Best layout tool

[Wutm8]

Hey guys, I imagine this has been asked before but I checked both Google and the search feature and didn't come up with anything. For homes that seems like 5D planner is the best planning app for layout etcetera but I'm having a hard time working it out for a bus. Any recommendations? If there's already a threat on this please feel free to direct me towards it and I'll see about deleting this

[Tango]

Cardboard mock-ups. You can actually walk around them.

But...Google SketchUp is free and easy to use if you are into the whole digital thing.

[Iceni John]

Originally Posted by Tango

Cardboard mock-ups. You can actually walk around them.

But...Google SketchUp is free and easy to use if you are into the whole digital thing.

Nothing beats CAD - cardboard-aided design. Simple, cheap, real-life scale. In reality however, most conversions are designed around the loo, or rather the poo tank which ideally should be directly below the loo. Once that's established, everything else just evolves from there. It ain't rocket surgery!

John

[turf]

i used that 5-D planner for a basic layout.

careful with their appliances, picking one and putting it in the design, they always appear smaller than they were.

[Scooternj]

I used M$ Vi$io for my layout. But then, I used it in the Air Guard for EMSEC (Emissions Security) floor plan requirements, so I was really familiar with it already.

[superdave]

tape on the floor, after two years I've went thru a few rolls! and the new layout is,no over there would be better.

[Phatman]

Originally Posted by Tango

Cardboard mock-ups. You can actually walk around them.

But...Google SketchUp is free and easy to use if you are into the whole digital thing.

Yep, lots of 1/4" graph paper and cardboard. I've never been able to trust any of the CAD drawings. I have to have every inch accounted for. Too DAMNED old school.

[DoubleO7]

Originally Posted by Phatman

Yep, lots of 1/4" graph paper and cardboard. I've never been able to trust any of the CAD drawings. I have to have every inch accounted for. Too DAMNED old school.

It is a visualization thing.
Stuff gets made from2D drawings.
3D, 5D drawings just help people understand what they are looking at better.

[VeldatheWonderbus]

I tried using sketchup, but as has already been noted, quite a few of the appliances available to pick from aren't to the same scale. And since I went with RV-specific appliances, they're all smaller than the standard household appliances available in sketchup anyway.

I found that cutting out templates for various appliances and "pieces" (bed, dinette, wood stove, etc.) and moving them around on graph paper with the bus' walls, wheel wells, step well, and doors allowed me to experiment with various floor layouts quickly. Once I had an idea that seemed to work, I'd draw the location of each appliance or piece onto the floor outline, then repeat on another floor outline. After I had five or six ideas, I'd talk them over with my GF and fellow bus converter to figure out what we liked and didn't like. I'd then take those notes and start over on a new set of concepts. Once we had done this three or four times (I think I came up with about twenty different floor plans), we broke out the masking tape and started marking locations on the floor. We did a few cardboard mockups to test for adequate "elbow room" (and knee room on the loo), and then started building.

[Iceni John]

Electronical designs are all well and good, but at some point you'll probably still have to see a real-life mockup in order to visualize sightlines and a sense of perspective (will something be visually blocked by something else from different locations and angles and eye heights, and could it appear misaligned and disjointed when actually it isn't?), or to anticipate how the interior will be in shadow or in direct light at different times of the day (which could affect your choice of interior colors and surface finishes). None of this is intrinsically complicated, but you may have to see a 1:1 prototype at some point. It's the same reason that car designers still use full-size clay mockups to make sure that the theoretical design is still visually coherent and aesthetically pleasing, otherwise it could end up looking like a Nissan Juke or Pontiac Aztek (or worse)!

Another reason for 1:1 mockups - how else can you make sure, for example, that there's enough legroom in the bathroom when sitting on the loo, or enough space inside the shower to wash your hair without your elbows hitting the door or shower head, or enough space in the kitchen to have more than one cupboard door open at one time while still preparing food and cooking, or that you can make the bed without skinning your knuckles on something close by? These are all seemingly-inconsequential minutiae, but they would bug the hell out of you if you had to live with them every day.

John