Shaped Hole Symbol

[Jon-Mullwoods]

We do a lot of shaped cutouts in baseboard or the rail of a cabinet. I'm trying to figure out the best way to create a symbol that can be used for our typical shapes. Maybe the best practice is to create a type of valence object that can be used. I'm new to Chief, so I'm not sure the ideal way to create that, but have some ideas. However, I would actually rather find a way to create an object that is a hole that can be placed in other objects. Does anyone have any ideas how that could be accomplished? The pic shows examples of the types of cutout shapes we would do.

[JLU_Design]

Do you have a picture of a cabinet with one of the moldings you mentioned?

I have some Ideas but I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to accomplish.

[Jon-Mullwoods]

Yeah, here is a picture of our most common use for these cutouts. The cabinets are wrapped with baseboard and the front piece has a shaped cutout that is open back to the toekick.

[DBCooper]

You could probably do what you need using cabinet "feet".  You would need to create a custom symbol for the corner piece for each style you have.  Take a look at the "curved foot" and the "dual arch" in the core catalog.

 

 

[GeneDavis]

Those are toekick valances, in cab-speak

 

What's "a lot?"  If you a big cabinet shop this could be a daily thing.
 

Feet won't do because you're only doing the openings at the fronts, and also because you are doing this as a baseboard detail applied to a cab with a recessed toe at front.

 

Furthermore, the beaded base you show complicates this even more.

 

it's a great detail and if it important you be able to 3D render it, I think you are going to have to make some symbols.

[Jon-Mullwoods]

1 hour ago, DBCooper said:

You could probably do what you need using cabinet "feet".  You would need to create a custom symbol for the corner piece for each style you have.  Take a look at the "curved foot" and the "dual arch" in the core catalog.

 

 

 

Thanks for that idea. I didn't see that option and it's helpful to know. Like Gene said though, it doesn't seem like it's really going to accomplish all that we're looking for. We need it to sometimes be used for the bottom rail in the cabinet, and other times in the baseboard around the cabinet with various different profile options, and other times as a valence. Also, some of the cutouts aren't just ends with a straight center section, but there is a curve that goes from "foot to foot" so to speak. 

[Jon-Mullwoods]

1 hour ago, GeneDavis said:

Those are toekick valances, in cab-speak

 

What's "a lot?"  If you a big cabinet shop this could be a daily thing.
 

Feet won't do because you're only doing the openings at the fronts, and also because you are doing this as a baseboard detail applied to a cab with a recessed toe at front.

 

Furthermore, the beaded base you show complicates this even more.

 

it's a great detail and if it important you be able to 3D render it, I think you are going to have to make some symbols.

 

"A lot" is about one job a week and maybe less. When we do a job with them, there are usually multiple throughout. 

[GeneDavis]

With Chief CAD you are able to make 3D solids for the baseboard arrays you need for these various configs.  If you use the same ogee molding for the caps, make the molding easy to find in your library for doing the caps as molding polylines.  That way the caps miter nicely at the front corners.

 

Try making a symbol for each of the valances with simple horizontal straight upper centers, and place stretch planes so you can size as required when placing.

 

The valances with the curved copes along the heads are going to be a challenge if you need one for each config of cabs above.  You may need to get a good lesson in CAD from a trainer at HQ or someone from the forum in creating smooth tangent arcs.  I'm a Sketchup user and could knock any of these out in minutes and then import them into Chief as symbols, but I'm a dummy in Chief CAD when it comes to tangent arcs like needed for these valances.

 

You might want to think about how much a perfectly photorealistic render of a cabinet with one of the cope-curve valances means to customers when selecting.  If they are selecting now from that 2D page you showed, consider doing the renders with no cutout and including the 2D page for cutout selection.  A good set of photos of vanities with the curve-cut valances plus Chief 3D showing plain, might be all you need.  

[Jon-Mullwoods]

Thanks Gene. That sounds like a method that would work pretty well and was kind of what I was assuming we were going to end up having to do. I've had a little practice creating symbols, but still pretty new. I'll have to do some more research/training to learn how to create them so they stretch in all the ways we would want. 

[GeneDavis]

Hi @Jon-Mullwoods.  I did a quick tryout to see how tedious this might be.  File attached so you can see how things work.

 

I drew a base cap molding (there are none in the Chief catalog!) 3/4 h x 11/16 w.  The base mold under the cap is 3/4 x 3 1/4 so that the height of the two when stacked equals the 4" toe height.  The cabs are frameless with a 1/8" reveal at bottom so the doors or drawers clear the top of the base molding stack.

 

At ends, I did the moldings as a stack with a small return so the cap miters as it should.  In front, I did a CAD detail from view to get my front-piece valance sized right, just drawing one end and out to a tiny bit past middle.  When I doodled the "leg" to look sort of OK, I copied and pasted the CAD polyline in place in the model in elevation view, then made it a solid at 3/4 thick, and mirrored it.  You can see the lines of joints in the vector view here, but there are no lines when done in standard view or PBR or CPU raytrace.

