[Bf-funboard] Blender Architecture

[Roger]

This may help Toni and Architectural Blenderites.

Ton's comment to me some time ago, 'Blender has all the tools'  often makes me rethink over and again
when I have a problem, so what is needed in architecture and buildings design for me at least was a
concept rethink of how things are done.
We are accustomed to scale blueprints and expect Blender to perform it's 3D magic on them like the
traditional /CAD packages when it really doesn't need to and doesnt need scale dimensions.

Well with a different approach it does  in almost exact scale dimensions without a single measurement.
I drew my house in 3D in about 20 minutes  and that included cutting out the windows and doors.

If you have computerised construction plans  save them as a jpeg if not scan  the plans, reduce the
scale and stitch then in Gimp or Adobe.
You want the final image width containing the plan and 4 elevations to be about 1500 px  wide max.

Here's what I found.
Set up a scale blueprint or plan, elevations, etc as a Blender background.

Place a cube object in plan view and on a side window show the elevation.

Using face select and g (Grab)  with  x, y, z locks,  position a face where the outer wall will be then
position the inner wall -  and here's the trick,
Make the wall thickness as you would for the blueprint or plan plus 50 percent.
hit <n> while in object mode and enter the wall length and height in the numerics panel.

Now at one end of your wall, in face select  - select the end of the wall, switch to edge select,
rotate the edges/end to 45 degrees and extrude along a locked y axis to the end of the wall.
Why 50 percent thicker, well! because when you rotate the end 45 degrees, the thickness comes back to
the correct wall dimension.
Make sure you work in plan and use the side window in shaded isomeric  for reference and clarity.

Rotate the end of the wall 90 degrees and extrude the wall on a locked x axis, work around the plan,
locking x or y and rotating the end edges as required.

For those who don't know, when you select a face or edge or vertex and hit <g> to grab it, instead
hit < gx> or <gy> or <gz> if you are in elevation view - and you are locked to the selected axis for
moving or extruding.

When you get back to the start simply <face select> the start wall end, switch to <edge select> and
rotate the end 45 degrees to match the last end .  selected edges rotate easier and more accurately
than faces.
Do the same process for all internal walls. You wont need to snap them because at full zoom (mouse
middle wheel) you can see them aligned or a little overlapped. <shift d> to create internal walls
from already created internals.
Do the same for internal doors.
Make Sure you <p> part the meshes so you can change colors and textures.

There you have it, a simple way to do a 3D scale of a wall plan.
Use Mesh Planes for the roof and extrude the edges for facia and gutters

Create cubes to the exact window and door dimensions and position them, <Difference and Delete> and
you have your windows.
Create mesh planes for the windows, run a poly line bezier around the plane a small distance out,
draw a frame extrusion and BevObj the extrusion around the poly bezier and you have your windows and
frames. Tip -- color the window planes a light blue and the frames a gold or brown so the show up
better in shade mode.

Apologies for the long winded approach in this forum, just wanted to help and hopefully save our
developers some time and effort. Ton was right again --- the tools are there.
If you want this in a  Noob to Pro Tutorial, let me know and I'll describe roofs and other things also.
Roger