QuickFloor, an intelligent CAD module
23rd March 2015
QuickFloor, an open-source alpha module from the ControlCadGUI Project, is now available for download.
- QuickFloor Introduction
- Download and use QuickFloor Creator
- QuickFloor Base, a ready-made home-automation GUI
- Use QuickFloor Base to control lights
This is a CAD module with a difference. The floor plans this module creates are much more than just lines on a page. This is a spatially-aware program. It understands the, physical layout of a home. It knows where rooms are in relation to not just each other, but also to the home's perimeter and the position of the sun.
This program is specifically tailored to create visual GUI representations for home-automation systems. The QuickFloor system comprises two parts. The QuickFloor Creator is a single-use module to create and save the floor plan of your home. The other module, QuickFloor Base, is what really sets this system apart.
QuickFloor Base uses the data produced by QuickFloor Creator to provide a ready-made GUI base on which to build your own home-automation, analysis and control programs.
This system is open-source, meaning you can modify and re-brand QuickFloor, and you can do whatever you like with the programs you build on top of QuickFloor Base.
AAIMI Home Automation is a real-world example of a program built on top of QuickFloor.
Data
There is an abundance of data your programs can tap into. All the perimeter points of your home are laid out for easy access by your functions, meaning your programs can tell which walls in a room are external. Your programs can use QuickFloor's data to calculate things like the percentage between openings and walls and compare temperatures and light levels in individual rooms against that data.
Perhaps the most powerful feature is QuickFloor's compass-awareness. You can use that awareness to create overall functions to autonomously open and close curtains depending on their position to the sun at a set time of day in the current season, for example.
Your imagination is really the only limit.
Later in the series
That was a brief description of what QuickFloor can do.
In the next article I'll show you how to download and configure QuickFloor Creator, then walk you through creating and saving a basic floor plan.
In the final article I'll delve deeper into QuickFloor Base.
Cheers
Anth
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