Carpentry software

[Theo]

Someone in another newsgroup mentioned the software Home Designer Architectural. One of the nice features about this is it'll plan roof structures and generate cut lists of timber for you. I was wondering if there's any software that does the same - allow designing wooden structures and then output the list of pieces needed, ideally cut from standard sizes of materials.

I see there's an 'Open Cut List' plugin for Sketchup. I had a go and the plugin works nicely, but I really don't like the way sketchup makes it awkward to change the dimensions of things after you've created them. I just want to say 'make a piece of ply, fix the thickness to 18mm, and let me change the other dimensions by typing' but it seems very unwieldy to do that.

Any recommendations for other software to design wooden structures?

Thanks Theo

[John Rumm]

I think "design" might be over egging it a bit, but Maxcut is not bad for working out optimal ways of breaking down material from standard sizes:

[Theo]

Thanks. But I think you already need to know what lengths you want and have to enter them directly? Rather than say drawing a drawing a flat roof with joist spacing of XXX mm and letting it generate the lengths?

Theo

[John Rumm]

As I said, its not a full design package, but paired with a sketchup model it works quite well.

You take your component sizes from your model and tell maxcut you want

16 of these, made from this. e.g.

It will tell you the quantity of material required and generate a cut list and a cut pattern. (and it is smart enough to create a list that can be achieved with all straight severance cuts).

(it will also price the job for you:

The bit that is missing is the automation of collection of the component sizes.

You can do stuff like this in more "grown up" CAD systems like Fusion 360:

(Whether 360 is as easy as sketchup is a separate matter).