About Lumber Pack

Lumber Pack is a very successful collection of five SilverScreen-based application programs that are used by home improvement centers in the United States. The collection consists of five independent modules which are used for the design of

	Decks
	Garages
	Fences
	Frame Structure Buildings

The modules are operated by the personnel of the home improvement center at a customer's request. The modules are very easy to use and require very little training. The modules are commonly connected to data bases to allow material price updates and are connected to check-out areas so that the required materials from the design can be immediately purchased by the customer.

The modules are marketed by Luxwood Corporation and have roughly a 50% share of the  installed base for this type of product.

The Deck Module

The deck is the module that is most frequently used by the home centers. Below is a deck that has been designed by this software.

  

Deck features include:

	Multilevel design connected by stairs, ramps or bridges.
	Accessories such as planters, hot tubs, polls, benches, tables, screens and aprons.
	Sophisticated material control language for customization of material requirements.
	Sophisticated material control language for customization of material requirements.
	Optimal beam and post placement through an examination of 100 beam and post configurations.

Each deck design produces printed report containing:

	Cut lists that describe the dimension and cutting angle of each member of the deck.
	Pull lists so that the required materials can be taken from the lumber inventory.
	Plan views, rendered views, and cross-section views.

How SilverScreen is Used

This program is a tour-de-force of solid modeling. Each piece of material in the deck is a mathematically accurate solid. Solid modeling is used to slice members of wood and to fit them accurately against one another.

Once the deck has been created, the solids are measured. These measurements are the source of the information contained in the material cut list.

All of the printing is handled by the use of SilverScreen commands. The deck shown above is printed by three commands: The first command zooms the drawing; the second renders the drawing in hidden-surface representation; the third command sends the screen to the printer.

You can visit the web pages for the lumber pack software at Luxwood Corporation.