Create Media with Improved Options

The Video Button

Video, also found under the Presentation tab, will open the dialog for video rendering. Here you will find all of the necessary settings for generating a high-quality video sequence from your own animations.

Improved settings for the OSPRay Renderer

The OSPRay Renderer did not just move to the Image dialog, it also has new settings as well.

NOTE: If you would like to use OSPRay in pCon.planner, please ensure that your CPU uses at least SSE4.1 An operating system of at least Windows 7 (64-Bit edition) is also required.

For an even more realistic image, integrate a panorama into your rendering. In the area Background of the improved OSPRay render settings, select the Panorama option and upload a panorama image into your plan. This will give your rendering an appealing setting.

NOTE: In order to avoid perspective errors, please use a spherical panorama as background image.

For extra-realistic lighting, HDRI Light is available. When this option is enabled, upload an HDRI Image (High Dynamic Range Image) in pCon.planner. This image will be used as an invisible background light source for the scene and the lighting will be adjusted to the lighting conditions of the image.

New Printing Process

Beautiful prints and PDFs: All editions of pCon.planner have a uniform printing process. With the new version of pCon.planner, lines are printed as clear as if they were on the drawing board – regardless of the scale and without additional settings.

The new printing process works for all render modes and render styles.

The process is based on a combination of techniques: Visible lines, edges, points, hatches and texts are based on vectors. In vector printing these elements are sharp, even when magnified, keeping unsightly jaggies out.

Colors and textures are also included in the prints. This is important for images without enhanced edges (for example in Realistic render mode).

Selecting a Printing Process

The new printing process is preset in pCon.planner and will automatically print in higher quality. If you would like to avoid vector printing, you can simply disable it. The print will then be of conventional quality. This way, the file size of the PDF will remain smaller and printing will save memory.

Print and PDF Settings

For the lines and elements created in vector print, the settings Line width factor and Use fixed line width are available. You can find both of these in the Layout Settings (Print Preview or Layout Area, group Page, Options arrow):

NOTE: With the increase in quality from the new printing process, the previously necessary Viewport output optimization option has been removed.

Simple and Elegant: A new Render Mode

pCon.planner 7.3 provides an additional render mode with a familiar name. The new mode goes by the name Colored. Up until now, a plan in this render mode included colored lines, the color itself and colored textures.

Now, you can switch to Colored mode when you want to display your rooms and furniture with color and enhanced edges. As opposed to textures and multi-colored materials, this mode will display a corresponding color value. The result is a simple and elegant representation.

When preparing printouts or PDFs in particular, we recommend working with the new Colored mode. When it comes to printing, two-dimensional colors often have a more pleasant effect than bumpy textures. In addition, colors look great even in high resolution.

If you’d like to display lines, colors and textures in the future, simply choose the Textured mode.

Altogether, pCon.planner 7.3 provides a total of 7 render modes. Since each Render Style is based on a stand-ardized render mode, you also benefit from the wide range of choices.

Article Data with Multiple Prices

Products are constantly receiving new pricing – even when configuration options remain consistent. Therefore, two consecutive versions of data from a Product catalog in pCon.planner PRO may only differ in terms of pricing information.

In order to avoid the exchange between identical data inventory with varying prices, multiple price lists can now be assigned to articles in pCon.planner.

Here’s how it works

To work with multiple price lists in pCon.planner, you will need the appropriate configurable article data from your manufacturer. In addition to the current pricing, these can contain old pricing information or upcoming prices.

Each delivered price list comes with a validity date. This defines the day that you can access a particular price. You will use this price date to choose the price list in pCon.planner.

 

NOTE: The specified date for a particular price list may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

Pricing is recorded in the data for ever article. You can find the date for an article and its respective price under Article Info in the Article Toolbox.

Exporting RGFX files from pCon.planner

You can now transfer articles from pCon.planner 7.3 to Autodesk® Revit® software in an instant. A new export format (RGFX) generates data that can be further utilized in Revit®.

With the help of the new pCon.catalog plugin for Autodesk® Revit® software, geometries from pCon.planner can be placed and further processed as Revit® families. These also contain standard information that is available from pCon.planner, such as configuration, article number, manufacturer and short text.

NOTE: pCon.planner exports standard articles and their configurations in RGFX format. Manual articles will not be transferred into RGFX format.  Room elements, such as walls or wall elements, will also not be exported.

To export the article for Revit®:

Your Revit® must have the pCon.catalog Plugin. This will be integrated into the user interface of the Autodesk® program. With this plug-in, you can import articles from pCon.planner.

Changing Wall Thickness in a Specified Direction

Predefined Wall Thickness

Looking to adjust the wall thickness during the drawing process? Now, there are more options available to you. You can take advantage of predefined values for wall thickness, which have been added to the context menu:

The last custom thickness values that you use will then be saved to the list.

You can still retrieve the most recent values from the context menu the next time you open pCon.planner, even if you are working with a different plan.

Disabling Automatically Connecting Polylines

For many use cases, it makes sense to automatically connect polylines. You draw one line, for example, and at a later time draw a second one attached to the end of the first. The second line will then automatically connect to the first polyline, merging the two into one line.

You can also use the context menu field Connecting Disabled when moving polylines. If you have disabled this option, two lines will not connect to one another even if you push them together.

Material Editor: Placing Textures and Normal Maps Independently of One Another

Extended Support for SketchUp

pCon.planner 7.3 supports SketchUp 2016. When exporting geometrical objects in *.skp format, an additional export dialog will be available. Here you can choose from the current or an older version of SketchUp for the export of 3D objects.

Improved Vector Graphics

The new program version improves your vector graphics. Through the use of a new procedure, the file size as well as the amount of memory used during the export has also been reduced.

Ambient Light as a Standard

From this point on, lighting your plans will be much simpler. Previous default lighting has been replaced with global background lighting. This lighting is active by default and works to produce uniform illumination throughout your plan.

Now, lighting fits to your needs much easier: with slide control (found under the Start tab, Room Elements menu), you can determine how bright your plan is. You do no longer need to input light intensity for standard lighting via the Properties Editor.

With background light you will have the optimal lighting for your renderings. The new lighting affects the display in both Shaded and Realistic mode.