interior designer seeking advice

[Anonymous]

I'm a Danish Interior Designer (well, studying to be..) living in Italy. I have the study version of ArchiCad 9, I bought it because of my beloved mac. BUT -even though I master several computer programs from my old life as an art director (e.g. InDesign, Illustrator, photoshop) I find this one really difficult and diverse.
So I decided I need a fool-proof guide, real basic stuff. (the little guide that comes with the CD supposes that you already know how to draw a room - which is not the case!!)
I'm NOT an architect, my need is to make Interior Design come to live for the client...
So my questions are these:

1) Can anybody recommend a really good guide (in either Danish, English or Italian)

2) can anybody tell me if the stydy version is very limited compared to the full (meaning, if I buy a guide, is there a risk that basic tools it mentions are missing from the program I have, or is it usually the more complicated features they leave out?)

3) Is there a real life Interior Designer out there who can confirm that this is actually the program to have and use (on mac, I recall you) -or are there better alternatives, before I start getting to know this animal...

4) Bonus question - how should I save an archiCad file to make it possible for an autoCad user to open and correct my file?

I thank you so much for any help - really, please do send me your thoughts!
ciao, Iacobe

[Anonymous]

KeesW wrote:
PS: my daughter went to the same school as Mary Donald (now Princess Mary) - they were about 1 year apart and she doesn't remember her particularly. She also spent 1 year in Denmark as a Rotary exchange student.

So close, and yet so far......

[Anonymous]

Oh, but there's no chance it's the same Mary then... You understand, OUR Mary is Gods gift to Vikings and mankind in general, nobody can ever have been within 500 meters distance without remembering her, are you KIDDING

Anyway, thanks for the tutorial tip. Eventually I quess I'll buy it, but for now I just invested in SketchUp book and programme, and cannot afford another 150$. I just finished as an Interior Designer 6 months ago, so it's not like I'm swimming in money right now.
I wish Mary had an australian university mail-adress so she could buy me a students version for a LOT less....

I hope I didn't make a mistake in investing in this program instead of more ArchiCad, it's just been MONTHS that I'm fighting all alone with it, I kind of gave up when I saw this easy intuitive programme (sketchUp) - anyway, as an interior Designer and not an architect I really hope it will work....??!

Thanks for all the good responses
Lene

[Anonymous]

I personally think SketchUP is a great programme, it's very quick, easy to use (it has what, 12 commands?) and if you ever need to get into more advanced draughting, such as CD's, and things of that nature it's (now, with new plugins) rather easy to bring a drawing into AC from SketchUP. To make sense of my response, I don't think buying SketchUP was a bad move, but I think learning AC should still be a goal of yours, AC just allows for much more detailed, and advanced drawings which SketchUP, IMHO, is not capable of delivering.

cheers,
Dan

PS, clearly this forum is god's gift to mankind

[Anonymous]

I hope that some kind person will tell me how to draw a wall\line whateve xx.xx m long
Arrrgghhh

[Anonymous]

Hi Guest from Bulgaria!
Well, I'm a kind person - but can't help you!! Even though I spend YEARS working on graphic programs, I was just STUCK with ArchiCad... for this completely stupid reason, I just couldn't find a not-complicated way to make a stupid line/wall/whatever of a precise mesure...
(I know right now 10 thousands of archiCad fans are shaking their heads in sad misbelief...)
Nevertheless... and I promise, I'm at least average intelligent...

The answer to my prayers was (IS) SketchUp.
Of course it completely depends on what your line of work is, but try the free 8-hour demo at www.sketchup.com

Good luck
Lene

[Anonymous]

Line of work Architect. Use Autocad ADT but many colleagues here in BG use Archicad. There is a way to tell the length of an object, cos someone told me a long time ago how. I will post in a more general area and see if we can get an answer from Graphisoft themselves. Thank you, kind person.
F

[TomWaltz]

Broker wrote:
I hope that some kind person will tell me how to draw a wall\line whateve xx.xx m long
Arrrgghhh

from my training slides (it's in feet/inches, but it should apply for metric as well)

[Anonymous]

🙂 Yes I had stumbled on that since of course we understand the D system, on my PC its just not accurate enough or should I say that I will have to play with it some more. Being used to ADT and VIZ I will consider it a challenge to make a design in Archicad, as and when time permits during the next few days. Seems to be a handy program to have around though. Thanks to all that replied, seems that your answer may make a few thousand users happier. Chao zasega ot men.

[Dwight]

Just a minor observation:

computer users who can't apply themselves to learn how to draw a line of specific length in ArchiCAD are truly fortunate to have found SketchUp.

[Anonymous]

I think perhaps you underestimate or make incorrect assumptions. Surely with most users such as myself for example have been using something else for a long time (Autocad and 3D Max). The time taken to use a 'new' program out of the box is not available to all of us. I can draw a complete project in less time than it would take to even become familiar with Archicad. Sketchup is cool enough but not for mainstream work. Perhaps you should try ADT, we can give you lessons for FREE, without bias. Chill man, po-dobre da prekavash poveche vreme za semisestvo vi e ne da oplakvash sus gulposti samo da furli vremeto ot men e drugite.
Priyatna vecher:-)