Sight Lines for Tiered Seating

[DHartwick]

Hi, the Home Designer rep I spoke with said that I could use this software to design two rows of seats, one elevated and behind the other, and see the line of sight that those seated in the rear row would have of the wall they're facing (i.e. the front wall). This is for a media room. Knowing the area of the wall that is viewable to those seated in the rear row will tell me at what height to mount a screen on the front wall. I've made my room and my rows of seats and in the full camera 3D view I see a rendering that is exactly the sort of rendering I need.  All that remains  is to be able to draw a line between a seat headrest in the rear row and the front wall.  The line would be sloped downwards as it goes towards the wall, so that it just touches the top of the front row seats as it goes towards the front wall. I see that the CAD portion of the software allows users to draw lines but only in "plan" view. Please advise.

[solver]

Which version (Suite, Pro etc) are you using?

[DavidJPotter]

What software application do you have to create this with, please? The reason I ask is that some Home Designer software titles are abler than others. Never the less you should be able to do this. It is a matter of you spacially locating the objects of the Media Room. Every object in this software has a  named layer that it assigned that can be turned on and off visually in plan and camera views. The dialog is called "Display Options". As well each object has its own Specification Dialog Box where the object can be resized and assigned a location in space. You can vary the floor height of the media room using soffit objects (found under "Cabinet Tools") to represent the platforms of a media room. Some Home Designer titles have a "Custom Slab" tool for the purpose of varying the thickness and height of media room platforms. There can be more depending upon the level of detail you require but this should get you started conceptually. It will be to your advantage to first teach yourself how to use the software and its tools, where its controlling settings are, what they are for and how to set them properly to obtain a result.

[Rookie65]

David, I think he is looking to find out how to show the lines of sight as if in a section view and not plan view. Almost like a cone coming from the headrest of the rear seat towards the front of the room. I don't know how to do it, or even if it can be done in a section view. I am figuring one of you folks that have used it for a long time may have run into this before?

[DHartwick]

A quick aside, I saw instructions for how to put my software version in my signature but when I went to the signature section I couldn't see how to do it. I'm using Home Designer 2020 on Windows 10.

 

Rookie65, it sounds like you get it.  It's the bottom of that cone you described that I'm looking for. Where it hits the front wall tells one the low point of a screen--screens' bottom to the flloor (e.g. 20") so that the screen may still be viewed--even its bottom edge--from the second row.

 

[Rookie65]

Ok, good. I am wondering if you may be able to use a wedge shape to show it from the side. Since it's a geometric shape, the inverted one may work. Doesn't need to be thick in width and you should be able to adjust the length to get from the seat to the screen. Then maybe adjust from there? It will give you something. Or maybe a parallelogram? One of those shapes may work.

[DavidJPotter]

How to build a Media Room

 

Building a Stage Platform

 

DJP