Stencils - D-Tools Forum

05-23-2007, 08:35 PM

Does anyone have any stencils for Denon, Crown Audio, and Control4?

Visio Guy · 08-06-2007, 02:01 PM

Hi mbusbee,

The NetZoom guys list these manufacturers in amongst their shapes. Not for free, but maybe have a look...

http://www.altimatech.com/searchproduct/index.asp

mbarnick · 08-12-2007, 03:40 PM

I just bought NetZoom and I'm very happy with it. The data is very current and they will do shapes for you. A good value for $700 a year. I wish the D-Tools data was as accurate and current.

Head Tool · 08-12-2007, 11:57 PM

Originally Posted by mbarnick

I just bought NetZoom and I'm very happy with it. The data is very current and they will do shapes for you. A good value for $700 a year. I wish the D-Tools data was as accurate and current.

Yea, Netzoom makes some nice looking shapes. I have a few questions if you don't mind.

Do you currently use both D-Tools and NetZoom on your projects?

How do you integrate NetZoom shapes into a D-Tools project?

What do you mean by the data in the NetZoom shapes? I was under the impression that all the data in a NetZoom shape was in each individual shape and not in a database. How do you edit the data like cost, price, install hrs, description, connectivity in a Netzoom shape?

How do you do proposals, labor reports and installation reports in NetZoom?

We have tried to work out some sort of resale agreement with NetZoom for many yeas but not been successful. Maybe some of your insight as a NZ user will help us in this endeavor.

Thanks,

Adam

avzone · 08-13-2007, 04:50 PM

Adam, I may be wrong, but I think most of the NZ users (including myself) are interested in shapes that are more visually accurate than the D-Tools shapes. I'm visually oriented, so this just makes me "feel better" about the design from a visual perspective. I don't use NZ on all drawings though. It also helps detail oriented clients visualize how "things" are going to look. These may not be tremendously important in the grand scheme of things, rather more supplemental.

As far as integrating/linking NZ shapes to DT, I've been doing this for about 2 months now. I've started a document with the process and hope to finish it someday. Most may find it more labor intensive than they are willing to endure, but this is necessary to have EVERYTHING perform as it should. This includes scaling AND all of the current 'right click' features of the SI 5 shapes. I couldn't have done this without your help guiding me through a few tough spots, so thanks for that.

Head Tool · 08-13-2007, 05:43 PM

Originally Posted by avzone

Adam, I may be wrong, but I think most of the NZ users (including myself) are interested in shapes that are more visually accurate than the D-Tools shapes. I'm visually oriented, so this just makes me "feel better" about the design from a visual perspective. I don't use NZ on all drawings though. It also helps detail oriented clients visualize how "things" are going to look. These may not be tremendously important in the grand scheme of things, rather more supplemental.

As far as integrating/linking NZ shapes to DT, I've been doing this for about 2 months now. I've started a document with the process and hope to finish it someday. Most may find it more labor intensive than they are willing to endure, but this is necessary to have EVERYTHING perform as it should. This includes scaling AND all of the current 'right click' features of the SI 5 shapes. I couldn't have done this without your help guiding me through a few tough spots, so thanks for that.

Please send me that doc when you are done. Maybe we can create some sort of utility that simplifies the process.

mbarnick · 08-15-2007, 11:31 PM

Sorry my last post was a little vague. The Net Zoom applications like Rack Builder, etc aren't really ready for prime time and can't compete with D-Tools at all. I was referring only to the shapes and the fact that they have a lot of data for recently shipping products. I've had to create a lot more D-Tools products because they weren't available than ask for NetZoom stencils. They have pretty good detail and scale to any size. The process to add the shapes into D-Tools is pretty straight forward once you do it a couple times. The user guide on pp 233-5 is all you really need to read. That said, as I new user, I'm finally starting to get a feel for all the steps required to setup the data base and use custom stencils. I'd love to read your document too, to see if I missed anything. My icons still look pretty weak. I think there is some command that makes the icon look like the bitmap, but I can't remember how to do it. It was shown in the training class but was never in the documentation, so I forgot.
That said, one thing I can't figure out is that once I change the visualization in the product, is how to easily update the shape views in other projects that show the old shapes on the plans. Any suggestions?

Head Tool · 08-16-2007, 05:14 PM

Creating Master Shape Icons in the stencil is really tough. You only have 64 pixels and 8 colors to work with. I have tried and failed a number of times to get some sort of bit map to be used as an icon. Maybe "The Visio Guy" can shed some light on this topic.

Once Graham finishes hi document I will see if wee can create some sort of code to Automate this process.

mbarnick · 08-16-2007, 05:37 PM

Yeah, it created a small 8x8 icon when I dragged the new shape from the plan view to the docked stencil. The only way I could improve it was to copy and paste the Master icon from the source NetZoom shape and paste it into the icon for the new shape. YUK!

Any ideas on how to propagate new stencil shapes to existing projects?

Head Tool · 08-16-2007, 05:56 PM

Yea, editing Icons in Visio has not changed in ten years. PITA.

No way that I know of to automatically grab new shapes for existing projects.