Easy to use Construction and Design Interface

ARCON 3D Architect has and intuitive set of building tools that all have typical default values saving you time when producing quick visualisations. For every tool there is an editing dialogue window that allows for further manual adjustment and customisation/refinement.

ARCON 3D consists of 2 modes: Construction mode whereby you create your 2D plan and Design mode is where you can populate the building with objects and textures.

2D Construction Mode

All planning starts in 2D and ARCON 3D is no exception. However from a simple plan view you can build and view in 3D a house, a multi-storey office complex, an entire housing estate, or an industrial complex. Multiple floors and buildings are supported in 3D Architect, allowing for complex project design.

Place walls accurately with the aid of a snap function, grid and guide lines.  Round walls and walls of variable height(upper/lower beams) allow even the most complex room plan to be created.

Doors and windows are simply dragged and dropped onto a wall. Additional help functions allow you to place them exactly relative to or central between points. Many of the doors and windows are animated. A new feature included in ARCON 3D is the Door and Window Macro which allows custom creation of door frames. You can now create those notched doors used in loft conversions.
Although ARCON 3D is busy creating a 3D model in the background in real time, for most of the time you need only concern yourself with the 2D view.

3D Design mode

In ARCON's 3D Design mode you have a very large number of materials, textures and objects, that can be quickly dragged and dropped into your design; further impressing your clients with quick colour changes right in front their eyes. Time of day Lighting, shadow and ray-tracing features enhances your designs allowing for accurate representations.

Powerful camera view options allows for variations in angles, zoom and position.  Save views points, visualise cross sections in 3D and walk through your designs with simple clicks of the mouse.

Simple Drag and Drop walls

Walls are placed by simple drag and drop, with the option to snap to the grid, guidelines or existing elements. Round walls and upper and lower beams are also available allowing the creation of complex rooms. There are 7 wall styles, allowing you to define each to be any wall thickness. There is a virtual wall tool that allows you to define rooms in an open plan design.

Curved Walls & Spline Walls

The curved wall tool allows you to make curved and circular walls. The spline wall option allows you to create organic looking curved walls by specifying several points along a path.

Wall Editing Tools

Wall editing tools provide options for dividing walls, lengthening and trimming, no to forget moving.

Wall Profile Editor

The Edit Wall outline feature allows you to define the wall profile.  Edit an exiting outline or delete it and create a completely new outline. The Wall contour editor shows some characteristics similar to that found in the Block editor.

The wall contour will snap to the wall end and to the wall edge with the aid of visible guidelines. New wall outlines can extend beyond the top wall edge, which will then be applied to any wall on the next floor. Create angled walls and wall sections below stairs.

Doors

A wide range of doors, both external and internal are supplied, some animated. The door specifications can be changed to suit local requirements.

All door elements such as the frame, and panels can have textures applied.

Many of the doors have sub designs, allowing solid panels to be exchanged with glass panels.

Windows

Windows are also simply dragged from the menu onto the wall location.  Placement tools can be used to ensure exact positioning. The set of windows available also includes some animated windows.

Window and Door Designer

The Window and Door Designer enables you to create your own Window and Door Designs that can be saved for future projects.

Window/Door Components

ARCON 3D allows you to add features such as grills, shutters and blinds to any existing window or door. These additional components can be resized and position exactly relative to the window or door.

Complex roof designs are easily resolved with the roof editor. Even the eaves and fascia details along with rafters and beam sizes can be defined.

Timber details can be set and visualised in 3D by simply turning the roof surface view on or off.

Roofs

• Pent roof
• Gable roof
• Flat roof
• Hipped roof
• Partially Hipped roof
• Mansard Roof with Gable
• Mansard Hipped roof
• Barrel roof
• Gable roof with slope
• Free Form roof

Dormers

• Flat Dormer window
• Pitched Dormer Window
• Triangular Dormer Window
• Trapezoid Dormer Window
• Hipped Roof Dormer Window
• Barrel Roof Dormer Window
• Bat Dormer Window
• Roof Terrace

Add roof/gutter breaks in front of a Dormer.

Ground Contours

Buildings located on slopes are no longer a problem as ArCon supports split levels and the ability to define the contour heights of the surrounding property. This feature will allow you to build a split level building into a slope. You can also define plot areas within your building plot, such as a roadway, pathway, flower bed, stream... Like any other area, these can also be textured to add to the realism.

