It can often be the case that having a SoftView display of your drawing, can help you decide what settings you wish your symbols to have. With the ability to now Edit those symbols from SoftView, you can make the modification and see the effect of that change. Once you return to your plan view in SoftPlan, that change has been made there as well.

1. Generate a SoftView image (such as a 3D) of your drawing.

2. Once in SoftView, select the Modify pull down menu.

3. Select the Item Edit command.

4. Position your cursor over the symbol you wish to Edit.

5. The Symbol Edit menu will appear.

6. Make the desired changes in the Symbol Edit menu and press OK.

7. Press the Go button in the upper right corner to regenerate the SoftView image to see your changes.

This feature will allow for more realistic 3D images where an opening such as a door is a focal point.

1. Select File>System Library.

2. From the Configure Library dialog, change the Library Type to Elevation Openings.

3. Select a door Style (country a) to link a 3D symbol to from the Door library under Symbol and select Edit from the bottom left corner.

4. On the Edit Elevation Opening dialog select the Link to 3D Symbol option.

5. Select the 3D Symbol Folder Door and Hardware. Select the 3D Symbol combounit4.dxf for a combination of a dutch door and entry hardware.

6. Every time a door is drawn now that uses the ‘country a’ elevation opening style, the 3D symbol combounit4.dxf will generate in SoftView.

7. Draw an opening in a wall by selecting Draw>Opening>Country Door Exterior and select ‘34x80 country a 1’ or any other ‘country a’ door in the folder.

8. When the door is added to a floor plan and viewed in SoftView it will appear with hardware as a 3D symbol. The 3D symbol will allow manipulation of materials for the individual parts of the symbol such as rails, stiles, panels and hardware parts.

This feature allows the Bay and Bow Windows to be used in plans without compromising the appearance of the 3D rendering.  The final result, you get a more accurate and realistic 3D rendering. 

Note: Some roofs have been added as Symbols for the Bay Windows that require a roof because of their projection from a wall, unlike built-out Bay Windows.  These Bay Roofs can be found in a symbol library named Bay.

1. Select Draw>Opening>Bay Bow.
2. Select an Opening from the list by highlighting it with the left mouse button.
3. Move to the drawing and position the cursor on the Wall where the opening will be placed.
4. Select the left mouse button to add the Opening.  The Bay or Bow window will automatically project to the outside of the Wall.

Extracting the Decking Boards as individual pieces generates a more true-to-life appearance as you can now see through the decking.  This new feature is especially useful for any high Deck design as may occur on a walkout basement with a higher, main floor Deck.

1. Draw a Deck by selecting Draw>Deck>Deck from within SoftPlan.
2. Use Edit>Edit Item to edit the Deck and change the Decking Gap and Decking Width as necessary.
3. Assemble the drawing in the Assemble Floors menu found under the Build menu.
4. Select Build>3-Dimensional>Textured to view the Deck in SoftView.

This modification will allow your 3D models a suitable lighting default and reduces the time it would have taken to adjust the Ambient light.  With a lower Ambient light setting, adding other light sources will not over power the surfaces with too much light; and the textures in your drawing will not get washed away.

1. In SoftView make sure you are in Rendered mode.
2. Go to the Options pull down menu.
3. Select Render Options.
4. The greater the value you select, the greater the Ambient light.

This means you have more control because you can see where your Cabinets and Cabinet Islands are when trying to position your Camera for the best possible 3D renderings.

1. Create a 3D image in SoftPlan.
2. Select the Camera menu or icon.
3. Within this dialog box, you can see the Camera position in relationship to your drawing's Walls, Openings and now Cabinets.

As your Camera Control allows you to select what you wish to look at, the more information you see in Plan view, the better you will know where your camera is located and what you will see before you have to generate the image.  The ability to now see your Site lines in the Camera Control, will better aid you in positioning your camera and target when creating exterior 3D views.  Because you can now pre-determine that your field of view will capture the Site as you desire, you will save time by not having to generate the image only to find out that you did not position your camera controls as desired.

