Enhancing StairDesigner models with ProgeCad
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-build-a-3d-stair-project-with-stairdesigner-and-progecad
http://stairdesignsoftware.net/editing-a-curved-string-stair-in-autocad
This tool will calculate stairs for you. For straight stairs just type in the length of the flight in the “Length” box For instance in our example 3500mm Then type in the width of the “landing step” (last step flush to the 1st floor) 100mm for our example. Type in floor height, 2600mm in our example. You’ll see that StairDesigner gives a default number of steps at 16 The tool box should look like this: 
Click “update” to calculate the stairs with your parameters. StairDesigner gives “riser height” as 162.500, traed width as 226.667 and stair rule as 551.667 The “OK” button is red to say that the stair doesn’t fit into the limits of control. If you click on the “control” button you will see the control tool box that defines the limits of control. To get the stairs designed within the control parameters click on the “help” button. StairDesigner shows the actual parameters and suggests modifying the number of risers to 14.You should see this: 
Click “OK” . Stair Designer replaces 16 risers with 14 and the “OK” button is now green. 
Click “OK”. StairDesigner calculates the stairs and draws them giving all the information of height, rise, width etc.. 
Click on the 3D button and StairDesigner shows the staircase in real 3D! 
This is just a short preview of how to draw stairs in the demo version. In the next post we will add newel posts and modify the handrails. To see just how fast and easy this all is look at the video below!
