directions on importing as a whole into AutoCAD, poor operating instruction, poor customer support – separately or in combinations (none is currently used hereabouts, all dumped)
GOTTA-HAVE SOFTWARE
- Not much, really, but hard to imagine working without what we have loaded.
- XP Home Edition V2003 (Service Pack 2), good for stability versus previous MS platforms
- AutoCAD 2006, best of show for its 2004 format, saving file-size accretion – more recent editions judged to be of insignificant benefit to BTA
- Microsoft Office - Front Page, Paint, Word
- Bluebeam for AutoCAD, .pdf converter way better than Adobe's in BTA's opinion - way faster for ACAD and Word conversion, simpler, real-people service backup immediately behind their product
- Bug Screens: Background & periodic sweeps -
- Always hot ESET'S NOD32 Antivirus
- At least daily -
- Piriform Ltd.'s CCleaner and
- PCTool's Window Washer
- Q: What's missing?
- A: A reliable, one-step converter of .jpg and .pdf files to high-quality resolution in .dwg format and the other way around (except for .dwg to .pdf which Bluebeam does well). That's what's missing. . .Tiff formats suffice into .dwg format, though clunky, including several conversion steps from screen shot.
- A: A simple, easy way to make pretty pictures.
BTA CUSTOM HOME DESIGNER INFORMATION SOURCES
- Several advisors around the country, both formal and informal, on subject-specific areas, e.g., house engineering research, lighting design, windows, framing, roofing, cement, etc.
- A well-used library in print addressing both design and custom home building
- Periodic sweeps of Amazon and Alibris for useful references, the latter especially useful to acquire hard-to-find texts
- The cyber-library at The Journal of Light Construction and Fine Home Building
- Google (way better than the others in BTA's opinion)
- Clients (often extremely capable at specific materials selection)
- Their 80+ years of combined experience and their wits
- In-field professionals who have proven to BTA that they know what they're doing, e.g., Lutron, Simpson Strong-Tie, L. E. Johnson, Interior Doors Direct, Exterior Doors Direct, etc.
- Several house design periodicals
BTA's AUTOCAD SCREEN
- Every home designer designs differently a little to a lot.
- This custom home designer's needs are simple, he thinks.
- This is a print-screen view of a generalized setting for the BTA drawings.
- While other drawing controls may be added from time to time, most all of the controls on this screen are standards.
A Blank Screen Typical of Control Arrangements (Top, Right Side, and Bottom) For a Working File
- BTA draws a project only in AutoCAD's Model Space.
- Adjustments for scale are defined using metrics based on The CadCARD Slidechart from www.cadcard.com
- Each project is on a single file, that is, all the sheets go into one basket.
- This approach has developed as the easiest way to get and keep different sheets straight and quickly relate them, especially once designing moves beyond custom floor plans and involves sometimes a few dozen other sheets.
- Custom floor plans are where BTA always begins, usually with an eye to a given house design style, but without house elevation drawings.
- Once custom floor plans having gotten settled down - sometimes a long process of refinements – home design moves onto the custom floor plan-related sheets - foundation, electrical, and roof.
- In story-and-half structures, of course, the roof plan must be sketched first in order to determine occupiable space on L2.
Comment: BTA almost always draws sidebar sketches of roof plans in 3D, though thereafter presented in conventional 2D elevations and plan views, except that, in some instances, clients need to see 3D output.
- Plan details are added along the way.
- House elevation and whole-house cross-section drawings generally conclude projects. In-between, views may be modified for special purposes, e.g., Radon Mitigation Plan, and highlighted in schedules and details
- Keeping all sheets in one file offers the most immediate opportunities for resolutions of intralevel and interlevel layout checking and changing.
- However, there can be burdens: Undisciplined backup can be disruptive, even disastrous – imagine picking other than the last file and spending the day designing and redesigning
- Disruption and disaster are begged when a day's work is
- Saved improperly
- Inadvertently destroyed
- Written over
- Mislabeled
- Mistaken for its save-sequence
- Simple works best – least confusing, least disruptive, most easily comparable as sheets develop and changes occur.
