Hand drawn sketches

[Conrad]

Here in Clark County NV, The Assessor uses APEX to draw sketches for tax assessment purposes. For a nominal fee appraisers can get a copy of the new homes sketches. They only do exterior dimensions. Its a great way to check what I measure against the county records. I have used Apex since DOS days.
Conrad

 

[Farm Gal]

Ed:

Now that you mention it... I DID notice that the garages aren't transferring, but then they didn't half the time anyway since we switched off of DOS :roll: checking garages in the cost approach is on the list of "things I check on without ever really thinking about it" - because the XYZ#%!!! program messes up frequently. I seem to hit enough 'interesting typo keystrokes' to do all sorts of interesting things: Tim may have a point: there may be a switch someplace that we've tripped, but it seems a little random to me.

The key-combo I want to find BADLY :evil: is the one where I regularly 'off' my autosave... occasionally resulting in wails of anguish you should be able to hear over your chickens

We're on Ver 8.20.390 over here, what are you useing?

 

[Ken-NC]

I've only been appraising since '97. Used Apex from day one. I've read the thread and noticed comments such as "ignore the techno geeks, keep drawing by hand". You're kidding, right?

Not only does Apex (or any computer-assisted drawing program) create professional drawings, they also calculate square footage and allow easy and painless integration when sending appraisals electronically.

If we techno-geeks are the only ones using Apex, then are we the only ones that actually use computers? Are we the only ones with fax machines, or automobiles, or calculators, or copying machines?

I think it's called... progress.

 

[David S. Roberson]

Am I the only one that uses Winsketch? It always works great for me.

 

[Bemis Pownall]

I use winsketch

I like using winskecth to do bay windows or stack the second floor over the 1st to check your drawing, comes in handy on a daily basis.

 

[Larry Lyke]

Hey, I was one of the gripers who drove a la mode in the arms of Apex -- I hope.

WinSketch was so primitive after I bought Athena after having used Apex for years. Then a la mode went to Apex for $99 for their appraisers who already had WinTotal.

Apex is so intuitive that anyone can learn it in 10 minutes and be on the road to success!

HEY, IF YOU CAN LEARN TO SCAN YOUR HAND DRAWINGS INTO THE APPRAISAL SOFTWARE FOR EDI DELIVERY, YOU CAN LEARN APEX IN A SHORTER TIME PERIOD!

 

[jtrotta]

Apex - been using it fer 15 year now an it's a wonderful thing -garages we don't need know stinkin garages. Ifn ya scroll down when yer done drawin it gives you all the numbers, can't you guys remember anythin :lol: :lol:

8)

 

[Larry Lyke]

If you want Apex to come up with the Sqft for the Garage but don't want the Garage to appear in the Sketch, after you draw the Garage, reduced the scale of your drawing, then drag the Garage out beyound the margin of the page, then change back the scale.

The second time you do this, you'll have a good sense of how far to drag the area outside the margin so it'll register in the area counter but can't be seen in the Sketch page itself.

 

[Pamela Crowley (Florida)]

Bemis,

I still use WinSketch. Just gave up and bought Apex through Alamode about 3 weeks ago. Haven't had time to figure out how to use it yet so sometime coming up soon another appraiser and I are going to get together so I can show him some of the goodies in Athena and he can show me how to use apex. Another learning curve! 8O

 

[Caterina Platt]

Larryhaskell,

You asked how we hand sketchers calculated arcs? As with the imaginary rectangles and squares, you must envision the imaginary piece of pie, half circle, what have you. 3.14 (pi) X radius, squared gives you the entire circle. You then divide that figure by the portion of full circle that exists. If it's a small arced window rather than an angled bay with just a minute slice of the circle, those threw that calulation out the window. I would measure the hieght of the arc (from flat wall to deepest point of the arc) and then the length of the arc. Now then for the honest to God truth, I didn't pull out my geometry manual, nor protractor and mess with chord, degrees of arc, etc. I resketched the arc on a scratch area of graph paper. I enclosed the sketched arc area in a rectangle the same hieght and depth, then counted the 'blank' squares and portions of blanks. This blank portion gave me a percetange figure to deduct from the area of the imaginary rectangle, and bingo. The remaining area was darn close to actual SF. Not exactly scientific, but well within acceptable accuracies.

Any wonder why I like the Apex so much better???