my first turboCAD

[iamchristuffin]

So, at this early hour of half-pat-five, I've just finished my first TurboCAD lighting plan, and was hoping you helpful people could have a look for me, and say what you think. I've uploaded it as a .tcw and .dwg for ease.

 

Website

 

Thank you very much guys!!

Chris

[PDD]

It's fine for a basic plan. I could certainly rig from that. I would make a clearer distinction about which lanterns are on the floor, however (I know it says in the key, but I prefer to see it at first glance; maybe on a different layer or in a different colour?). One big improvement would be to get it all to scale and draw it 'full size' on screen (then use the Print Setup scale option to reduce it to fit whichever paper size you need). You could get a little bit neater at 'hanging' your lanterns on the bars as well. Accurately-speaking, most of your lanterns are floating in mid air. Try lining up the crosshair which represents the hanging point with the line for the bar (use 'D' to move the reference point to the crosshair (using 'I' to get on the intersection), then use 'N' to snap to the nearest line, or use the grid 'G').

 

(Apologies if you already know this TurboCad stuff).

 

Anyway, I hope you don't mind, but I played around for 5 mins, and this is your plan properly aligned (although obviously still not to scale).

 

(Incidentally, be careful with .DWG conversions from TurboCad; they tend to go a bit screwy. I use the .DXF extension as a preference as that seems to hold things together a little bit better and can still be opened in AutoCad).

 

Edit: Not sure if it's interesting, but here is one of my recent plans to compare (.TCW only) - I'm afraid not completely to scale either, so negates a bit what I said above, and no gel numbers yet. Here is a PDF version if anybody else is interested. Perhaps this should start a new thread - "Show Your Plans"?!

[mac.calder]

Use layers, that is the one main suggestion I have. Options>Layers opens the main layers window, then add layers for things like your surrounding box/info, bars, curtains etc. Then when you draw items, in the drop down box at the top that says 0, change it to the layer you want the object to be on. Then you can lock the layers. The great thing about using layers is you can make layers invisible etc to clear up complex CAD plans.

[gareth]

As others have said, not too bad for a first go!

 

The one thing that leaps out as being odd is the scale of the lanterns on the drawing - your Source4 Pars are bigger than your Par64s, and those Cantata PCs on LX1 seem to have been through some sort of lantern expander - they're HUGE!!! ;) Seriously, it's worth making sure that the symbols you use are a reasonable accurate representation of the actual physical size of the lantern they represent - it's easier to determine whether or not the lanterns you want to use will physically fit into the space available to them. Sometimes it's important to know that!

 

And yes, layers and colours on the drawing are really useful. Even if you print the final drawing entirely in black, with only the layers you need switched on, split the information off into layers, each with their own colour - it'll make it easier for you when you're drawing it. When I draw a plan, every type of information - lanterns, bars, booms, the outline of the building, channels, colours, dimmers, etc. - is a different colour on the screen and on its own layer for easy turn-off-and-on-ability. It also allows you to lock things like the lighting bars and the building, so that you can grab hold of groups of things to move/delete them quickly and easily without having to deselect the immovable/undeletable stuff first.

 

If you want a couple more example files, let me know and I'll pick out a few useful examples from my archives!

[mac.calder]

I'll also volunteer an example file palladium.TCW (912.5 Kb)- it is the main file I use at the venue I work at - cannot share any show-specific ones, but I can share the one I am currently making for site documentation (of which there is currently none). Unfortunately, as far as LX fixtures go, the only ones on there are Roboscan 518's - which we use for table spots, as that is my first task now that I have a proper room cad file with all the LX bars, coffers, stage bars etc on there. Unfortunately, none of the addressing information is there yet, as this is a project I am doing in my minimal spare time (ie whilst sitting on boring ops) and as such, have not had the time to go around and work out the addresses of each unit (the things a real mess, 10 years old and passed through too many hands).