- In order to avoid slavish reliance on the server for storage and retrieval, context-relevant and task relevant graphics stay on the workstation PCs, too, at least during a project as well as on the server and recent, working copies of drawings and text, e.g., correspondence, notes, etc., are similarly resident on both the respectful PC and the server.
- Should the server cease to serve, workstation resident archives can support uninterrupted progress.
- Here's a view coming up of a design and construction plan's isolated drawings (sans frame) in a maturing stage.
- This is a working file of about three dozen sheets; this is a typical working file.
- The circle on the left encloses important details drawn or imported, corralled to keep them safely out of the way
- Individual sheets are already sized for printing or plotting on ARCH D (36 linear inch x 24 linear inch) in their respective scales, while all are drawn in 1/4 linear inch:1 linear foot.
- Note, for example, the lowest row are Detail sheets to be produced in 3/8 linear inch:1 linear foot, in order to better convey physical relationships
- The colored lines reflect designer efforts to check alignments between drawings – referred to hereabouts as vector analysis.
- Such analysis is frequent and rigorous, indispensable when changes occur, usually first to floor plans, sometimes to elevations.
- In maturing draws, there are plenty of floor plan-dependent and elevation-dependent sheets, schedules and details to rework when almost any modification occurs.
- Sheets of many colors are the designers' way of differentiating design and building elements or aspects during the plan set development process
- Gray sheets indicate original work [original meaning good to the moment of copying] to be applied variously in vector and other analyses. If one of these originals gets changed in the course of designing, an unchanged original is coded blue.
- Bits and pieces of drawings scattered hither and yon relate to
- Alternative designs of particular interest
- Preps for .pdfs of design or construction options or essentials for clients as highlights for choice, consideration, or understanding in response to specific, client inquiries.
- In time, these excerpted entries are erased.
A Working Plan Set File, in Plan View
- Of note, each sheet in a project will bear certain characteristics common to work product of Before The Architect, but not so common from others:
- A key to abbreviations appears on every sheet with abbreviations (which is almost all of 'em almost all the time).
- A legend to symbols appears on every sheet with symbols.
- Extensive text both in sidebar notes and annotations (sometimes bordering on narrative) go right on a drawing.
- A welter of dimension statements are defined on custom floor plans so that there's no real basis for mistaking design symmetries, space functionalities, proportional relationships and other design regularities, lines of sight, directed travel patterns, safe and convenient occupancy of a durable structure
- There are whole sheets of text to communicate design and construction guidelines and latitudes
.PDFs
- Used all the time.
- Had Adobe Acrobat produce BTA's .pdf files
- Searched around and signed up with Bluebeam (http://www.bluebeam.com).
- Hard to imagine how much better that software's support could get.
- And Bluebeam's fast.
- There remains an all but universal tendency to complicate operation over time, in this designer's opinion.
DEFENSES AGAIN THE FORCES OF EVIL
- Bugus Interruptus screens (please see above)
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Don't move quickly
- Drawing is primarily on PC1, with daily backup to the server, i.e., to a primary drive with the RAID-imaged second drive, and then to be backed up overnight to an external disc drive.
- Active files are reserved for a time, as well on PC1
- Daily work is incremented by labeled designation, e.g., from, say, PDillardworking44.dwg to PDillardworking45.dwg and save to both the server and the external data drive, and, keep yet another copy on PC1 for a time
Comment: Note well that the Save control should be executed twice herewith in order to create not only the .dwg file on the first Save but also the .bak file on the second Save)
- Yesterday's work resided on both drives in their own Archive folders so as to be sure only the freshest of files are reacquired for each workday startup.
- Alternatively, the designer could transfer file by jump drive or c/d or, even network from server to PC to PC, or switch directly or by network into the server for a day's work, as needs arise for redundancy to kick in
- Finally, in the instance of a suspect file content or operation, immediately abort. Beginning with that files .bak, BTA engages a retrieval process that is minimally 2 deep in the current day's work (i.e., the other .dwg file and its .bak file on a PC), and 8 deep in yesterday' work (i.e., 4 .dwg files and 4 .bak files).
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