Samuel Derenboim

Good afternoon all, Was wondering, is it possible to assign door / window texture by plug-in style? not by class? This would be especially useful if you have one class that controls windows, but several window types. Was wondering how everyone handled that situation?

Has anyone had the problem of going over the limit of describing a Walltype in IFC records that are longer than the character limit for the description? I have been having trouble with that lately, and have been creating separate records to fully verbally describe the condition of the wall section.

That's a very good point! Never tried showing spaces in section!

From my experience notes and annotation still have to have an IFC record in order for them to be exported, and even then i'm not sure if they would be exported via geometry or not. I have a lot of experience just annotating on the design layer that the model is located (which is my mistake) because they end up showing up on the elevations or sections if the planar objects check box is marked off. You make a very good point about putting them on a separate design layer if you aren't very strict in putting the notes in the right annotation layer - especially if you have your own classing system for notes or elements on that sheet. - just make sure they're higher than the story you're annotating so that they don't appear behind or below the elements that are drawn above grade level (which is usually default for annotation level) so you have to assign the design layer to have the same story that the design layer is located. This is something I will do in the future as well.

Yes I do. There are two ways to do it. Either you work with both layers and classes, or separate them into different design layers. My method : Usually my classes for annotation start with a A- (whatever the annotation layer is) or and 2d line work. I put the prefix BLDG-.... for classifying BIM components. The great thing in VW is that it groups all classes by the first hyphen...In other words A- has a triangle next to it that opens all the other classes below it. Try to add a few classes A-Anno A-Linework A-Viewport Youll notice they're all grouped under A. Just make sure you have the hyphen in there, no other separator will work. To make a long story short, when referencing them in the sheet layer viewports, just turn A- on or off under the classes category. Now theres a new thing - You can have 2 or 3 design layers for the same floor level (I had trouble in 2016 though, in 2017 it works) That means if you have multiple split levels, or just an annotation design layer, you can put all of that information in there. Or better yet, just reference the BIM file in another vectorworks file, and annotate there. It eliminates your worry about having a single editable file and second it allows you to annotate in the design layer viewports. One common thing though....When doing sections and elevations, unfortunately there is no workaround sheet layer viewport annotation. This is the ONLY exception to the rule. If you were to reference the section or elevation in a design layer view, it wouldn't work and as a result would tesselate the model - UNLESS you provide annotation in the design layer view that is aligned to the plane of the viewport. Hope this works. Let me know if you need an example file for your info. Sam

That would definitely make the task easier or at least mass import similar to dxf / dwg import

Hahaha, both of you are great. Thank you both for your insight in this matter. After playing around a bit, i notice that can't do the same if i set the input parameter to a dimension function. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Marissa, Thank you so much, that looks awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That looks exactly what i wanted to do ! Jim, your method only works with lines and arcs, Marissa made it possible with any polyline! Marissa, did you code the divide curve tool? or does it come standard inside vw?

Yea, at first it was made into a .pts file, which took ages to import into vectorworks. Then I found a workaround that allows .pts files to be converted to .xyz files and substantially reduce the size based on the new format. .Xyz is then imported into Vectorworks quite easily and quickly, and the model is then reduced from 1.2 billion to 300,000,000 (i believe this is the latest maximum) either that or 500,000,000. Thats why i was asking a series of questions regarding extraction of point clouds into isolated points than can then be converted into 2 dimensional geometric cross sections. slicing 20 or 30 slices of geometry would allow for lofting a surface of the model (say if it is a very complex shape like a vaulted ceiling or something). That is my latest set of experiments. Currently learning the subdivision tool, hoping that could help speed up the process

In 2016 version we weren't able to isolate any points, which made it a bit cumbersome to do. What i did was I created a design layer viewport from another layer and simply overlayed that section / level from the data. Normally it would be easy on a building with a single level, however, the building that I am building the plans for has 3 buildings and 5 or 6 split levels per section, so isolating different sections of the building and differently levels was a little harder. I was just wondering in the future if it would be possible to extract certain parts of the mesh cloud into points, that way it would much easier to model a very complex geometry, like a curved/vaulted ceiling inside a historic theater.

The size of my point cloud is approximately 1.2 billion points. In Vectorworks it however only imports 30,000,000 i believe. I'm just thinking it would be much easier modeling the model from scratch. I already created a good part of the plans in 2d using Vectorworks, which already is a life saver!!! Next step is recreating BIM How many points do you usually deal with Jim when meshing? Do you also generate normals? Or do you just export the normals included with the .pts file / .xyz file?

