Hello folks, I'm an Architectural designer, trying to design my own home. My old AutoCAD program is no longer functioning, so I needed something new but not too expensive. I found CMS IntelliCAD, after the website and YouTube videos both showed 3D models of multi-level buildings. I thought I was in the right place! Or was I?
I've spent hours, days, now weeks trying to figure out a way to model my simple 2-story home, design it, lay out the floor & site plans, and set up my AEC (3D) walls so that it doubles as a layout I can dimension and annotate for floor plans but also snap elevations from (side views) and a 3D model to understand the mass and details of the roof and more.
Well, despite seeing videos showing how fabulous the section and fly-through capabilities are, there's nothing telling me how to successfully model a building so that I can also document it so that I can print plans for a contractor. AutoCAD has a "Project Manager" that allows you to set up Levels, give them floor-to-floor heights, and associate layers to them for layer states. I simply cannot find a way to do this in IntelliCAD.
In desperation, I created blocks (also tried groups) of walls/doors/windows for each level (basement, floor 1, floor 2) but the entities in the blocks cannot be snapped to, dimensioned or aligned with elements from the block of walls from another level. I have no way to edit the blocks using the lower level as a reference for wall alignment. I searched the New User forum and searched the terms ‘AEC’ & ‘Architecture’; – “No suitable matches were found”. This a rough start.
Here is a list of these and other problems I've encountered that I've been keeping in a Word document:
1. No Project Manager for managing Architectural building levels/floors.
2. Can’t snap to elements inside a block
3. Can’t snap perpendicular to walls opposite side of building
4. Making walls/doors/windows into a block to manage as a level, no visibility settings for floor below to allow design alignments.
5. Ability to use the fillet command to cleanup wall intersections. Why not? ANY tool would be great!
Can somebody please help me? Is this program not really ready for Architects? I'm driving myself crazy.
Multi-Level Building - CAN'T DO IT? CAD For Architects.....
#1Architectural Building & Interior Designer, AutoCAD since 1995, ArchiCAD in 2007 then Revit since 2012
CMS IntelliCAD 11.1.435.145443.PE+.VC16.x64.CMS111
Dell Optiplex Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10900 CPU @ 2.80GHz, Windows 11 Pro
CMS IntelliCAD 11.1.435.145443.PE+.VC16.x64.CMS111
Dell Optiplex Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10900 CPU @ 2.80GHz, Windows 11 Pro