> The next thing, as I become more advanced, to learn is how to keep the
> scale/measurements accurate on the various planes if modeling a real
> structure from either known measurements or relative proportions. I am
> sure it's not that hard, but I am not too famliar with modeling in general yet.

There are a few different methods that you can use to help with this type of accuracy.

One way is to use View / Image to bring in a scanned image of your existing blueprint/sketch and use the background image as a guide to help you keep proportions accurate. You can see how your current drawn shapes match up against the background image.

Another way is to turn on Grid snap which makes the locations of all the points that you draw a lot more fixed.

If you know exact widths and heights for things, then each of the drawing tools also lets you type in exact numbers for different shapes. Like for instance when you are drawing a line, if you know the exact length that you want your line to be, just type that number in and it will force the line to be that length. Similarly if you are drawing a rectangle you can type in the specific width and height if you want, instead of picking it with the mouse.

The other thing that helps in general to produce accurate shapes is to have object snap turned on so that when you draw new lines and curves you can be sure that their endpoints are snapped exactly on to the ends of existing shapes.


You know, one program that you didn't mention is SketchUp. It is very specific just to architecture but it is a really nice way to do quick architectural models. It is actually neither NURBS nor Sub-D based, just plain polygon based, but it is great for doing boxy type shapes really quickly and they have a nice tutorial system built into it which makes it a lot easier to learn than most things. It is a lot easier than any of the other programs that you mentioned, you should definitely check it out.

- Michael