PlansPlus, along with its native abilities, also has the diostinction of being the platform for a series of enhancement products known as "MicroTools". These enhance PlansPlus and Punch! plans in incremental fashion, but they also interact with each other to truely enhance the total plan. They do not have to be purchased and used in order to make PlansPlus work as specified in this document; they add new abilities, explained in summary below and in greater detail in their respective documentation.
Punch! PowerTools are used serially - that means that the user cannot start a second PowerTool until after he dismisses teh first one. Only one can be active at a time. MicroTools, on the other hand, are always available inside of PlansPlus and are available to enhance each other. They generally do not have to be called in the same way that PowerTools do, through a menu click on the PowerTool bar. They manifest themselves in PlansPlus as additional menu choices and screen toolbars.
The currently available MicroTools are:
Dimensions in Detail is a microtool which enhances the ability to have dimensions displayed in more meaningful (or perhaps required) patterns. Usinjg this MicroTool, your displays, exports and printouts can have inches plus fractions or decimals, feet and inches, meters, millimaters, and other units, with or without unit abbreviations, using the local standard thousands separator and decimal point. Since Punch! placements are accurate to 6 decimal places, units to that level of detail are real, not just noise decimals, out to the precision of 6+ [;aces or to teh accuarcy with wheihc they were specified by the user. Additional capabilities include a scaling value that will allow Punch! to be used to create large scale plans (such as suburban plats) and use of modular values (a form of rounding).
This PowerTool supports the design and modeling of structural geodesic domes. The domes are parametrically specified, and may include optional truncation and a base ring foundation wall. When a dome is finished, the parameters may be saved in a text file for repeated use on some other project, and a report of critical measurements is output for actual construction use.
Landscape designers recognoze Punch! as a valuable tool for planning landscpaes and gardens. There are a few problems, however, and one of those is teh fact that Punch! does not differentiate on the plan between differing plants; only a vague size is imposed on the single symbol that serves to display all plants on a plan. PlantTracks allows for the design of a myriad of other plant sumbolic displays, and the assignment of these symbols to specific plants. A scheme may be developed for a single project, or a general scheme for a number of projects. The schemes and assignments are fully exportable as ASCII text files, so they may be used and reused across projects. The sizes of the symbols, as in Punch!, can be associated with the physical size of the plant at some point in time; it may also be controlled by the plant's maximum height, or it may be set to an absolute value. The symbolic colors are settable, both a fill color and a outline color.
Curves are as firmly a part of our lives as straight lines and edges are. Punch! uses a mathematical technology known as "splines" to generate curves in 3D objects, paths, fill areas, curved stiarcases and railings, and other places. Curved to Fit passes full control of these curves to the user, so that the curves may be fully and easily modified for use, even after reference points are changed, or a pathway diverted. No need to erase the old path and start over; This MicroTool will allow you to change everything that is changeable on a curved figure, with an easy to use graphical interface.
More ideas for MicroTools are in development and will be announced when they become available.
The interface between PlansPlus and the MicroTools changes constantly, as new ideas about how they should interact are implemented. Unfortunately, this means that when one changes, the other often has to as well. In general, whenever you add or update a new MicroTool or PlansPlus itself, you shjould also update all the MicroTools you own (and PlansPlus, too). The following matrix defines the versions of PlansPlus and the MicroTools that are designed to work with it successfully:
| PlansPlus Version | Curved To Fit | Dimensions in Detail | GeoDome | PlantTracks | Metes and Bounds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.0.0-2.0.1 | 2.0.0 | 1.0.0 | |||
| 2.0.2-2.1.0 | 2.0.2 | 1.0.1 | |||
| 2.1.1-2.1.5 | 2.0.3 | 1.0.2 | |||
| 2.1.6 | 1.0.0 | ||||
| 2.2.0 | 1.1.0 | 2.1.0 | 1.1.0 | ||
| 2.2.1 | 1.1.0 | ||||
| 2.2.2-2.2.7 | 1.1.1-1.1.5 | ||||
| 2.2.8-2.2.11 | 1.1.1 | 2.1.1-2.1.2 | 1.1.1 | 1.1.6-1.1.7 | |
| 2.3.0-2.3.7 | |||||
| 2.4.0 | 1.2.0 | 2.2.0 | |||
| 2.4.1-2.4.4 | 1.2.0 | 1.2.0 | |||
| 2.4.5-2.5.0 | 1.2.1 | 1.2.1-1.2.3 | |||
| 2.6.0-.4 | 1.3.0 | 2.3.0-.2 | 1.3.0-.1 | 1.3.0-.4 | 1.0.0 |
| 3.0.0-3.0.4 | 2.0.0 | 3.0.0 | 2.0.0 | 2.0.0 | 1.0.0 |
| 3.0.5-.6 | 2.0.1 | 3.0.1 | 2.0.1 | 2.0.1 | 1.0.1 |
| 3.1.0-.2 | 2.1.0 | 3.1.0 | 2.1.0 | 2.1.0-.3 | 1.0.1 |
The latest version of this matrix may always be found here.
PlansPlus and the contents of this help file are
Copyright©2006 by ThistleKeep Engineering; all rights are reserved.
Comments and suggestions, as well as support, are entertained at Lmc@ThistleKeep.com.
"Punch!" and other titles of Punch! operations are trademarks of Punch! Software L.L.C.
"ST" is a trademark of Microsoft Inc.