 

For your valances with center stretches with no curve drop or arch rise, you can make and save CAD blocks to serve you as needed for the fronts.  For those with the curve challenges, I'm sure you'll find a way to deal with them after getting up to speed with Chief CAD and curves and tangency.

Vanity with valance front base.plan

[MarkMc]

I always lean toward making things into symbols and saving the original plan(s) that are CAD. I find that behaves better for me than placing arch blocks or cad objects. Have done this sort of thing as doors, millwork, and/or fixture interior symbols depending. With a saved plan it's easy to change the type of symbol to suit.

Tricky part as noted is the stretch zones/planes and origin offsets (which can be altered on the fly). But that is well worth learning.

Some are best with molding profiles separate but often worth the effort to incorporate the profile prior to making it a symbol.

[DBCooper]

Quote

 

Thanks for that idea. I didn't see that option and it's helpful to know. Like Gene said though, it doesn't seem like it's really going to accomplish all that we're looking for. We need it to sometimes be used for the bottom rail in the cabinet, and other times in the baseboard around the cabinet with various different profile options, and other times as a valence. Also, some of the cutouts aren't just ends with a straight center section, but there is a curve that goes from "foot to foot" so to speak. 

 

 

I missed that your picture only shows the cutout on the front.  I think just using a separate symbol for the base with the cutout is probably going to be the easiest solution.  You might want to send Chief a suggestion asking for this so that they could make it something that would work better in the future.

[Jon-Mullwoods]

Thanks @GeneDavisfor taking the time to create that so I can open it up and understand it and for your ideas. And thanks @MarkMc and @DBCooperfor your advice. This gives me some ideas of things I need to take time to learn and what direction to go. I think I will send a suggestion to Chief as well so that things like this could be easier.

[MarkMc]

@Jon-Mullwoods Took a bit to work out best way to do lots of variations with the least work. Simple inset valance without molding is a piece of cake using this and just a door symbol. 

 

Where it gets tricky is when the valance is proud and has a molding.

 Unfortunately, there are some inconsistencies in how I expected update bounding box was working. When I tried using separate door symbols for the sides and the fronts all was fine until I tried changing the cabinet size. That made it so the bounding box offsets needed to change; too much guess work.

 

So I came up with this. I used the cabinets with those door symbols to just make a bases with 3 sides. Made cabinets as noted below (make a style palette once configured) Changed origin, stretch planes and bounding offset. This appears to work pretty consistently allowing the cabinet width to change. I have not yet tried depths though, that might require separate symbols? (more than I want to do right now

At least for a standard depth cabinet you can have a library of doors for each valance and swap them on the fly as needed. 

 The other thing this allows is changing the molding on the fly. Since the default moldings material is not the same as the cabinet default material they need to be painted, easy enough IMO. I left some white just to show.

NOTE-The plans used to make a straight door symbols can be used to make another with mitered ends (needs bounding box changed to use in the method making bases) OR float them OR make the entire base symbols from solids. Not sure which is best in the long run, might be to make the entire base from solids and convert those cabinet door symbols.

[GeneDavis]

Mark, you are giving us a stream of consciousness that only the SuperChiefCabPros can follow.  Thanks for the innovative solution, but some how-to is needed.

 

If you've the time, would you please write the steps, 1, 2, 3 etc. to accomplish what you did?

 

To me it looks as if you made some kind of three sided cabinet, 4" tall, using just doors, doors you made with solids converted to door symbols.  Flesh that out a little so us dummies can do it too.

 

And where does the molding come into play?

 

The cabs above must be stacked and centered and positioned 4" off floor so as to look like what you showed.  Correct?  You say default separation as 0" but what is that doing?  Why can't just any cabinet sit atop the base?  Jon's first pic shown upthread shows a pair of cabinets that have overlay fronts, not inset.  What does separation at zero do for this?

[MarkMc]

28 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

To me it looks as if you made some kind of three sided cabinet, 4" tall, using just doors, doors you made with solids converted to door symbols.

Exactly correct. 

 

29 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

And where does the molding come into play?

Molding is first done in the cabinet DBX so it stays with cabinet if you move it.

 

30 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

The cabs above must be stacked and centered and positioned 4" off floor so as to look like what you showed.  Correct? 

NO the cabinet is set on the floor, toe height and depth set o 0", bottom separation removed  and no bottom. The 3 sided symbol becomes a door as part of the cabinet. Again so it moves with the cabinet and like the molding can be changed on the fly without fussing with position.

The default separation is set to 0" so that the side stiles don't come down to the floor. You could also leave the default separation and make the left and right stile 0". In either case the area above the base is split to get separations there.

This can be done with overlay or inset.

35 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

but some how-to is needed.

I spent a couple of hours going down a few rabbit holes trying to make it with 3 separate door symbols. With the info given you can do it in far less time and learn along the way. Give it a try.  

[Jon-Mullwoods]

@MarkMc Wow! I think I'm following the idea of what you're creating and generally how to do it, but some of the details I'm not totally familiar with how they function. I've only created a few door symbols as actual doors, so I don't yet understand much about how to use them in unconventional ways. I'll need to take some time to dig into this some and work through the details. Thanks for the idea and taking the time to workshop it.