HOUCAD

Chill out mate. I am sorry if my frustration with having to totally rethink the way I have done things for the last 10-15 years upsets you. I am not about to get into a pissing match with you over which way is better. I am simply trying to find some common reference so I can use VectorWorks as efficiently as I can ADT/ACA. As far as precision goes, I am looking at VW drawings done by people who have used VW for a few years and the precision leaves a lot to be desired. It is my job to improve that. When we have to send our drawings for others to use they complain that walls are misaligned and the drawings are not very precise. When drawing something myself to make sure it is precise I am finding that the snaps are sometimes difficult and walls end up misaligned. I spend way too much time fixing things I drew very carefully. I am not sure what the problem is really but I don't have the same issues when I design with ADT/ACA. The osnaps and wall cleanups simply work better in ACA. I am still learning Vectorworks and I like many of the features but Autodesk has been developing BIM for a long time. VW is a new kid on the block in the BIM world. From v12 to 2009 the improvements are substantial but I think they still have a ways to go. I do very much appreciate the help I have received from people here who have directed me to the VW tools and methods that are similar to what I am used to using. I have a million other questions I will post when I get around to it.

No that isn't what I mean. I have used AutoCAD since about 1992 so it is what I am used to and the way I have always drawn on computer. It is just taking some getting used to for me. I learned ACAD very quickly and the learning curve with VW has been slow for me. One thing that is not just familiarity is most things in VW simply take more clicks to perform than they do in AutoCAD. That is hard to get used to when I have refined my workflow in ACAD to the fewest clicks possible to perform a task. I don't mean to be knocking Vectorworks, I am getting used to it but it seems to be based more on a graphics engine like Photoshop or Illustrator which is great for working with images but not my first choice of format for precision drafting and design. I wonder if anyone has done a guide for AutoCAD users learning Vectorworks. I am finding many things are compatible but I need to learn what VW calls them. I would not have thought that a 2D reshape tool would be used to stretch a floor plan with 3d wall objects. Calling it a stretch tool would have made more sense to me. Is there a way to create keyboard aliases for commands? I see most things are special keys and single letter commands. I don't even know what some of these special keys are. Yea I am new to Mac as well. I have always used 1 or 2 letter aliases for most commands and had toolbars for others. I use a combination of key and toolbar entry and rarely use the menus. It would help if I could set up familiar keyboard shortcuts.

Ah thanks guys.I see how it works now. It is frustrating trying to get used to how VW wants you to think. Everything seems backwards or requires way too many steps from what I am used to.

Hmm. Maybe I don't understand how the tool is supposed to be used on wall objects or maybe I should clarify. Can the 2d reshape tool be used on 3d wall objects, dimensions and spaces in plan view? It didn't seem to do anything when I tried it.

Is there a stretch command in Vectorworks? I know the scale objects command can work in only one direction but it doesnt seem to do what I am looking for. What I want to do is stretch a floor plan through a few different sections. I need to take out 1'-6" split between 3 different sections. In ADT I would stretch the areas to reposition walls and I could do a crossing polyline to zigzag my way through the areas of a floor plan I want to stretch. It VW it seems I have to move the walls then reposition my doors and windows and retrim my walls and readjust my room spaces instead of just stretching everything together. Is there another way of doing this?

I am coming back around to this as I am laying out a couple of sheets for a project. Is there no way to at least position the title and scale side by side and adjust the position of the text? I can move both the title and scale together but there doesn't seem to be any other options. I want to be able to use the automatic scale in a viewport but it seems I will have to only use the scale and do everything else custom. I decided to just use the number and scale and add my own custom features but there is a line that remains with the bubble that I can't get rid of. I have the bubble style set to none and the line length fixed and set to 0 and there is a line through my detail number. If I set my line length mode to auto fit or control point the line is smaller but I just cant get rid of it. This is nuts.

Is there a way to set the cut plane height in a viewport or layer? For example, in a floor plan I want to show door and window openings but in a reflected ceiling or roof plan I don't want to show them. I know I can set the doors and windows to show the wall lines but they don't need to be turned on at all.

