Dave Carpenter knows drafting. If you've worked with Production Plus any time in the past seven years you are familiar with his work. In his tenure here Dave has elevated computer drafting from a workaday necessary task to an art form. He's dependable, reliable, and he can get the job done. He is also a mean shot with a rubber band. Dave took time out of his busy schedule to talk with 13Q about his job and what it's all about.

Taking the measure of the man as he takes measure of the world.

SBD: How long have you worked for Production Plus?

DC: Since 2000.  This is my seventh year.

SBD: What brought you to Production Plus?

DC: I came to do 3D graphics, animation, and drafting full time.  I was a stage tech before this.  I wasn’t getting the chance to use my drafting and 3D skills.  I felt like I was good at it and that I would have something to contribute. Pro Plus said that they really needed a drafter when I got here; I’ve been doing that ever since.  Production Plus at the time was using Vectorworks like everyone else in the industry – not really pushing its boundaries.  The program can do lots more than most people know.

SBD: The scripts and things you’ve written for Vectorworks are nothing short of incredible.  I don’t know how many other people are out there pushing the program as far as you have, but I suspect there aren’t many.  What started this exploration for you?

DC: I noticed that there were a lot of repetitive tasks that were taking up a lot of my drafting time.  I didn’t want to have to do these things over and over again.  Laying out seats for every single show, for example: it has to be done, but doing it manually can take a long time.  And if you make a mistake you have to start over again and you’re not sure how to fix the problem.  Add an aisle?  Build the rows differently?  Those tasks are tedious and take energy and attention that should be devoted to different things.  So a lot of the things I’ve built over the years were made simply to increase efficiency.

SBD: Did you teach yourself how to work in Vectorworks?

DC; Yeah.  I didn’t really know anything about Vectorworks when I came here.  I was an AutoCAD guy.  There wasn’t much help here, either: nobody else really knew what the program could do.  So I taught myself.

SBD: What are some of the things you’ve done with the program?

DC: I’ve remade a lot of the symbols.  I’ve constructed a color palette that is unique to Production Plus.  I’ve written scripts and extra tools to put in audience seating and projectors.  And I’ve made symbols for a lot of our gear and given them the level of detail they deserve so everyone knows what they’re looking at when they look at one of our plans.  A lot of times floor plans are pretty basic stick drawings – stick boxes with circles on them that are just placeholders, really.  We’ve been able to make our drawings more graphically adventurous using Vectorworks.  AutoCAD was not so graphically oriented at the time I started here.  So we were able to do a lot more things with color and such that really spiced our floor plans up, which I don’t think really anyone had thought of doing in this industry.  Most people find these drawings become an appealing selling tool.  They look better to the end client.  The renderings sell the set, but after that the client is going to see the floor plan again and again.  Having a clean, good-looking floor plan really sells the professionalism of Production Plus.  They’re easy to read for someone who is not overly familiar with reading ground plans, and pleasant to look at.

SBD: Have you ever had a conversation with Nemetschek (the authors of Vectorwroks) about directions the program might take, or things you’d like to see?

DC: I’m in touch with a few people in some forums and some beta testers.  They’ve been highly complimentary of my work with the program, which has been really nice to hear. In some areas I feel like I’ve pushed the program to its limits in terms of the direction I’d like to head.  I’m waiting for the program to develop certain things that will get me where I want to go.  But like anything, you take what you’ve got and make it work.

SBD: What else does your job entail?  I’m sure there are things that you do that are not readily apparent to our clients.

DC: Surveying.  Actually, this ties in to advances in Vectorworks as well: we’ve been able to incorporate TPS and GPS technology into the program. We now have the ability to survey a venue in a day that in any other way would take weeks to map out.

SBD: TPS?  What’s that?

DC: TPS stands for Total Power Station.  It’s professional surveying equipment.  You’ll see this kind of stuff on the side of the road with guys surveying the road – the tripod, all that.  We’ve taken the technology from that industry and brought it into ours. Leica makes a device called the Disto; they make the TPS as well. 

SBD: Can you talk a little bit about how you use this equipment on the job?

I can set this up in an arena, or an open area – whatever the show site is – and get extremely accurate measurements very quickly.  The Disto and the TPS also can plot points in relation to one another.  It figures out the exact location of the point you aim it towards and also can tell its angle from the origin.  With this device I can plot points in 3D space.  I bring those points directly from the TPS into Vectorworks and separate them all out by class as I go.  So not only do I have all the points I need to start building the ground plan, I have all sorts of separate categories: steel, hang points, anything specific about the site. 

SBD: What was the biggest surveying job you’ve ever tackled?

With this equipment I was able to survey the Washington DC Mall by myself in one full day.  That was over 1400 points measured.  I also did a beach at a resort in Puerto Vallarta for a show we did down there.  Spaces like these are very difficult to survey with a tape measure.  And you definitely cannot to it by yourself.  But with the TPS system I walk around with a prism stick.  The base on the tripod can locate the stick, turn toward it, snap a point, and record the distance and elevation within an eighth of an inch.  It makes surveying a place with curves and changes in elevation – like big sand dunes – so much easier.

The job that the system came in most handy on, though, was the Tour of Hope in the ellipse outside the White House in Washington DC.  We’ve done this show in that venue for a couple of years now.  The first year we did it we surveyed the site by hand.  It took four guys three days to do it using tape measures.  The next year, with the system, it took me one day by myself.  That amounts to a huge savings, not only in time, but in costs to the client.

On site in front of the White House.

The system was also tremendously useful when staking out the site on install.  The day of load-in I was on site about two hours early, marking off points for the installation.  It’s crucial on a job that big that the important things – the stage, for instance – get laid out correctly early, because frequently by the time you figure out you’ve made a mistake it is too late to go back and correct it.  With the GPS system tied into the ground plan, it was a breeze.  I remember one particular element – the Cricle of Hope, the centerpiece of the event – was two concentric circles of plaques, the smallest one being a 30’ radius.  Very difficult to lay out with tape measures, but with the GPS system it was a breeze.  We were done in record time.

A Dave Carpenter masterpiece.

SBD: What do you feel is your strong suit here at Production Plus?

DC: My anal retentiveness, I guess.  (grins)  I think I have an eye for detail.  There are people here that are big picture folks, out on the front lines of any project getting things done and pushing it forward.  I feel where I’m strongest is coming in behind those folks and making sure all the details are exactly right before we hit the load-in.  I think that’s good.  The more thought and critical evaluation we do before we get into the ballroom the fewer problems there are during the process.  I’d like to think that’s an asset.

SBD: What keeps you coming back to the job every day?

DC: The people I work with.

(Here the interview is interrupted by a spirited volley of rubber bands between Dave and his fellow design den dwellers)

Seriously.  I mean that.  It is nice to come in and work in an environment where everyone’s got a balanced perspective on things.  Nobody gets too bent out of shape around here.  We can laugh together, and we can bear down and nail it when the time comes.  And that’s not easy to come by.

I also love the business, I love the industry.  Working on the scale that we do is very exciting.  The projects that we do are great.  It’s a little different every day.

SBD:  This rubber band battle was one small salvo in a longer war?  Who started the rubber band war?

DC: (grins) I did.  I found those huge rubber bands somewhere and brought them in … started shooting them around … it’s just stress relief.