HCA Admin
Sep 01, 2009, 01:22 PM
Summary
To have HCA display floor plans of your home it is necessary to create them using a floor plan drawing program. This technical note describes how you can do this and provides information on those drawing program we have tested and how well their files work with HCA.
Introduction
To start off, the most important point to know is that the floor plan files read by HCA are called DXF files. DXF stands for "Drawing Interchange Format". This file format is defined by the AutoDesk Company as a way for various drawing programs to be able to share files. AutoCAD published a specification of this file format that all readers and writers are supposed to follow. As with all standards, the level of compliance varies from company to company. Later when we examine the drawing programs HCA works with, the level of DXF standard compliance will be discussed.
You may ask why you need to purchase an additional program just to draw floor plans so HCA can display them. Why not provide the ability for HCA itself to be able to draw floor plans? The answer is a simple one – writing a drawing editor is a hard job. If you work with any of these drawing programs you will see that the amount of work it needs to do to allow you to correctly size and draw walls, stairs, windows, doors, etc. is formidable. It was decided that HCA would concentrate on what it was designed to do – home automation – and leave drawing to the experts. This is not such a bad compromise as it first may seem. HCA can work without floor plans. You don’t get the nice picture but it does not effect your ability to create schedules or programs, nor does it effect the ability to execute those schedules.
Most drawing programs store their drawings in a format proprietary to the program. That is, each program has its own way to store drawings. The programs we need to consider are those that can also store drawings in DXF files. Not all drawing programs can do this. We have identified some inexpensive architectural programs that can write DXF files. If you choose another program that is not on our list, make sure that you examine it carefully before you buy to verify if it does indeed support writing DXF files.
While it is not necessary to understand too much about DXF files, there is one concept that it is important to know about. Imagine you where to draw by hand your floor plans. You could use a single sheet of paper and draw in the walls, stairs, windows, doors, furniture, etc. This would be fine but the picture may get a bit crowded. Once the drawing is complete you may notice that it would be nice to see it without all the furniture, or with just the walls, windows, and doors. This is somewhat hard to do with everything on one piece of paper. Another way to do this would be to make your drawings on sheets of clear plastic. You take one piece and draw just the walls on it. You take another and draw just the doors and windows on it, and another with just the stairs. Once you have done this you can place each piece of plastic on top of each other and see the completed drawing. If you don’t want to see, for example, the furniture and cabinets, just remove those sheets of plastic.
In drawing program terminology, these sheets of clear plastic are called layers. Some drawing programs make managing the layers in your drawing simple, others not so simple. For example, in some drawing programs when you add a bathroom vanity to the drawing it is automatically placed on the "Cabinet" layer, add a chair and it goes on the "furniture" layer. Why should you be concerned about layers? Well, once the drawing is imported or linked into HCA you can control which layers are seen. You may choose to make a very complete drawing of your home, for example, complete with plumbing and electrical symbols. For use in HCA, it would probably be better not to clutter the drawing with these sorts of things. If the drawing is made in layers, you will be able to see only those types of things you want to see. The problem is that not all drawing programs produce layered drawings in the DXF files they write.
The other use that HCA has for drawing layers is in the colors used to draw the floor plan. Using the HCA properties dialog (color tab) you can assign a different color to various floor plan objects. Without layers HCA has no way to determine if a line being drawn on the floor plan is a wall, or part of a window, or part of a piece of a furniture. Not all drawing programs create DXF files with layers, so the coloring options are not useful for those floor plan files. For files without layers the only colors used are the colors you choose for text and for walls. All lines on the floor plan will be drawn in the "wall" color and all text in the "text color". If you want to be able to choose different colors for furniture, windows, and doors, choose a drawing program that layers those items.
Let’s Draw
Suppose that you decide that you would like to create the floor plans for your home. The good news is that you have several choices of reasonable high quality programs for under $100.
