Theatre CAD

[Dave_Leigh]

When I was at college, we were working one day, then the works department turned up, installed a computer with the worlds biggest printer, and left. We were then told that it had WYSIWYG on it, and that we should learn how to use it and do all our plans on it...

 

I don't think anyone has ever used it. Whilst I was still there, I know that everyone still did plans on paper.

 

Does anyone use CAD software, and what would you say are the pros and cons? I am doing more event and live show management now, and am thinking about using it, but it would seem pointless if I can produce a plan on paper that would be better.

[JscottLightingdesigner]

EDIT : Welcome to Blue Room /:EDIT

 

 

I mainly use the rendering and live 3D side of WYSIWYG.

 

Pre programing shows before the fit up, it's very common.

 

To use the 3D side of WYSIWYG you have to draw your rig, so while it's on the screen you might as well print it off. I guess that's the main reason for me favoring CAD over pen & paper.

 

Plus you can print out different layers of the same rig, which is a lot less effort than drawing each and every different plot.

[Grum]

I'm a big fan of CAD.

 

It means your drawings are always clear, easy to read, quick to alter (especially useful if you need to make alterations several times), you can easily print several copies (with the help of your local reprographics company) and you can email drawings so that people can get them instantly.

 

The down sides are that you have to remember to print in a suitable size for the text to be legible, any mistakes that you don't notice before you print/email can be difficult to fix (especially true if the drawing are the basis for other peoples work) and it can take a little longer if the rig is small or simple especially if you're new to the CAD package.

 

If you're looking for training then there's a great book called "AutoCAD for Theatre" by David Ripley as the title suggests it's more for AutoCAD but it explains the basic principals of CAD and how to draw properly.

 

As for the old excuse that not everyone uses the same CAD package and therefore may not be able to open your drawing the easy answer is to attach a link to the free viewer software download page with all drawings you send. Almost all CAD packages have this software and those that don't aren't worth using.

[Johnno]

I learnt technical drawing at school (to GCE O-level standard) and much prefer using a pen to using a mouse. My ideal would be to specify lanterns in a database giving their location and focus by measurements and let the computer draw the lot. So easy to edit. Does any software do that?

[Tomo]

My ideal would be to specify lanterns in a database giving their location and focus by measurements and let the computer draw the lot. So easy to edit. Does any software do that?

Not really, although it's an interesting idea for a UI.

- WYSIWYG probably comes closest as the UI is based on the AutoCAD drafting package.

 

Theatre CAD programs generally come from the drafting end of computer aided design (Wyg, VectorWorks Spotlight), or alternatively the 3D graphic artist concept (Capture).

 

However, in all designs the real first step is always to get out the paper and pencil.

Once you have an initial sketch, you can then start to put it into <CAD package of choice>, to confirm that your initial concepts achieve what you think, and are physically possible!

 

Live pre-visualisation is a growing area, especially as computer graphics processing improves (mostly driven by the games industry).

It is going to take quite a long time before it's close to photorealistic - games like Doom 3 and Halflife 2 have shown what could be possible, but a great deal of the lighting in those games was actually pre-rendered.

Dealing with more than about four lightsources is stunningly difficult, as the graphics cards simply run out of resources!

 

Capture 2005 is currently doing live pre-vis the best, by quite a large margin.

However, Wyg and VectorWorks Spotlight are both achieving stunning still renderings.