How do you show ground stacked speakers

[Geep Howell]

New, not CAD knowledgeable, user. With help from support, learned how to add speakers, but I see no way to stack them.  Support says they don't know how. There's no Z height component to speakers. Anyone figured out how to represent ground stacked cabinets?  Specifically QSC KW181 and KW 153.  Thanks.

[Lucas]

The issue is one of drafting standards, and we do not currently have on staff anyone with an Audio Background. All audio tools have been built with help from consultants and users. It is possible to make a position, set the Z height, change the Visible setting to No, and add the speaker to it. But that does not help with readability. We would love to hear from users how to solve this drawing issue as it will help us provide support in the form of tools and other technical solutions.

Also, we have plans to bring on a sound designer to our staff within the next month, which ought to help flush out some of these audio workflow questions.

[Gordon P. Howell, Jr.]

Thanks for the comment, Lucas.  It’s sorta surprising to me, as a small business guy with more than 20 years experience in the live performance business, that your consultants and other users didn’t see a need for the ability to show ground stacking.  Not everyone flies line arrays and other speaker systems, though they are often flown in both touring and permanent situations.  My work, mostly in local high and middle schools, doesn’t usually allow for flying any of our system, rather it is always ground stacked.  I’d like to see Drafty put in a solution, as it appears to be a very useful program, especially for me, lost trying to learn Vectorworks!

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[Sam Kusnetz]

my approach to drafting two or more speakers ground-stacked on top of each other is, in plan view, to draw the outline of the bottom/largest speaker, then the top/smallest speaker, and then do a callout and write out what’s going on, e.g.: “ground-stacked array of three cabinets; d&b b4, meyer upq-1p, and jbl control-22” (just kidding; i would never use a control 22 on purpose!)

in section or elevation views i just draw every cabinet as they will be actually placed.

hope this helps, lucas!

sk

––
sam kusnetz
sound & projection design | USA-829
notquite.net

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[Lucas]

Hey Geep,

So we offer multiple plates for drafting within a single Drafty file including ones with the nominal titles of PLOT, Section, and Elevation. You are more than welcome to draw your elements on those plates. What I do not (did not?, thanks Sam) know was what the audio best practices is. In the lighting world we run into this issue with Booms and Ladders. On a Light Plot, a boom is typically drawn with a ghosted image of the top-down view in plan, and then a leader line connecting to a (vertical, horizontal, or diagonal as the draftsperson chooses) pipe with the lights shown as they would be spaced in a hang. Our Boom tool renders this way in PLOT view AND FURTHER renders as the object would actually exist in the Smart Section. In this regard our handling of this drawing convention is, in my opinion, much better than other programs which may or may not have been mentioned in this thread, as it addresses both the graphic needs of the Light Plot and the technical needs of a Section. I would love to offer the same or similar tool for Audio.

The issue is not that we cannot implement a solution, but that we do not have, on staff, sound designers with many decades of experience to help guide the feature development. We are always more than excited to hear feedback from our users about tools and such that they would find useful. In fact, I am hoping to get a fix in today that will, I believe, solve at least 80% of the issue here. Hopefully the collective wisdom of our users, and soon to be hired audio staff, will provide you with the easy to use tools tog et your work done efficiently and cleanly.

On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 2:45:28 PM UTC+1, Geep Howell wrote:

Thanks for the comment, Lucas.  It’s sorta surprising to me, as a small business guy with more than 20 years experience in the live performance business, that your consultants and other users didn’t see a need for the ability to show ground stacking.  Not everyone flies line arrays and other speaker systems, though they are often flown in both touring and permanent situations.  My work, mostly in local high and middle schools, doesn’t usually allow for flying any of our system, rather it is always ground stacked.  I’d like to see Drafty put in a solution, as it appears to be a very useful program, especially for me, lost trying to learn Vectorworks!

On Mar 13, 2020, at 4:15 AM, Lucas wrote:

The issue is one of drafting standards, and we do not currently have on staff anyone with an Audio Background. All audio tools have been built with help from consultants and users. It is possible to make a position, set the Z height, change the Visible setting to No, and add the speaker to it. But that does not help with readability. We would love to hear from users how to solve this drawing issue as it will help us provide support in the form of tools and other technical solutions.

Also, we have plans to bring on a sound designer to our staff within the next month, which ought to help flush out some of these audio workflow questions.

On Thursday, March 12, 2020 at 9:13:30 PM UTC+1, Geep Howell wrote:

New, not CAD knowledgeable, user. With help from support, learned how to add speakers, but I see no way to stack them.  Support says they don't know how. There's no Z height component to speakers. Anyone figured out how to represent ground stacked cabinets?  Specifically QSC KW181 and KW 153.  Thanks.

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[Gordon P. Howell, Jr.]

Thanks Lucas.  I think such a fix would be welcome to sound folks and further advance the state of the art in Drafty.  Always wonderful to have a hands on owner/developer, much like the Qlab folks, where questions get answered almost as soon as they post. And I certainly understand that not having a staff person who comes from the sound world would limit knowledge of what happens there.  Woe to us!  We’re misunderstood by many…but it’s still fun, even at age 69 and still rolling.  Working with all those kids keeps me young(er).

Have a great rest of the day.

Geep

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[Lucas]

Fix is in place.  Here's the proposed workflow:

1) Draw items in Plan View (PLOT plate) as they would exist in reality or largest footprint to smallest.