Hmm, this sort of gets the effect I am looking for in a round about way but it is rather tedious and there doesn't appear to be a way to save a display configuration. I can use this to do what I want though. ADT/ACA allows you to set the display properties of any component in any object rather than by class and save those settings so you can activate a display mode in a viewport. Will VW copy a viewport to a different layer and keep the class settings?

Ah thanks. That does what I am looking for.

A DIVIDE command that will divide a line or curve into n equal segments and drop a point on the line at the divisions. Measure: drop a point along a line or curve every x distance.

Is there a way to display the same objects, like walls, differently in different layers or view ports? This kind of display control by object is very useful. I see there are render settings for viewports but the options available are not what I am looking for. For example I like to have my walls hatched solid in a floor plan but I also want to show the same walls in another sheet without any hatching or wall components and I want them all dashed. It seems that the only option is to have the walls grayed and turn off component layers. I am used to having a display configuration I can activate in a viewport and object settings that can be set to display differently in the different display configurations. Is there anything like that in VectorWorks?

Well I tried setting everything to class style and it didn't change anything. I had to delete what was entered and retype the info in the fields with the correct font set. The title block we use had a couple different fonts in it.

What determines the font that is used by the Title block? some text changes when I select the Tblock and change the font but some does not? When I edit my Tblock symbol defenition I am unable to change the class of some of the text. When I edit the default text in my record it doesn't change what shows on the inserted title block. I am editing my title block definition on the fly but some things just wont change. Does everything have to be perfect in the border symbol definition before it is inserted in a drawing? Is it just me or does vectorWorks not like to change things once they have been created? When I delete all my entries in the edit title block pallet and make sure I have the correct font set as default when I retype the info for each field the fonts appear correctly. This is very frustrating not being able to modify things once they have been created.

Another issue question. Can I change the direction the issue data is filled in? New issue data is inserted above the previous line. I want it to go below. What governs this information. When I use the issue manager the information is different. It defaults to Letters and the info I put in the issue manager does not appear on my title block. The edit issue data from the title block info pallet works fine. Are these 2 different things? When I edit items in my title block and close the dialog the T-block flashes and there is a sound like bongos that plays as it cycles through all the fields in the title block. It does not do this on the default borders. It kind of sounds like an MRI machine. What's up with that?

Can someone please explain how the issue data works? If I use one of the default title blocks I can edit the issue data but I have tried to get this to work in a custom title block and it doesn't work. I have used the same format as in the default titleblocks but does it have to be linked to a record? With the default t-blocks they dont seem to be linked to any record and there is no field for :iDate etc. How does this work? Fixed: I copied the :i text from one of the default tblocks and it works. I did not include an :iNo with my issue data line so this is probably why it didn't work. I am still unsure how this is supposed to work when setting it up from scratch.

I have a custom border I am using and I am not sure how far this can go. The sheet title line 1 is filled in when I create standard sheets and layers but the drawing number is not. I do have the number linked to S_Drawing number. I can edit the fields in my titleblocks but I was hoping it would fill the sheet number in too. Is it possible to automate some of this? When I create a drawing list am I supposed to be able to update info in my title blocks by editing the drawing list or is it just read only.

I am starting my first real project with VWArch 2009 and I am bothered by how slow all the settings dialogs are. I am setting up my classes and layers etc, creating a couple of hatches and I end up waiting longer for the the pinwheel and watch cursor to go away than I do actually changing settings or creating a hatch. I guess it is saving settings but this is nuts. I don't think it was this bad before I installed service pack 2. Does anyone else have this problem?

Thank you, that did the trick. I just updated the plugin objects and the door routine worked. Unfortunately this was started a couple of weeks ago and I have 3 floors of an office building with 2d symbols for doors to convert to door objects. These are the existing conditions and most of it will be gutted but I want to be able to query the database and produce a list of all existing walls, doors etc. Are there any beginner tutorials for worksheets available? I don't have a clue where to begin.

