Stair Design Software

Here’s the third video in my using Progecad with StairDesigner series.

StairDesigner does a very good job of calculating and technically drawing the stair and you get all parts and working documents automatically.

But it falls short when it comes to specific design features like turned newel posts, spindles, moulded handrails etc.

Luckly all StairDesigner projects can be exported in DXF and easily reworked in most CADD programs.

I have used Autocad to design stairs for many years now.

Stair design with only Autocad is slow and error prone. It could take me several hours, sometimes days, of drawing to get the working plans for a stair and even then errors went un noticed and were giving us unpleasant surprises when putting the parts together in the workshop.

Over the years I developed some simple Autocad tools to speed up the work but everything remained very cumbersome and SLOW!

 

When StairDesigner came along everything got faster and easier!

The drafting errors practically disappeared and everything fitted perfectly in the workshop.

Besides the technical side of things StairDesigner’s automatic 3D made a great impression on my customers.

3d was always my big problem.

2D technical design was slow but OK with AutoCad, I just appreciated so much the ease compared to drawing the stair full size on the workshop floor, but when a customer asked for a perspective view my troubles started.

I’m not a great artist and though perspectives of furniture worked OK, stairs turning in all directions were making life hell.

Especially as people don’t pay you for a perspective drawing it’s just for free and takes for ever to set up.

The worst would be someone asking for variations, “and what if we added turned posts and changed the spindles to metal tubes ??”

Back to the drawing board!

 

Even when AutoCad came along with it’s 3D, building a 3D stair although possible, was a major nightmare  and challenge.

Drawing a 3D stair in Autocad  could bankrupt us before the customer even considered signing a cheque!

StairDesigner made life easier for basic designs but as we made more and more higher end stairs the projects quickly went over StairDesigner’s 3D functions.

So I combined the two.

StairDesigner draws the basic 3D and Autocad or Progecad do the rest.

It still takes a bit of time, but the effort is often well worth it.

A well designed stair shown off to it’s full advantage will often sell much better even though more expensive than a cheaper model.

And it’s so much more fun to design and make!

 

Here’s how I add turned posts and some extra fittings to a StairDesigner 3D stair.

And then light it up to look classy.

StairDesigner’s DXF export works well with most CAD programs so it’s not limited to using ProgeCad.

Progecad is a great cheap 2D/3D solution that works just like AutoCad for less than 1/10 of the price!

 

Hope you enjoy.

Leave a comment even if you didn’t!

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Click here to buy StairDesigner ProDXF

Click here to buy Progecad 2011

 

For more information on using ProgeCad and AutoCad with StairDesigner, take a look at these articles:

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/how-to-design-curved-strings-and-handrails-using-stairdesigner-and-progecad-3d

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/how-to-build-a-3d-stair-project-with-stairdesigner-and-progecad

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/editing-a-curved-string-stair-in-autocad

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This is a quick video that shows how to download and modify a stair model template and edit it to fit your stair dimensions.

Your can read the step by step instructions and download a PDF file on my last post at:

http://stairdesignsoftware.net/using-a-stair-template

My next video will show how to use a new very cool TRIANGULATION tool to  fit a stair into a non square stair well while still keeping the inside strings square.

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As with all architectural projects, very common annoyances in professional stair building are modifications.

This post contains 2 short videos showing how to modify a simple straight flight of stairs to make them into a stair of 2 flights and a quarter turn landing. the orginal staircase plans were calculated with the demo version of StairDesigner in the  recent “Calculate Stairs with a free stair caculator” blog post.

The example shows how to calculate and build a staircase with StairDesigner software using precise assembly details, giving a good working example of real life design for efficient design and manufacturing using professional stair software.

StairDesigner is an excellent parametric stair calculator, that draws the stair plans, and parts automatically after simple input of the stair parameters.

StairDesigner’s stair cad software allows you to calculate stairs, optimize the design according to the stair regulations that you input, and gives stair drawings and plans, cutting lists, detailed drawing of parts and a full 3D model with a few mouse clicks.

If you have asked yourself how to draw stairs, how to calculate stair stringers and stair treads, take a look at this software, it can really make your work easier.

To get a full review of StairDesigner take a look at our review page.

For down load reasons this video is in 2 parts.

Here’s the first part:

And here’s the second part:

Most of this design can be done using the demo version of stairDesigner but you will not be able to print out the workshop documents.

<To get a free download of StairDesigner software cick here>

If these videoshave been of interest to you don’t hesitate to come back. we will be posting other videos to show more indpth aspects of StairDesigner and how to organize stair design for smooth intergration of stair cad into the manufacturing process.

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Using Stair Designer drawing stairs, plans for stairs, plans to build stairs, stair cad, stair calculator, stair plans, staircase plans, stairs plans