cberg

You may have to edit the rendering style.

You can adjust in the View Menu -- Rendering -- Shaded Options. Third Tab.

How are folks making dashed walls in plan for demolition in VW 2026? Do you now have to make wall styles that are graphically set up for demolition? Whatever happens in VW26 will be an interim solution before renovation/phasing plans are implemented. While it's on the roadmap, I can't see such a major change happening in the '26 release cycle.

I always remembered the split tool resulting in open polygons. Between VW2024 and VW2025, this functionality changed and the split tool now creates closed shapes. However, in VW 2025/2026, unchecking the "Closed" box in the OIP doesn't seem to open the polygon at the location where it was just split, which doesn't make sense. Not sure why this was changed, or why the tool now works this way. Or whether the change was intentional. Perhaps this is a bug. In the attached screenshot (VW2026) the polygon was split in the middle. Unchecking "Closed" opens the polygon at a random location.

If it's an unstyled wall you can offset it in the OIP. Otherwise, you need to go to the Resource Browser and select the door style plug in options and adjust the offset.

Thank you and thank you. I knew that the Plug-In Style Options had something to do with it. But I was right-clicking and editing plug-in style options, but not editing the plug-in style options within the Symbol Library of the resource browser.

I have two window-related questions in VW 2026. Question 1. Where does one adjust the unit offset in a styled window? In the attached file, the unstyled window offset is controlled by the Object Info Palette. However, when I create a styled window and set the offset by the same value, it doesn't adjust the offset within the wall. Question 2. Is there a way to turn off the wall lines for windows with a sill and a stool? The image on the right is what I would like to see. Adjustments to 2d Graphics options below the cut plane doesn't seem to turn the lines off. Files and screenshots attached. Window Graphics Question.vwx

Ah. Sorry. Export as a 2d dwg and then reimport?

I rarely deal with files with screen plane objects these days. But when I did I used the script mentioned in this thread.

In VW 2026 you won't have this problem since you have more control over the cut plane. In VW 2025 and earlier, duplicate the wall and put it on an attic layer. Delete the window. In the attic layer offset the bottom of the wall by some logical dimension, maybe related to the ceiling height. On the ground floor, delete the wall peaks and ensure the wall height matches the bottom offset.

Ok. (I am slower than most other folks on here :-)) Since my partition details are on dedicated 2D design layers (organized by scale), I decided to set all my walls to a height of .002" and a cut plane of .001" for these layers. This makes everything appear "flat" in 3D and also correct in a 2D plan view. It also means that I am only maintaining a 3D library of wall styles.

Thanks, all. I need to think about this (in between other paying project work). Conceptually, I will need to decide when it's better to model using a Point Cloud/Mesh and when it makes more sense to create and use a digital terrain model. Clients seem to respond to models with the fuzzy color graphics of the point cloud. For whatever reason, however, I often feel like I *should* be working with a site model. Maybe that's not the best tool... DTMs probably make sense as a tool for developing grading plans and site drawings with hardscape and vector graphics, or for major site interventions. Scans and point clouds do a better job of quickly illustrating context. @line-weight's suggestion of a hybrid approach is interesting. It would be helpful to see some other examples of how folk are using this set of tools.

Thanks @Tony Kostreski I will watch.

I have a question for the folks who are more fluent in using Vectorworks for Site Design. Apologies if this topic has been covered before.... I recently scanned a few projects for architectural work and imported fairly accurate Point Cloud models into VW. I was wondering what the best approach would be to turn this information into a Vectorworks Terrain Model. My thought was to place 3d Loci in critical locations and use this information as the source data for a terrain model. Are there any rules of thumb or best practices for how much source data to use? Or should I place points logically, i.e, at the top of walls, and at the corners of buildings where there is no landscape? Are there any good videos showing this sort of workflow? I would imagine you don't need to sample too many points to get a fairly accurate site model...

Framing members do not auto-join. And, unfortunately, structural members have limitations when used for framing.

Why wouldn't you use the framing member and use your mullion shape as a custom profile? The glass can be a roof face with a transparent texture. I may not have modeled everything correctly in the screenshot below (project was still in conceptual design), but here is the general idea... the s

Both. I guess. I have to think about this change a bit more before, and how to adapt my existing 2d detail library to VW2026.

You are correct. You can put a 3d wall in an annotation viewport, and it maintains the components . But that doesn't solve the problem of 2D details (in a design layer) created with the wall tool.

I am trying to figure out what to do with my 2D detail library now that Vectorworks 2026 has changed how zero-height walls behave in Top Plan. In general, I support walls that act more three-dimensionally, but there are certain problems associated with this change. It would be great if some legacy version of the wall tool could be repurposed into a 2D wall and added to the Detailing Palette. When legacy files are converted to VW26, VW can display a dialogue box to convert zero-height walls to 2D walls. Doing this would provide a clear separation between 2D and 3D workflows. Going back through the years, there are many instances where I have used walls in viewport annotation layers and for 2d details. Or for when I needed parallel 2D lines that acted/connected like walls. Some consideration needs to be given to the role of 2D information in a 3D BIM context. As it is, this unexpected VW26 change will require countless hours of reformatting, and I am not sure how I will accomplish what I need to... Faced with reformatting dozens of wall types, I am at a loss as to how to fix...

The fact that the stair was developed using a German standard helps explain why things are the way they are. Thank you @Pat Stanford. I always thought there was some obscure VW software engineering limitation that was responsible for the inability to create a single riser stair. In most US jurisdictions, the IBC Commercial codes allow single riser stairs with certain safeguards and conditions. The residential building codes have even fewer restrictions. While this is just my opinion, the "nanny state" approach to the stair tool seems philosophically at odds with using "Vectorworks to Unleash Limitless Creativity." That said, I don't think software engineers (or other architects, for that matter) should be determining what is hazardous and thus permissible in BIM. Many other aspects of the VW program have no basis in accessibility or life safety codes or the fundamentals of construction. (The quasi-legacy grab bar, too, comes to mind, but there are numerous others). Why should the stairs be an exception? Hopefully, VW will fix this problem in the scheduled "Stair Reengineering" effort. Stair changes were briefly discussed during the Design Day presentation, but it wasn't exactly clear how solids modeling would impact the parametric stair workflow, or what improvements were being proposed. I was hoping that we could model our own stair solids and turn them into a stair, or add solids to a stair to make them more useful.

Yes. Unbalanced will not run. That is what happened when I used your original formula.

I always learn something from @Pat Stanford. Thank you.

Very helpful. There might be one extra parenthesis after Count. That said, I never would have figured out how to do this on my own.

Here ya go. C Bull Path Deer Fence_1 v2025 v2021.vwx

That assumes the ground is level. Most of my projects have more than one floor at ground level, which always presents a naming convention challenge.