Ok I guess I don't know how to do this. I have never worked with the worksheets in Vectorworks. I understand about the database side in this kind of CAD program but I am not sure how it works here. I can set the criteria for the worksheet and select items from lists but there is no option to list everything. I did get a list of all the symbols in the drawing by setting the criteria to Name / is/ *. There were no symbols named Door as far as I can tell. It looks like I would have to do this for every object type in the list. I am not sure how to manually enter a formula as you described.

AHH ok I will check that out. Thanks. This is an old original CAD drawing from like 15 years years ago imported into VW12 and traced over. The drafters here have always used symbols for doors and have never really messed with the object based stuff. Is there a way to convert a door inserted as a symbol to a door object?

I have a background floor plan that was drawn in VW 12.5 using basic wall styles. Some windows were inserted as window objects and are editable but the doors were inserted symbols. I opened it in VW2009 and when I try to add a door object I am unable to even initiate the command from the toolbar. The previous tool remains highlighted and I do not get any dialog to set door properties. I am able to add doors in a new drawing but not this one. Any suggestions?

Ok, that makes sense. I will be using referenced drawings for my walls on large projects and all sheets in one file for smaller projects. so that will limit the number of files I would have to change. Is the resource browser the best way of updating styles between drawings. Just drag and drop? The browser is the equivalent of the style manager I am used to but can you exchange styles between multiple files or just between open files and the file selected in the resource browser? Thanks a lot for your input.

I will do that when I have the time to re-investigate this. One question though. When I first installed VWA2009 I was using the standard VW class names. I may have at some point re-saved my drawing style library file. When you switch class standard, are the wall styles supposed to, or can they, take on the equivalent class names automatically? Is there a way to convert the embedded component class names in a Wall style library automatically? ie. is the class and layer mapping utility pre-configured to convert between the class naming styles defined in the Standard Naming utility? I thought since it asks if you want to convert existing classes to the new standard it would have done this but I guess I need to change the standard in the library files. If this is the case then I will need to do that. We will be sticking with the AIA standards so once this is all set up we won't have to change it again. Is there an option during install of VWA2009 that allows you to choose a standard? That would help a lot because I have 5 computers to upgrade to 2009. Thanks

Thanks, this is helpful. I am building a typical wall styles library file that everyone will use. What I am still unsure of is what will show up in the wall styles list first when starting a new drawing. If all the default styles still show up it could be a bit confusing. A specific naming convention would separate them but I would still want to use prefixes for Int & Ext walls. I guess beginning each standard wall style with a 1- would put them at the top of the list or can I have each computer use only the custom list? Is all the auto classing defined in the wall style or will VW read the int or ext and place the walls on the appropriate class? We sometimes need to be able to create custom wall styles for a project. For example we had precast concrete wall panels with insulation embedded. Throughout the course of the project the engineers kept changing the thickness of the walls and position and thickness of the insulation within the wall. I would want to be able to redefine the wall style on the fly and have all the walls change. Having a central project wall style would be beneficial in cases like this. Would it be better to have a separate project wall style file for every project separate from the standard wall style file? Again I am interested in how my drafters will be able to use only the wall styles I want them to use.

I have the same problem when exporting to DWG. The Mac font we use doesn't work on a PC so we cant send someone the font. The only way around this is to tell the recipient to set their "Simplex" font style in AutoCAD to a similar font or if you have AutoCAD on a machine in your office, test out the conversions to choose an appropriate font. I think it would be good if VW had an option to select a font during export but you would still have to make sure the text worked ok. Another problem I have had with exporting to DWG is that AutoCAD allows you to change the spacing of text and VW doesn't as far as I am aware. Any Text that should be condensed ends up being to long. This is a problem when using DWG from other sources. I had this problem with Title blocks from another Architect. I could not get our Title blocks to match theirs so I had to create an image from theirs and insert it into our drawings. We were a sub on a large project and we had to make our drawings look like theirs.