Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1993 - 43

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Roomer 3 comes with more than 200 pieces
of furnirure in its stock catalog; the "Interiors" add-on has 200 more. Figures 3 and 4
also show the furnished floorplan for Stars.
Since this program permits easy re-sizing
and moving of furniture, the table and
chairs in this drawing for were adapted from
stock pieces in the Roomer 3 inventory.
Since all of the furniture in Roomer 3 was
created with Roomer 3, it is possible to create
your own personal furniture library.The
beds for Stars were such custom pieces created for this production, added to my personallibrary, and available for future use.
The third module is "View A Plan." In
this program, a 3D rendering of the floor
plan and furnirure arrangement is produced
from any viewpoint you designate. The
operator can select either a full or camera
view and the location of the eye location

and its distance from the set. Next, selection
of the eye height, the view point, the height
of the view poinr, and viewing angle is
made. Once these parameters are set,
Roomer 3 will generate a perspective 3D rendering. If the rendering is to your liking, the
program can be set to regenerate the view
with hidden lines removed and with any
intersecting line conflicts resolved. Figures 5
and 6 show the Stars set from twO different
perspectives generated by the "View A Plan"
program.
The "Layout A Page" module produces
the finished drawing and sends it to a printer
or plotter, or exports it (as a DXF or PCX
file). A floorplan can be re-scaled to 1/4" or
any scale of your choice, lines can be edited,
and title blocks and text notes can be added.
Working drawings can be created by adding
dimensions to furniture drawings. (Figures 7
through 11 are working drawings for Stars.)
The view files become finished drawings
in this program. The print command can
directly address a wide range of plotters, and
the plot data can be converted to drive dot
matrix and laser printers (laser printers can
also be directly addressed as plotters).
Animation of furniture, arrangement,
and room files is provided by the "Twirl"
module. It rotates the selected file (either an
individual piece of furniture or a complete
set) through a 360-degree rotation permitting verification of full 3D rendering of the
object. In this module, both the size of the
object and the point of view can be
changed. "Twirl" can also produce mirror
images of furniture and perform editing
functions.
Roomer 3 includes a 90-minute video
tape produced by Hank Hufnagel, the
author of the package, which covers all of
the operating functions. This tape is a quite
an unassuming production, but provides a
very good on-line demonstration under real
world conditions. In combination, the tape,
the manual, and the help screens provide all
of the information necessary to quickly
learn and use Roomer 3. I have also found
that calls to the company in Clarion, Pennsylvania are usually answered by Hank Hufnagel himself, who has been more than willing to talk me through problems.
Roomer 3 has proven to be a powerful
theatre design tool. It permits the designer
to have instant editing functions to quickly
make design revisions and examine those
changes within a graphic context in the theatre environment.
Both Roomer 3 and Virtus Walkthrough
present different approaches to addressing
interactive model-making. Walkthrough
seems to take advantage of the Macintosh
presentation tools in producing flar shaded
scenic views. Roomer 3 uses DOS utility formats to produce more traditional-looking

CADD drawings. While Roomer 3 cannot
produce an animate sequence of views (the
walk-through aspect of Virtus Walkthrough)
it can proceed quickly from view to view to
produce the effect of looking at the set from
a large number of different perspectives.
This operation is greatly enhanced by using
either a 486 processor or a 386 with math
co-processor.
Certainly your program choice would
be governed by your available operating system, but the programs are far from murually
exclusive. In the best of all possible worlds, I
ffi
want them both.
Phillip Grayson is a member ofthe Department of Theatre and Dance fizClilty at James
Madison University.

SOFIWARE REVIEW: ROOMER 3

Rating:
-bA,-b*.-bA,-bA,

Company Name and Address:
HulTIagel Software
Box 747
Clarion, PA 16214
814-226-5600, Fax: 814-226-5551

Type of Software:
CAD package, 2D/3D, containing
six individual program modules
Computers it runs on:
IBM PC Xf/AT, 386,486, and comparables; Roomer 3 supports Heocu1es,
CGA, EGA, & VGA graphics on
color or monochrome displays
Operating Systems:
DOS 3.0 or later
Memory Required:
640KBram
3 MB available space on hard disk
Copy Protection:
License Agreement
Optional Items:
Printer, Plotter, Mouse
System used for test:
AT&T PC6300 W/8087 &
math co-processor

List Price:
Base Package:
Roomer 3 Program and Video $395
Math Co-Processor Version +$ 10
Interiors Option $ 75
Outside Option $ 75
IBM Layout Option $ 75
-PG

T D & T

1993 FALL

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1993