1. In Site mode, draw the required Site Polygons.
2. From the Build menu in SoftPlan, generate a 3-D model.
3. Once in SoftView, select Camera.
4. In the Plan window you will notice that the Site Polygons were drawn.

In previous versions, the time it took to produce a 3D image of a house plan was often held back by the number of surfaces contained in symbols and their 3D links.  In Version 11, SoftView now saves compressed copies of the symbols found on drawings to reduce subsequent extraction times.  The first time a drawing in the current folder is generated in SoftView, a new folder called SoftView Cache is also created.  All calculations made for any symbols are saved as a compressed copy of the original symbol, given an *.sxf extension, and then stored in the SoftView Cache.  Then, if the current SoftView screen is exited and another opened, the program uses the compressed copies of the symbols rather than having to re-calculate their surfaces again, reducing the time it takes to open the image a second time.

This method greatly speeds up all subsequent SoftView generation times after the original has been generated, as the program does not need to calculate all the surfaces of the symbols again.  This will come as a large benefit to you, especially when producing 3-Dimensional images of a house in front of a client!

There is another benefit to the creation of the SoftView Cache folder and the *.sxf files it contains. Now the same 3D image can be produced on any other computer, making the entire design completely portable.  As long as the entire Plan folder is copied, another computer running SoftPlan can produce the same 3D image of the house, even if the drawing contains custom 3D symbols that are not available on the 2nd computer.  This works as another benefit to you because you no longer need to worry about setting up all computers with the exact same configurations, especially when exhibiting your designs at trade shows!

1. Select Build>Assemble Floors and assemble the drawings from lowest to highest.
2. From the Build pull down menu, select 3-Dimensions and choose a 3D mode.
3. Upon exiting the SoftView screen, generating subsequent SoftView images will extract faster.

The addition of this visual aid will help reduce the time it takes to position your Camera and Target, as the field of view now follows as you move.

1. Generate a SoftView 3D.
2. Select Camera to open the Camera Control menu.
3. Click the Move button, then click on the Camera in the Plan window.
4. As you move the Camera around the Plan space, the field of view will display that it is maintaining focus on the Target.
5. As you move the Target around the Plan space, the field of view will display that it is maintaining focus from the Camera.

With this feature you have the ability to make generated renderings appear more realistic and 3-Dimensional.

1. Go to Options>Render Options and the dialog box will open.
2. Put a check in the Ray Tracing box and click OK.
3. Go to the Material menu and the Material Assignment box will open up.  Select the appropriate texture under the Texture column by double-clicking it.
4. The Texture dialog box will then open.  Assign a value for Relief Depth (Raytrace Only) anywhere from 0-100 (zero being the default and not having Relief Depth on).
5. Click OK in the Texture dialog box, then click OK out of the Material Assignment dialog box.
6. Click the Go button to generate changes.  

This feature makes it no longer necessary to convert images that are in any of the new formats listed when importing them into SoftPlan.  It is important to remember that if the imported texture is to be copied across a large surface must be a "tileable" texture to cover the surface uniformly.  This means the left edge of the image must match up with the right and the top with the bottom, much as patterned tiles do.

1. Place the texture images in a folder under c:\softplan11\3d\Textures\Bitmaps.   Select an appropriate folder to place the textures in or create a new folder.  This can be done through Windows.
2. To access the texture and apply it to a surface in the 3D image, select Material from the top of the SoftView screen to see all materials.  You can also select Modify>Surface Edit and select the surface to change with the left mouse button.  This will open a Material Assignment dialog.
3. With either method used, double click the left mouse button on the texture column next to the material to change.  This will open the Texture dialog where the new texture can be selected.
4. If the material texture was added to a different folder than the current folder, select the proper folder from the folder list.
5. Select the Name field to access the actual textures.  The extensions for the files will display in this field to help in selecting the proper texture.
6. All of the adjustments available to bitmaps are also available to the .JPG and .TGA file formats from the Texture dialog.
7. Select OK to accept any changes made and select Go to view the changes to the image.

