So… I bought a license for Omni a few months ago but didn’t get around to trying it out til now for a project that is right in front of me – which is NOT why I bought it btw…
So… I’m at the beginning stages of remodeling a bathroom and to get a permit with my local city peeps, I need to submit a few drawings/plans that show what I’m proposing to do. I could go and spend hours learning autoCad but thought I’d give Omnigraffle a spin since I’ve got it sitting here and all – and see whether its up to the task or not. I’m not needing crazy fancy drawings, but need to show an overhead view of the bathroom with the proposed layout of tub, toilet, vanity, etc with accurate spacing per code between items (e.g. 15" from centerline of toilet to anything on either side of it). I also need to do an elevation diagram as well I believe and probably a few other misc diagrams as I proceed into pulling this permit for plumbing, electrical, and general overall tasking.
So… My first thought is to set the grid spacing to 1/4"… I figured out how to setup the canvas to use fractional inches and will proceed from there by laying out a rectangle representing the bathrooms overall space which is fairly small. Are there any best thoughts/practices that anyone can suggest that might have used Omni for similar tasks? There may be other things I want set but am not aware of at this point. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
I did a whole permitting process for turning a guest house into a legal rental through OmniGraffle. It works great- things to keep in mind:
• You’ll likely have to submit the drawings in Arch D size- 24x 36. So build your file on that sized canvas from the beginning.
• Scale will also be important- For a bathroom, something like 1/2" = 1 ft or even 1" = 1ft would be fine. No need to use 1/4" accuracy for the city- they don’t care. 1" accuracy is fine for them.
• Dimensioning in OG can be fidgety. But you can beat it into submission.
• Don’t forget title blocks and borders, titles, key, etc. At least here, they’re sticklers for drafting norms even for the smallest of things.
Good luck!
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[for some reason I did not post this. hope it is still helpful]
You can use the Canvas setting Inspector to set the scale so you can work in feet and tenths [setting feet (ft)] or feet and inches [setting feet (’)].
Then I would set the major grid to either 3", 4" or 6".
The minor grid I would set to 3, 4, or 6 respectively. (remember the minor grid is the number of subdivisions in the major grid spacing so this will give you a one inch grid).
Now all of your measurements will translate directly from what you measure to the drawing scale.
I would use one Canvas for the Plan and others for the Profile/Elevation views. You can duplicate the canvas once you get settings you like so you don’t have to set all the options again.
For me, I absolutely love the infinite canvas setting but you can define you canvas size for fixed or flexible sizes.
A hint would be to put a scale bar on your drawings (aside from measurements). It helps if you don’t have a measurement on something and you need to measure from the drawing to find something.