All of these drawing programs have the capability to not only draw the floor plans for your home but also to render 3D views of the interior and exterior. While interesting to see, any work you do in the drawing to improve the 3D rendering will have no effect on how the floor plans are displayed by HCA. For example, several of the programs allow you to choose the wallpaper pattern seen on walls when in 3D mode. Feel free to create drawings as complete as you want using the program of your choice. Just remember what HCA shows and what it doesn’t.
We evaluated most of the architectural drawing programs available for homeowners in the under $100 price range. Here is the five programs we tried:
Better Homes & Gardens Home Designer 6
IMSI Instant Architect 3.0 (Jewel case)
Punch! Super Home Suite 3.5.2
IMSI FloorPlan 3D Design Suite 9
Broderbund 3D Home Architect Home Design Deluxe 6
The first three produce DXF files that HCA can read. The last two do not. It is odd that of the two programs from IMSI, one produces DXF files that work with HCA and one does not.
In our opinion, we consider a good program to be the Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer 6.0. This software, regardless of the Better Homes & Gardens name, was written by a company called Chief Architect. This is the company that does a lot of the Architecture programs for professional designers and builders. HCA handles its exported DXF well.
Any of the first three programs produces an adequate floor plan for your use. Most of these programs provide a number of sample drawings that you can use to evaluate what is possible with the program. The one you choose is up to you.
A few final words on drawing programs:
It is important to remember that displaying floor plans is not a "core" feature of HCA. By that we mean we would much rather get lights going on and off reliability and on time than making sure that all fine details of a floor plan display 100% correctly. HCA is not a drawing program and as such we accept a bit of inaccuracy to keep our development time and effort down.
A lot of us have VISIO and it is a great general purpose drawng program. While it can save the drawing in a DXF format, it often contains drawing features beyond what HCA can display. If you are interested in getting nice floor plan displays you really would do much better with a architecture program than a general purpose drawing program like VISIO.
In our evaluation we only took into account the floor plans as stored in DXF files. We didn't look at and have no comments on the 3D capabilities of these programs.
Having your home floor plans displayed by HCA is way cool – its visually interesting to look at the display and see icons representing each of the devices in your home. So pick one, install it, grab your tape measure and get to drawing!
To have HCA display floor plans of your home it is necessary to create them using a floor plan drawing program. This technical note describes how you can do this and provides information on those drawing program we have tested and how well their files work with HCA.
Introduction
To start off, the most important point to know is that the floor plan files read by HCA are called DXF files. DXF stands for "Drawing Interchange Format". This file format is defined by the AutoDesk Company as a way for various drawing programs to be able to share files. AutoCAD published a specification of this file format that all readers and writers are supposed to follow. As with all standards, the level of compliance varies from company to company. Later when we examine the drawing programs HCA works with, the level of DXF standard compliance will be discussed.
You may ask why you need to purchase an additional program just to draw floor plans so HCA can display them. Why not provide the ability for HCA itself to be able to draw floor plans? The answer is a simple one – writing a drawing editor is a hard job. If you work with any of these drawing programs you will see that the amount of work it needs to do to allow you to correctly size and draw walls, stairs, windows, doors, etc. is formidable. It was decided that HCA would concentrate on what it was designed to do – home automation – and leave drawing to the experts. This is not such a bad compromise as it first may seem. HCA can work without floor plans. You don’t get the nice picture but it does not effect your ability to create schedules or programs, nor does it effect the ability to execute those schedules.
Most drawing programs store their drawings in a format proprietary to the program. That is, each program has its own way to store drawings. The programs we need to consider are those that can also store drawings in DXF files. Not all drawing programs can do this. We have identified some inexpensive architectural programs that can write DXF files. If you choose another program that is not on our list, make sure that you examine it carefully before you buy to verify if it does indeed support writing DXF files.
While it is not necessary to understand too much about DXF files, there is one concept that it is important to know about. Imagine you where to draw by hand your floor plans. You could use a single sheet of paper and draw in the walls, stairs, windows, doors, furniture, etc. This would be fine but the picture may get a bit crowded. Once the drawing is complete you may notice that it would be nice to see it without all the furniture, or with just the walls, windows, and doors. This is somewhat hard to do with everything on one piece of paper. Another way to do this would be to make your drawings on sheets of clear plastic. You take one piece and draw just the walls on it. You take another and draw just the doors and windows on it, and another with just the stairs. Once you have done this you can place each piece of plastic on top of each other and see the completed drawing. If you don’t want to see, for example, the furniture and cabinets, just remove those sheets of plastic.