Slope Editor

The quick slope editor allows you to define an area of ground as a Slope, Hill, Plateau,Terrace, Channel, Embankment, Upward incline, Downward slope, Corner top, Corner bottom. This is an alternative to setting the contour high and low points individually.

Guidelines

ARCON 3D has many aids to enable the exact placement of walls, windows and other objects. The most useful is the Guideline tool that can be switched on or off as required. In addition, guidelines can be further defined by style and colour. The Guidelines may also be placed at a specific angle or spacing to an existing guideline or object. An optional grid and ruler also helps with the exact positioning of objects.

Dimensions

Dimension lines can be set to appear as you draw. The above example shows a wall of length 8.82 m at an angle of 180 degrees being drawn. ARCON 3D also allows the external dimensions of a building to be automatically displayed. You can define the dimension style, size, font and number of decimal places to be displayed.

With a few clicks you can quickly add dimension lines using the Dimensions tools. Add lines to cross-section and elevation details or even use the tool to measure distances between furniture items.

Text

ARCON 3D allows you to use all Truetype fonts to add text information and symbols in your drawings.

3D Views

Improved 3D previewing calculates shadows instantly without having to raytrace. View your projects in 3D as wire frame, colour, colour & texture (medium quality), colour & texture (high quality), wire frame with hidden surfaces and wire frame with hidden line removal.

Section Views

Cross sectional views are available in all 3D views. You have the option to define an unlimited number of vertical and diagonal section views, creating different cross sections of buildings.

Elevation Views

There are also 6 types of elevation views: Front, Back, Left, Right, Top, Bottom. These views allow the possibility of creating plans suitable for planning applications.

Lighting

The effects of lighting and shadow from various light sources including the sun and moon are also employed within ARCON 3D. The World location feature allows you to set your location, the date and time of day will allow for accurate natural shadow calculation from the sun during different seasons and times of the day.

Why choose ARCON 3D Architect?

• Developed for UK and European markets
• Software is based on technology used by architects and builders Worldwide
• No CAD knowledge required*
• Easy-to-use interface for planning and designing
• 2D plans to 3D models in a single click
• Drag and Drop or numerically input construction elements
• Create up to 50 floors and multiple buildings
• Supports metric and imperial measurements
• Powerful measuring and ruler tools
• Automatic and manual dimensions including height and angles
• Add cavity wall details to your drawing
• Produce complex roof structures
• Create split level buildings and loft conversions
• Includes fast and easy visualisation tool for conservatory design
• Load other buildings into a project to create an estate
• Design windows and doors to your own specification
• Produce balconies and railings
• Edit wall outline with advanced tools
• Placed walls can be modified easily using wall editor
• 2D and 3D views can be viewed simultaneously
• Mark out and model a building area cutting through 2D and 3D section views
• Generate elevations automatically from 2D plan
• Create or import additional shaped objects to increase your catalogue
• Control Building and floor views from a single window
• Over 7,000 objects to help furnish your project
• 1,300 relevant textures can be applied to floors, walls and ceilings
• Import a digital image into the background of your 3D view
• Create tiled areas on walls and floors
• Any 3D view can be rendered to see the effect of lighting and shadows
• 3D Walkthrough function to move through your completed project
• Create professional drawings suitable for planning applications
• Brief architects and planners with advanced export functions
• Import/export as 2D DXF/DWG, 3DS
• Export project to 3D object for web pages or email
• Quick start guide to get you started on basic functions
• Additional FAQ with step-by-step tutorials and screenshots
• Tutorial videos of common tasks
• Free after sale support by email and telephone
• Access to product FAQ's and written tutorials
• Post questions on the 3D Architect forum
• Post own tutorials and case studies
• Keep up-to-date with news and special offers by joining the 3D Architect mailing list anytime

Additional features in 3D Architect Professional include:

• Create up to 50 floors and 30 new buildings in a single project allowing you to plan out an entire estate. Enables you to produce more complex designs.
• Generate detailed reports of each room.
• Room Viewer to automatically analyze the current project enabling you to quickly select individual rooms for viewing in design mode.
• Modify the 2D representation of 3D objects or apply your own DXF layers.
• Advanced roof editing tool: Insert various overhang styles to an existing roof.
• Advanced roof editing tool: Insert additional polygon points to an existing roof to change the shape and style.
• Advanced roof editing tool: Insert guidelines at roof level allowing you to precisely place walls in an attic space.
• Insert various types of bays to an existing wall.
• Advanced tool for adjusting the shape of an existing ceiling slab or recess by inserting additional polygon points.
• Guideline manager enables you to delete guidelines with specific properties
• Chimney tool enables you to adapt the height of your chimney to the roof
• In 2D Construction mode import background picture as transparency for overlaying construction elements. Exact positioning and scaling.
• Advanced window and door designer for creating windows and doors. Generate list of windows created using advanced window designer. The window macro viewer will allow you to view, arrange and print one or more Window macros. Individual windows can also be combined. Also used for viewing doors created in window/door designer macro.
• Design framework and support structures using.
• Automatically generates downpipes according to the distance of the roof overhang and the height of ground.
• Extend your object catalogue with a selection of swimming pool objects
• 360 degrees Panorama Maker. View projects in real 3D environment.
• Extend your object catalogue. Make your own custom designs. Create different styles of cabinets, shelves, drawers, wardrobes with this easy-to-use configurator.
• Export your Arcon model to 3D-DXF, e3d (o2c)

Transfer your project to NEW CreativeLines 3.5. Additional features include:

• Enhanced title blocks. Import a title block into your project that has been created with ARCON 3D's Title Block Editor, data fields such as name and address will update to details set in the Project Information dialog in Clines.
• Print-to-fit option enabling you to print your project one sheet of paper and not several.
• Replace pen, line style, colour and font properties of certain elements in current project.
• Change colour display of visual aids
• Project Viewer offers an overview of all plans and layers in your project enabling you to easily manage the display of different elements in your project.
• View Manager lets you save and manage views in your project
• Draw filled objects with various gradient styles
• Specify surface/area dimensions
• Imported images can be cropped and scaled to fit

Now bundled with ARCON 3D Architect, CreativeLines is a product that will allow you to import ARCON 3D projects and edit the 2D architectural and construction drawings to a high professional detail.

ARCON 3D is able to display all views of a project, 2D plan, front, top, side elevation etc. It can also present your project as a 3D visualisation. However with CreativeLines you can take an ARCON 3D project and display all views, including 3D views on a single sheet, simultaneously. Additional layers can be added to superimpose additional construction detail. 200+ 2D symbols are supplied, however you can create your own, or import dxf files to use as symbols. With these combined tools you can now create plans suitable for planning permission.

The image below, shows a ARCON 3D project imported into CreativeLines and presented with multiple views, including a cross-section view.

With CreativeLines, you can edit architecture and construction plans:

• Effective editing
• Creative arrangement
• Clear arrangement
• Precise printed output

Design - Contruction - Visualisation on a plan!

• Import ARCON 3D Architect projects, MB Exchange format, DXF/HPGL

ARCON 3D Compatibility

• CreativeLines for plan composition and plan editing for construction drawings from ARCON 3D.
• With the simple and intuitive interface of CreativeLines, plans for the different planning levels of a building project can be created and arranged.
• Creation of plans in standard format or in free format.
• Character items: Lines, Polylines, Circles and ellipse, Splines and Bezier curves
• Freehand effects. Draw lines that look like freehand lines.
• Two dimensional elements: Rectangles, Polygon areas, set, ellipses and Spline. Spline and Bezier areas
• All lines can be changed (thickness, style and colour)
• All surfaces can be changed (fill colour, fill sample or hatch)
• Import DXF, HPGL and WMF files
• Import of images (BMP, TIF, JPG and PCX)
• Copy, delete, deform, move, mirror, scale for all text items
• Group, ungroup, arrange objects to front or back
• Hatch patterns can be defined freely
• Single dimensions, chain dimensions, angle dimensioning and radial dimensioning
• Text input and editing
• An extensive symbol catalog with architect symbols. Creating and administration of own detailed symbol list is also possible
• Scanner import support
• Output to all Windows supported printers

CreativeLines 3.1 is now bundled with ARCON 3D Architect