Can I Create Custom Interior Doors?

[4hotshoez]

I know we can create custom cabinet door styles, but before I invest too much time, I need to ask, can I do the same thing for interior doors? I assume yes. I am looking to use a five panel (recessed not raised as in core lib) door.

[Joe_Carrick]

Sure,

 

It's a simple matter of creating the geometry in a Blank Plan, displaying it in 3D and Converting to a "Door Symbol".

[Larry_Sweeney]

The quick answer is YES. Scott has some great videos "somewhere" on doing this. I think it is on ChiefTutor.com if I remember correctly. I think in the videos he goes over how you can get different materials or colors on each side.

[GeneDavis]

I use Sketchup a lot and find it the easiest tool for making custom doors.  They readily import into Chief and are stored in the library.

 

The only reason to need them is if you are going for realism in renders, and if you are populating whole house with doors, where you will have door slab widths of say, 18" up to as much as 36", you will want to build models for each specific width.  That is because Chief will stretch or shrink your model to fit your specified door opening.

 

In the pic attached, you see an example of multiple door symbols being used.  The closet pair uses narrow slabs, while the room door is wide.  Being planked doors, with planking at about the same width, you can see the narrow doors having a lower count of planks across the panel area.  But stile widths are correct.  You will get this if you build and use a separate symbol for each door size.  If you only use one symbol, expect Chief to expand and contract as size changes, and all components, stiles, rails, and paneling, will be scaled proportionally.

[Joe_Carrick]

Todd,

 

Here's a 5 Panel Shaker Stile Door Symbol that I created.  It has stretch planes at x=0 and y=2 which should allow it to be used for most common sizes without effecting the size of the rails or stiles.

Shaker Door - 5 Panel.calibz

[4hotshoez]

Thanks Joe. What is a stretch plane?

[Joe_Carrick]

In the Sizing Tab of the Symbol dbx you can set these.  Basically, symbols are initially set to stretch uniformly.

 

Symbols typically have their origin at {center,back,bottom)

You can specify a "Stretch Plane" for any of the 3 axis so that the Symbol will only resize at that location.

 

For Example:

 

A Stretch Plane at x=0 will cause the symbol to get larger or smaller only at that location (anything right or left will not be affected other than being moved)

A Stretch Plane at y=1 will prevent the symbol from being resized in the y direction because it's outside of the symbol boundary.

A Stretch Plane at z=1 will cause the symbol to get larger or smaller only at that location (anything above or below will not be affected other than being moved)

 

So the simple answer is that a Stretch Plane controls how the 3D Symbol can be Stretched/Resized.

[4hotshoez]

Stretch planes sound like a good thing. Can you have more than the xyz planes, like several x planes to protect parts of an object? For example, a five panel door has six fixed dimensioned rails but the panels can stretch, so that would be five stretch planes, unless I am misunderstanding how they work.

[Joe_Carrick]

You can have up to 3 Stretch Planes for each of the 3 axis.  You will need to experiment to see how they work.