House model in SolidWorks

John.. I modelled up my bach in SW because my wife was having trouble visualising it off the Architects plans.

You can use that if you like... includes kitchen table and stools etc. :)

Cheers,

Cam in Kohi.

"John Layne" tiles into a model of house and render it.

Hey Cam, how did you pull it off of the architects plans? I'm currently trying to do my own house, and trying to use the 2D to 3D functionality, BUT, I'm curious what you did for it? Do you have a rendering of it? Or a screen shot? Also, John, are you putting the individual textures in? I'd love to see how it's going. My wife would love to visualize our house as well.

Unless you are trying to do some really custom stuff or are looking for an activity to fill time, I'd look at using some inexpensive home design software rather than tackle the project in SWx.

The stuff that I used ( was a few years ago ), was $200-300, quick to learn/use, contained regional building code information, and several hundred textures provided by materials manufacturers. The rendering engine was 95% the quality of PW but rendered in 5% of the time that PW needs. The sofware was simple enough to use that even if your wife had no experience in engineering/cad, she should be funtional in it within a couple hours.

Sorry that I don't recall the name of the software specifically, but I've seen similar looking products at best buy, office max ect.

Thanks Brian. I'll look into it. Do you remember if the software was just a rendering type software where you only see the outside, or can you do a little fly-through into the home? That's really what we're interested in. I was hoping to really capitalize on the 2006 new fly-through camera. A virtual tour if you will and I wouldn't have to buy new software. BUT, maybe that's still the way to go because trying to get the textures would be a pain.

Was "fly through" capeable at a lower resolution. Had to stop and position the camera to do a render. My sister is playing around with a similar product made by punch software that seems to be capeable and comes with textures and completed drop in models of furnishings, plants, ect... seems I saw that one at office max for about $100.

Hate to disillusion you but the rendering I'll be doing is not going to be high quality one-- It's just a quick representation for a client. Probably next week sometime.

Bartman... I measured up the sketch plan and elevations to make up the model because the detailed plans are still comming. My guy doesn't know how to turn on a PC so I knew there'd be no cad files.

It's really pretty simple to model up and doesn't take long because houses are generally prismatic. I didn't create the weatherboard shape on the walls or show the texture of the roof, but it was helpful for others to get a 'feel' of the place. Set aside a few hours and have a go.

I wonder if anyone around has tried J. Jones app (NhCad, IIRC) to turn SW models into Quake maps. I downloaded it long time ago, but never tried. Such an app to turn SW or parasolid models into games maps would provide a very nice walkthrough system. ... Or fragging in your own house?

"bartman" a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

John I've done several buildings in Solidworks for architects round here - they go nuts for Edrawings! Model in SW, export as STL to Maya and texture and render in there. Have a look at the galleries at

you still need one, email me and I have a couple of generic buildings with windows, doors etc that you can have... Cheers Deri

John Layne wrote:

Hey Deri, those are some pretty good models and renderings. Are all of them rendered in Maya? How did you gather all of the textures? If it's possible, I'd love to have you send me a couple to look at. It would be helpful is forming my house. Cool stuff, Deri!!