2) Set these items Ghost control to ON.

3) Draw the items as they would exist in space vertically, probably with some sort of a discrete bounding box.

Attached, is a quick sample using the new Ghost tools we added for you and Sam's suggested cabinet selections. :)

We can look into more automated features going forwards, but this ought to solve the current issue.

On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 4:05:27 PM UTC+1, Geep Howell wrote:

Thanks Lucas.  I think such a fix would be welcome to sound folks and further advance the state of the art in Drafty.  Always wonderful to have a hands on owner/developer, much like the Qlab folks, where questions get answered almost as soon as they post. And I certainly understand that not having a staff person who comes from the sound world would limit knowledge of what happens there.  Woe to us!  We’re misunderstood by many…but it’s still fun, even at age 69 and still rolling.  Working with all those kids keeps me young(er).

Have a great rest of the day.

Geep

On Mar 13, 2020, at 10:59 AM, Lucas wrote:

Hey Geep,

So we offer multiple plates for drafting within a single Drafty file including ones with the nominal titles of PLOT, Section, and Elevation. You are more than welcome to draw your elements on those plates. What I do not (did not?, thanks Sam) know was what the audio best practices is. In the lighting world we run into this issue with Booms and Ladders. On a Light Plot, a boom is typically drawn with a ghosted image of the top-down view in plan, and then a leader line connecting to a (vertical, horizontal, or diagonal as the draftsperson chooses) pipe with the lights shown as they would be spaced in a hang. Our Boom tool renders this way in PLOT view AND FURTHER renders as the object would actually exist in the Smart Section. In this regard our handling of this drawing convention is, in my opinion, much better than other programs which may or may not have been mentioned in this thread, as it addresses both the graphic needs of the Light Plot and the technical needs of a Section. I would love to offer the same or similar tool for Audio.

The issue is not that we cannot implement a solution, but that we do not have, on staff, sound designers with many decades of experience to help guide the feature development. We are always more than excited to hear feedback from our users about tools and such that they would find useful. In fact, I am hoping to get a fix in today that will, I believe, solve at least 80% of the issue here. Hopefully the collective wisdom of our users, and soon to be hired audio staff, will provide you with the easy to use tools tog et your work done efficiently and cleanly.

On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 2:45:28 PM UTC+1, Geep Howell wrote:

Thanks for the comment, Lucas.  It’s sorta surprising to me, as a small business guy with more than 20 years experience in the live performance business, that your consultants and other users didn’t see a need for the ability to show ground stacking.  Not everyone flies line arrays and other speaker systems, though they are often flown in both touring and permanent situations.  My work, mostly in local high and middle schools, doesn’t usually allow for flying any of our system, rather it is always ground stacked.  I’d like to see Drafty put in a solution, as it appears to be a very useful program, especially for me, lost trying to learn Vectorworks!

On Mar 13, 2020, at 4:15 AM, Lucas wrote:

The issue is one of drafting standards, and we do not currently have on staff anyone with an Audio Background. All audio tools have been built with help from consultants and users. It is possible to make a position, set the Z height, change the Visible setting to No, and add the speaker to it. But that does not help with readability. We would love to hear from users how to solve this drawing issue as it will help us provide support in the form of tools and other technical solutions.

Also, we have plans to bring on a sound designer to our staff within the next month, which ought to help flush out some of these audio workflow questions.

On Thursday, March 12, 2020 at 9:13:30 PM UTC+1, Geep Howell wrote:

New, not CAD knowledgeable, user. With help from support, learned how to add speakers, but I see no way to stack them.  Support says they don't know how. There's no Z height component to speakers. Anyone figured out how to represent ground stacked cabinets?  Specifically QSC KW181 and KW 153.  Thanks.

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[Sam Kusnetz]

that was FAST! nice work, lucas.

to be clear, fully two thirds of the example speakers are terrific live sound tools that i’d recommend any day. 

the third one is a perfectly good P.A. speaker for a mall or a bus stop, as well as a serviceable doorstop or bookend.

-sk

––
sam kusnetz
sound & projection design | USA-829
notquite.net

[Geep Howell]

Hey Sam, wondered if you were the "Sam" referred to.  We got no d&B or Meyer, QSC powered boxes only...

Lucas, after Mr. Newbie here figured out what you were saying, it works very nicely, and  thank you!!  I am sure there are others who will benefit.  I am not sure about instruction number 3 -- how did you do that?  But the basic tool is what I needed to do the plot I am working on as a first effort, stage at one of my high schools.  It will be nice to have a finished plot in place with some of the trickier stuff detailed for helpers, and even my partner, who is a Dante beginner.  Now I need to swing out there and measure stuff.  Not going to be easy to do since our Governor closed all Virginia schools this afternoon.  At least one show pushed into May, if then, and two others opening around the first of May in jeopardy.

Many thanks for getting this in place!

Geep

HH Audio

[Lucas]

For #3 I duplicated the speakers I had drawn on top of each other (which were aligned using the Align X and Align Y buttons), using the D Key. I then set the Orientations control to Side, in order to give them a more accurate dimension and arranged them. The bounding box is just a basic Scenic Rectangle made using the S Key and then adjusting the RX/RY controls to give a nice beveled edge. The Text was made with the Text Tool by pressing the X key and then setting Border to 0 and Opacity to 0%.

HTH.