In drawing program terminology, these sheets of clear plastic are called layers. Some drawing programs make managing the layers in your drawing simple, others not so simple. For example, in some drawing programs when you add a bathroom vanity to the drawing it is automatically placed on the "Cabinet" layer, add a chair and it goes on the "furniture" layer. Why should you be concerned about layers? Well, once the drawing is imported or linked into HCA you can control which layers are seen. You may choose to make a very complete drawing of your home, for example, complete with plumbing and electrical symbols. For use in HCA, it would probably be better not to clutter the drawing with these sorts of things. If the drawing is made in layers, you will be able to see only those types of things you want to see. The problem is that not all drawing programs produce layered drawings in the DXF files they write.
The other use that HCA has for drawing layers is in the colors used to draw the floor plan. Using the HCA properties dialog (color tab) you can assign a different color to various floor plan objects. Without layers HCA has no way to determine if a line being drawn on the floor plan is a wall, or part of a window, or part of a piece of a furniture. Not all drawing programs create DXF files with layers, so the coloring options are not useful for those floor plan files. For files without layers the only colors used are the colors you choose for text and for walls. All lines on the floor plan will be drawn in the "wall" color and all text in the "text color". If you want to be able to choose different colors for furniture, windows, and doors, choose a drawing program that layers those items.
Let’s Draw
Suppose that you decide that you would like to create the floor plans for your home. The good news is that you have several choices of reasonable high quality programs for under $100.
All of these drawing programs have the capability to not only draw the floor plans for your home but also to render 3D views of the interior and exterior. While interesting to see, any work you do in the drawing to improve the 3D rendering will have no effect on how the floor plans are displayed by HCA. For example, several of the programs allow you to choose the wallpaper pattern seen on walls when in 3D mode. Feel free to create drawings as complete as you want using the program of your choice. Just remember what HCA shows and what it doesn’t.
We evaluated most of the architectural drawing programs available for homeowners in the under $100 price range. Here is the five programs we tried:
Better Homes & Gardens Home Designer 6
IMSI Instant Architect 3.0 (Jewel case)
Punch! Super Home Suite 3.5.2
IMSI FloorPlan 3D Design Suite 9
Broderbund 3D Home Architect Home Design Deluxe 6
The first three produce DXF files that HCA can read. The last two do not. It is odd that of the two programs from IMSI, one produces DXF files that work with HCA and one does not.
In our opinion, we consider a good program to be the Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer 6.0. This software, regardless of the Better Homes & Gardens name, was written by a company called Chief Architect. This is the company that does a lot of the Architecture programs for professional designers and builders. HCA handles its exported DXF well.
Any of the first three programs produces an adequate floor plan for your use. Most of these programs provide a number of sample drawings that you can use to evaluate what is possible with the program. The one you choose is up to you.
A few final words on drawing programs:
It is important to remember that displaying floor plans is not a "core" feature of HCA. By that we mean we would much rather get lights going on and off reliability and on time than making sure that all fine details of a floor plan display 100% correctly. HCA is not a drawing program and as such we accept a bit of inaccuracy to keep our development time and effort down.
A lot of us have VISIO and it is a great general purpose drawng program. While it can save the drawing in a DXF format, it often contains drawing features beyond what HCA can display. If you are interested in getting nice floor plan displays you really would do much better with a architecture program than a general purpose drawing program like VISIO.
In our evaluation we only took into account the floor plans as stored in DXF files. We didn't look at and have no comments on the 3D capabilities of these programs.
Having your home floor plans displayed by HCA is way cool – its visually interesting to look at the display and see icons representing each of the devices in your home. So pick one, install it, grab your tape measure and get to drawing!