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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
Green Building Bible, fourth edition (both books)
These two books are the perfect starting place to help you get to grips with one of the most vitally important aspects of our society - our homes and living environment.

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Essential for Newbies: Software for design of Eco house

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthorzac123
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2009
     
    Hello all,

    does anyone know of any good software (ideally free) for designing an eco house? I’ve used software before for this type of thing but I was hoping that a program might exist with pre-loaded templates for standard straw bale sizes and things like that.

    thanks
    zac
  2.  
    What aspects of the design are you looking for? The phyiscal design? Energy usage modelling? Window performance? There are several free software tools out there that can help with these aspects.

    Paul in Montreal
    • CommentAuthorzac123
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2009
     
    yes physical design really rather than performace etc.

    do you know of any?

    thanks
    zac
  4.  
    cycas: http://www.cycas.de
    qcad: http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad.html (both free and paid-for versions)
    sketchup: http://sketchup.google.com (both free and paid for)

    Note, neither cycas nor qcad are "easy to use" unless you're used to working with pro drafting programs. If you are, the learning curve is not too bad. If you're not, they take some time. I have the paid-for version of qcad and it works as advertised. Can import autocad files too.

    Paul in Montreal
    • CommentAuthorzac123
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2009
     
    great thanks paul. i'm going to check out those sites.

    thanks

    zac
    • CommentAuthorzac123
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2009
     
    http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad.html is by far the best out of the three. thanks

    zac
  7.  
    Hi Zac,

    I have used qcad and can report, that, once you get used to it, it is very very good. Especially for the paid version. Nice thing is that there's versions for windows and linux. I have successfully used to submit plans for approval from our local urban planning office.

    Paul in Montreal.
    • CommentAuthorwookey
    • CommentTimeSep 2nd 2009
     
    Qcad is good, I agree, but only 2D. I have since moved to Blender as the only Linux 3D software available that isn;t completely impossible to use. It's quite difficult to get started with, and is concieved as animation layout software, not architectural/engineering modelling software, so it's fair to say that Sketchup is much easier to drive, but that only comes for Windows (and doesn't work very wellfor me in wine, although it is supposed to).

    There appears to be a terrible dearth of proper Free Software for building modelling of all sorts. I hope someone will take on this problem soon.
  9.  
    Hi folks.

    I was looking for something to help me visualise layouts in 3D and downloaded SketchUp (as per above recommendation), which I really like. It's easy to get used to and has a bunch of good tutorial videos to browse.

    I'm having an odd problem with it though. When I resize the application window, it starts eating up RAM. Three or four resizes eats up all my RAM, whereupon the computer stops functioning! (Other applications don't do this). Anybody else have this problem? Any solutions? Or is there something else I can download that is similar that will work?

    Cheers.
    • CommentAuthorwookey
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2012
     
    I haven't seen that problem, so can't help you with the RAM-its. I am not aware of any other programs that use the sketchup '3D dragging' interface. You could try an older/newer version of sketchup? - they used to keep 2 versions available for download.
    • CommentAuthorEd Davies
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2012
     
    I've been using 7.1.6860 under Wine with only very minor irritations. As I've been using it on my laptop with a not so huge screen (though with an extra small monitor which is really handy for all the little dialog boxes that SketchUp throws up) I've always kept it maximised so wouldn't have noticed this problem.
  12.  
    Thanks for the replies guys. It seems that the only circumstances SketchUp gives me any trouble is if I resize or minimise/restore the window. So I've stopped doing that. (Reminds me of an old Tommy Cooper joke :0) If I want to switch to another application while I have SketchUp open, I make sure only to use the other application's restore and minimise tab and it's all good.

    Although I'm not going into anything like rooting services etc., I'm finding it's a really good little tool to help me visualise what I'm thinking about in terms of size and layout of the building.

    Ed., I've no idea what Wine is - could you explain? (I know what wine with a small 'w' is - one of life's great pleasures... I do hope the upper case 'W' is as good!)

    pbd.
  13.  
    <blockquote><cite>Posted By: palebluedot</cite>Ed., I've no idea what Wine is</blockquote>

    http://www.winehq.org/

    An application that allows one to run windows apps on linux.

    Paul in Montreal.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeJan 15th 2012
     
    Wine Is Not an Emulator

    Reminds me of Twain, 'things without an interesting name'

    Got it on the Puppy box but not got around to installing my CAD yet, shall report back when I have. Not tried it on the Debian box yet as I still have to get the data logging working first, job for next week.
    • CommentAuthorborpin
    • CommentTimeJan 16th 2012
     
    OT but love recursive acronyms - GNU - GNU Not Unix
  16.  
    Posted By: Paul in Montreal
    Posted By: palebluedotEd., I've no idea what Wine is


    http://www.winehq.org/" >http://www.winehq.org/

    An application that allows one to run windows apps on linux.

    Paul in Montreal.


    Ah! Thank you Paul.

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