The reason I ask is because of the need for precise measurement units to be used on such projects.
Well if that’s your only requirement, yes, you can. Blender stores geometry in double precision floats if I’m not mistaken.
which side of the construction work are you talking about. if its engineering related dude, I have yet to work with anything 3d. for mechanical work and electrical work 80% of my drawings are Plan view 10% elevations. If you want to use Blender for this kind of work than frankly I have to question your judgement here. In this line of work we are not producing fancy shaded renders its working drawings printed to scale and dimensioned properly.
Blender is completely and utterly the wrong tool for this line of work. I would strongly recommend AutoCAD for this kind of work or if you are broke Dassult put out a few 2d cad program called DraftSight. But the free DraftSight is pretty much a sucky cloan of AutoCAD on the same level as AutoCAD 2004. The general layout and arrangement of the tools etc is just cloned from AutoCAD. I was able to use it almost instantly because of this reason but it felt like been in 2004 not 2011 when I tried it.
But seriously stick to a CAD tool for this kind of work.
Blender is accurate to 0.000001 of a Blender Unit (metres in real life measurements)
So it is more accurate than your workers.
Of course, things can be scaled etc. so you can have as much accuracy as you want. Of course actually USING this accuracy is a completely different matter. Movement/rotation/scale tools in Blender are good at the minimum, but when it comes to actually using this things the way you want them working you may have to work at it a bit!
I believe all of this can be found on the wiki (search Accuracy or Float on the Blender wiki. You will atleast get some results)
Also, to Edit. I would like to point out that AutoCAD is IDEAL for construction type work. I use it often for my “line of work” and it is an amazing tool for this, afterall that is its soul purpose.
TBH I am quite against using Blender for anything but beauty renders when it comes to architecture.
Your measurements come from dimensions that are printed on the drawing. Who cares to how many decimals blender stores vertex positions. the key thing for an engineer is to click on an edge and pull out a dimension line. Blender has no dimensioning tools, it has no tools that allow you to create layouts, layers in blender are nothing like their CAD equivalent, you don’t have tools to create things like hatching or sections and the list goes on.
The one thing Blender could be useful for is visualization but visualization is not the same as working drawing.
i have to agree here it’s easier to use Autocad for Engineering drawings
faster to get the dimensioning tools and mostly 2D
unless you need to make 3D equivalent dwg for interferences but even for this there are CAD soft that can do that for you!
for 3D architecture Blender is probably good enough to give some nice render
but usually not required in engineering!
printing up to 11X17 is ok
may be with special script up to 4 Times (11X17)
but anything bigger and blender cannot do it as i know of !
hey can someone point out a wiki page for accuracy or number of significative digits
cannot find anything on this subject !
thanks
happy 2.6
Google Sketchup is a very good (free)app for construction projects
In my high school engineering class we had to measure every part of the school then reconstruct it in sketchup
it was very easy. I love sketchup
I have never used sketchup before but can it create working drawings, flat boring 2d drawings with dimensions on them if not than again not the write program.
Engineers don’t design the building that is the architects work. If you are a mechanical engineer you get the architect drawing and than add ac, water, security or fire layout on top. If you are a electrical guy you will add things like plugs, power skirting, lighting etc on top.
This all done on flat 2d drawings there is zero need for 3d graphics in this line of work as it bloody useless.
Engineers that do more cnc work will likely make use solid modeling packages, architects too but construction engineers 90% of the time are stuck in 2d
It’s actually “single” precision (32-bit).
[quote=“MadMinstrel,post:2,topic:529587"”]
Well if that’s your only requirement, yes, you can. Blender stores geometry in double precision floats if I’m not mistaken.
[/quote]
no, it uses single precision floats.
source/blender/makesdna/DNA_meshdata_types.h
typedef struct MVert {
float co[3];
short no[3];
char flag, bweight;
} MVert;
Cheers for the very interesting replies, I am a mechanical engineer who has used a variety of cad programs.
At the moment I am using Shark FX which whilst having many issues it has some dynamite functions and is really simple and quick to use.
The reason for my question is like most people who come from a precision cad background I have problems relating 3d artistry programs with 3d/2d precision systems.
Mainly because with programs like Blender all the hard work is already done and the final move to the precision environment seems to be only a short step away.
I can envision a future where Blender can replace cad systems; it is a future I look forward to.
I can envision a future where Blender can replace cad systems; it is a future I look forward to.
Don’t hold your breath. It won’t happen. Blender is not a CAD program, the developers have no desire to make it a CAD program. There may be addons to make it a half baked CAD program but I don’t understand why you wouldn’t just use something that is designed to be a CAD program.
Sketchup produces very nice flat, 2d orthographic view drawings, and will export to cad formats (paid version). I have come to love sketchup for completely different reasons than I love blender. They are not interchangeable, and do very different things. Don’t use blender for construction drawings or the old term “blueprints”.
there is a special Paid SVN having CAD tools but never really tried it
sorry dont remember the name right now !
salutations
Blender can be used as a visualization tool, nothing more, nothing less. Is not CAD. Is a mesh modeler+Animation tools+VFX tools+sculpting tools+rendering, a.k.a. artistic tool.
You can always look for the FreeCAD project ( http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?title=Main_Page ) or the LibreCAD project ( http://librecad.org/cms/home.html ) for such functionality.
There are CADTools and a fork of Blender for it :
http://www.cad4arch.com/blenderCADedition/index.htm
Never tried it myself and don’t know how much advanced they are as i do not work on CAD projects, but may be worth a look if you want to use Blender for such thing.
but this is not a free program you have to pay for this one!
happy 2.6
I don’t see where it’s payware :
License:
2011.08.20: looking for a fair licensing model i came to this:
CADtools is a “support-me-supporting-you” freeware / registerware.
It can be registered for individuals only, under non-transferable personal license. Each copy of CADtools is personalized and password protected.
CADtools is free: you can use it for personal and commercial projects, at home, at the office, where ever you want.
It’s freeware, all you need to do is sent him an email to register your license.
But you can donate money to him though if you wish.
well it may have been change lately i know that last year it was not a freeware
mind you the page you’v given is for 2.49 but there is also a 2.6 version is that one freeware also ?
i’ll try to find the thread on this one by Mignus
at least there is one SVN for CAD for blemder
anyone has tested this SVN and can give us some feedback ?
happy 2.6
should have added, converting to doubles guessing - is not a huge project - perhaps - a weekend - with some time after to double check other areas blender are updated for it, VBO’s, use doubles for RNA, collada – etc.
The blend format will convert floats to doubles on load so it should work out ok.