Just What You Need

Over the past few years, I have been working on the development of a commercial rental rehab which creates new commercial spaces in the form of an indoor mini-mall. The building is wedged in between two non-perpendicular streets, and has a very odd shape. It makes for interesting shaped units, but now the project is to map them out for prospective tenants. They all ask for detailed dimensions of the units.

I have made many attempts at the floorplan project, trying everything from drawing programs to spreadsheets. The space defies drawing with its non-perpendicular angles and non-rectangular shapes. And to draw it to scale is a project that even had the architect scratching his head and coming back to re-measure. So, when I found a program that will solve my problems effortlessly, I've become a walking info-mercial. A program called Easy Blue Print is specifically designed to make floor plans.

With Easy Blue Print, the project was actually fun! I did my main project over the course of three weeks, a half-hour here and fifteen minutes there before I left for work in the morning. Menus and functions are intuitive - this program was designed by people who make floor plans, and know how important it is to get the job done fast and accurately.

Trial version - http://www.ezblueprint.com

Here is a program that not only draws to scale - it is particularly designed to draw real walls with real doors. The walls have thickness, and the inside/outside corner thing that just drives me crazy is taken care of automatically. The true door radius (opened and closed) is taken into account whenever a door is drawn. You tell the program that you're working with inside dimensions of the room, and that's what the program will base its calculations on. And you can "tweak" the drawings if your measurements were not quite on the right scale of precision. If you "move" a wall, everything attached to it will miraculously re-size to accommodate.

There is an on-screen help feature that KNOWS what you're trying to do, and can show you a small animated video of how to do the most complex operations. And if that isn't enough, the professional version comes with the full attention of the development and support team. I ran into a few difficulties, and within half a day of submitting a question, I received a personal email response from a tech services professional.

One note about the demo version - it is lacking some of the capabilities of the full version, but TRUST ME - the Professional version gives you EVERYTHING you're wishing for while working with the demo version - and much more.

Thanks to the folks at Easy Blue Print I have created a set of detailed drawings in an image-map presentation for our web site. http://www.joyceskylightcourt.com BEHOLD!
Thanks for listening and contributing. For up-to-the-minute thoughts, come on over to twitter.com I'm @dimbulb52