Hi Alan, Thank you for responding! But if you want to organize your document after you created the worksheet, wouldn't make sense for the document to look for it in that new folder? or is there another way?

Perhaps I'm not aware, but I don't think there is a way to add multiple nurbs surfaces into one monolithic modifiable surface without creating a geometric object? (this is what happens when you compose those surfaces) common workaround is to use the divide by distance tool and then redoing the nurbs surface, however the process is quite cumbersome of redoing the entire surface if you have a lot of segments. Just wanted to put that out there.

Has anyone tried modeling a point cloud object? Any suggestions on workflow?

Is there a method to create a surface from points without recreating it out of polylines/nurbs points?

is there an easy, fast way to divide a polyline into segments? i.e. lets say you have a polyline with curves - segment it by distance or number of points that convert it into a segmented polyline made up of straight lines? This would be incredibly useful for making clean nurbs lines that can be lofted with an equal number of segments. (currently I need this for recreating a ceiling from a point cloud object/file)

Tom, I couldn't recommend it more. Its a bit of a learning curve to move from 2d to 3d however I couldn't be more happier with the BIM element. The only problem youll face later on is figuring out how to share information in drawing format. It's especially useful because recently renderworks was recently fully integrated into vectorworks architect and the hatch / texture feature is incredible! among various space features. What you mentioned about annotation earlier...now you can set additional 'annotation' layers to the same story plane as your design layers, and you can fully separate annotation from the BIM model itself. Youll need a fairly powerful computer for most of the operations though...although ill admit, much less powerful than a revit workstation. Good luck!

Is it me, or when an existing work sheet exists in a file and you move it to the folder, the document can no longer target it. As a result it never regenerates the data when you exit worksheet mode. Could someone verify just in case?

I have done the experiment, so far so good. The sketchup file is strictly intended for importing textures, I doubt that any information would be sent back to the sketchup file given that it is only imported, no information is actually written to the file itself. I've done this in the latest version so far, the only comment I have about textures is figuring out how to scale them to their real world size at the same time. But I doubt that's necessary. Looks like ill be experimenting....I'll share some resource's soon! Thanks for your help!

Michael, Beautifully written! I'm trying to decipher the script - Setrfield can only be done in a script? or in a worksheet as well? I can see how you used the variables and recalled the record information to place the calculation into 'Space'.'11_User-Def Info 1', I'm wondering if that's possible in just the worksheet. You basically temporarily change the string value of 'Space'.'11_User-Def Info 1' from text to num which is incredible. Can we just modify it in the parametric record toolbar??? :)))) Thank you!

Does anybody know how to do this? I have hundreds of textures that i would like to make libraries from. I have found a workaround - by using sketchup as a mass importer, and then import that file into Vectorworks. I was curious if there was a direct way of doing this? or perhaps a script that scans a directory and updates a library?

Michael, I'm very curious about this. I surprisingly didn't know you made a script for this, and I posted this a year ago, so unfortunately its a bit embarrasing for me to ask - would it be possible to share the script one more time? Or perhaps there's a function i don't see to download that attachment?

There's one more work around. Create a viewport, Group it and scale it by the handles. Easiest way to do custom resizing.

Good evening everyone, I have a question regarding the space tool. With the latest version of vectorworks - some issues regarding space tools have been drastically improved - like the custom locations of boundaries for the space tool. I started playing around with it, and I have a question for everyone regarding it. There is a string inside the space tool called "formula" that allows for calculations to be done between two strings so long as there are hashtags around them. I.E. =#GrossArea#/#OccupantLoad# returns a calculation that can be displayed inside the symbol. I am attaching a sample file here. Is the formula string the only string that allows for this to be done? or is there a way to turn on a regular text string to use multiple formulas in one symbol. The reason for this is when calculating day care spaces for example, there need to be multiple displayed factors shown on the plans inluding occupancy for kids, number of security guards, teachers, etc... that requires multiple calculations. Could anyone help please?? Thanks in advance! Sam *note : some of you might not have vw 2017, i'm attaching v2016 inside as well. occupancy calculation test.vwx occupancy calculation test v2016.vwx

I have been mistaken. I contacted technical support, and they pointed me to my obvious mistake - whenever you modify wall parameters, make sure the 'replace IFC Data' checkbox is checked on at all times. Just thought Id share my experience. Thank you for your help!