The new ability to view decks in the SoftView 3D Camera has been added to SoftPlan Version 11.  This addition will help when doing exterior 3D images and positioning the camera to include a deck drawn on the floor plan.  In previous versions, the deck did not appear in the camera plan view.  This meant that getting the deck positioned properly in the 3D image required some guesswork.

The guesswork is over in Version 11.  An outline of the deck appears in the plan view portion of the Camera Control dialog, along with the walls of the floor plan.  You will definitely save time by being able to get the position of your deck for 3D rendering right the first time.

1. In the SoftView 3D screen, select Camera.
2. If the plan view portion of the dialog on the right side does not show the deck outline, move the focus point in the elevation view on the left to the floor that the deck is drawn.  Only the floor that the focus point is on in elevation will appear in plan view.
3. Move the camera as necessary to include the deck in the view and select OK.
4. Now you can select Go to view the deck in the 3D image.

1. Generate a SoftView 3-Dimensional Rendered Image.
2. Go to Material menu, and the Material Assignment dialog box will open. Select the appropriate texture under the Texture column by double-clicking it.
3. The Texture dialog box will then open. Assign a value for Roughness anywhere from 0 to 100 (zero being default and not having Roughness on).
4. Click OK out of the Texture dialog box, then click OK out of Material Assignment dialog box.
5. Click Go button, to generate changes.

The ability to add material such as Fog to the sky and Mist to the ground allow the image to be softened and provide the user with a tool to make the drawing seem more realistic.

1. Select Build>3D Rendering.

2. Select Options>Render Options. 

3. Fog levels can be assigned to the drawing from a value of 0 to 100, with 100 being the strongest or the one being the most predominant.

4. Mist levels can be assigned as well on the same scale.  This feature can also be offset so that the mist levels can start from any elevation above the grade.

This new relationship between your floor plan(s) and the image you have in SoftView will greatly aid in floor plan design, and the creation of renderings. By allowing you to make modifications such as erasing unwanted items from SoftView, you no longer have to exit  SoftView, erase the object in plan, then re-generate another SoftView image. 

1. Generate a SoftView image in either Elevation, Cross Section or 3D.

2. Select the Modify pull down menu.

3. Select Erase Item.

4. Position your cursor over the item you wish to Erase, and press the left mouse button.

5. The object will highlight, letting you know that it is selected.

6. Press the Go button to regenerate the image to the screen, and the object will be removed.

• Single bricks for opening trim along with mortar.
• Various Pool water Textures.
• More door images including interior doors and bifolds.
• Many more.

Adding these new Textures to your interior 3D views offers a much more realistic view.  This will greatly increase the appearance of your images and reduce the amount of time needed to create them.

1. Generate a SoftView 3D in Rendered mode.
2. Click on the Material option.
3. In the Material Assignment menu, select and item to apply a Texture to by double clicking on the Texture field.
4. From the Texture menu that opens, you can select a library and then choose a Texture from within that library.

Version 11 Openings will now display a continuous Sill on compound Openings, that each have Sills defined. As you create Openings that have multiple bottom units, that require Sills, each of these units is edited to have it's own Sill. Once you view your drawing in SoftView, however, it will now display the entire Opening with a single continuous Sill, rather than overlapping Sills, causing a visible line. As you save your line drawings, such as elevations, to be drawings, they will remain as single Sills. 

With not having to spend time erasing unwanted lines on the Sills, you will be better able to concentrate your efforts on completing your drawings. Your 3-D images will also benefit from this by displaying a proper clean looking opening Sill that is continuous.

1. Draw an Opening that has compound units, each with a Sill added (such as any Opening from the Entry library).
2. Save the drawing and generate a SoftView 3D.
3. Position the camera to view the Opening.