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Do you mean, as in send it to the cloud for processing, and see if something usable comes out? Is this a faster process if you have lidar info? I've messed a bit with photogrammetry before to see how it works but I've not tried it on a device with lidar yet. I assume the lidar info is somehow combined with the photo info, by whatever app you use? Rather than it being either/or and you choose between a lidar or photo capture?

Why the intermediate step in archicad rather than straight into VW?

I'm currently considering getting an iPad (I don't have an iPhone, I am Android as far as phones go). One thing I'm trying to assess is whether getting one with LIDAR is worthwhile. Those of you who use it for this kind of stuff, does having Lidar offer a big advantage over straight photogrammetry? If so, what advantage - just generally a bit more accurate? Better in low light, longer distances, etc?

I am forever trying to work out the least worst way of dealing with these kinds of scenarios. Two possibilities: 1) Instead of making the bottom of the wall on your dotted line in the OP, and then offsetting the plasterboard component downwards from here, make the bottom of the wall the bottom of the plasterboard and offset all other components upwards from this: (there may be some reason I've not thought of why this won't work, perhaps to do with your method of joining to roof faces) 2) Draw the extra triangle of plasterboard as an extrude as previously suggested - but instead of masking the join line in annotations, tick the magic "merge with structural objects in sections" box which, despite the name, also merges the objects in elevational hidden line views. I only discovered relatively recently that this works and am never 100% sure whether it is actually supposed to work, given the name. We know that VW has a phobia of changing any terminology or tool names to something that would let users clearly understand what things are actually supposed to do, so who knows. The big downside is that it doesn't work in shaded views, as discussed here.

Yes I too am in the UK so provide no business opportunity for the OP. But it would be interesting to hear what exactly the process is for converting survey data into a VW model for similar reasons. It seems to me the surveyor would need to know quite a bit about the recipient's preferred drawing setup, in order to provide something useful. If it was me I'd probably want it supplied along with the original point cloud data too, so that I could verify how accurately it had been converted, and see how things like non-plumb walls had been handled.

^ exactly my reaction when I went onto the Affinity forums this afternoon to post a question, like I sometimes do.

Meanwhile in the land of Affinity They have decided for some reason to shut down their discussion forums. It was already known they might be going into an inevitable decline since they were bought out by Canva. Apparently there will be further announcements at the end of the month. A subscription only future?

Same in UK (20% though)

This particular survey was not one that I commissioned; it was shared with me as it already existed for the site. So I had no say in what was/wasn't included. If I had a choice I'd go for colour I think, but that's not an option now. I'm a bit limited in how much I can really ask from them. If, for example, I knew that if I imported into VW in a different format then the intensity info would become visible, then it would seem reasonable to ask them for that specific format. But the VW documentation gives me no clues about whether that would be the case. I can use it in its current form, it just would be nicer to have it in colour because it would be easier to extract info from it.

So following some discussion with the surveyor, it turns out that the e57 file I was sent doesn't actually have any colour info. What it does have is "intensity" info and when I thought I was seeing colour info in cloudcompare, I was actually seeing intensity info (as I understand it, it's a measure of how strong the reflected lidar signal is, so is related to reflectivity, but it helps quite a lot with visualisation because it picks out different materials and makes things like brick coursing visible). Unfortunately it seems that VW is unable to show this info in an imported point cloud, even though it's there. As far as I can see, there is no mention of this intensity info anywhere in the VW help documentation. It would be very useful if displaying by intensity info was an option within VW.

There's a thread here collecting together many issues with door & window objects: https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/64381-window-and-door-tool-maturity/

You've reminded me to update the "no new features" thread title to the 2027 edition. Not long until it can celebrate its 10th birthday.

By this logic, I don't "need" the stair tool. 75% of the time I end up drawing stairs manually because the stair tool can't do what I want it to. So it's not "required" but if we had a stair tool that did what I want it to, then I'd use it and I'd save time doing so. There are a bunch of tools that if they worked properly could potentially save me lots of time - really lots of time, at least tens of hours a year - and time is money. One person's Shiny Object might be another's Huge Time Saver. As I see it the problem is more about New Things being introduced while last year's New Things still don't work properly and so we end up with a load of Potentially Really Useful But They Still Don't Work Properly Things.

Although... I'd say that's true for VW as well to some extent, but of course for an existing user that investment has already been made.

Another way... - Place the 3d symbol (from the VW libraries or wherever) into a drawing - Right-click the symbol and choose "edit 2d components" - In the component edit dialogue that appears, choose (for example) "left" - This will show you the "left" 2d component which will most likely be empty - right-click in the drawing area* and choose "generate 2d from 3d component" and choose hidden line, and it'll create the 2d view for you as a group which you can then copy & paste. *is there some other, more intuitive way to get to this command? Right clicking in a blank drawing area is hardly easily discoverable.

Thanks for all these, interesting to look at. What I'd be really interested to see would be a video showing what a proper set of 2d architectural construction drawings looks like in Rhino. That's one of the strengths of VW of course. Probably rhino is a nicer environment to actually do 3d modelling but what about the nuts & bolts of putting a proper set of 2d drawings together, and then managing them. For example in one of those videos I watched them show how to add a title & scale to a viewport... manually, by typing out the scale as a text block. Does this mean there's not the equivalent of VW's drawing label object (and all the associated drawing coordination tied to it)?

My understanding is that a vss renewal in October 2024 runs for a year and therefore entitles you to a VW2026 perpetual licence when it's released in september 2025. I think what you're saying is that if you're switching to the subscription model then you might as well wait until september 2026 and start it running from then. However... I think that if you're on vss then the offer to "switch" gets you onto the subscription track at a reduced cost compared to the list price (because it's being offered at "only" 8% increase or whatever). I am assuming that if you simply let the VSS lapse and then enter into the subscription arrangement at some later date of your choosing, you sacrifice that discount on the list price. I'd quite like to have that clarified though. It's all complicated somewhat by the uncertainty about whether the list price is the "real" price that you get offered if you make enquiries and are presented with some set of complicated discounts. And if you do, what will they be and will they change. This I have to say I find rather irritating. It seems like there's a constant obfuscation of the real price, presumably to make transparent comparisons with the competition difficult. It's not only VW that does this of course.

I've tried it in 2025 and 2026. The colour scale settings except for "original" work fine, because they colour according to elevation. What doesn't work is displaying the points with their original image colours so that different surfaces and materials are visible. They are all just shown as black.

If any .e57 file *should* import fine with colour info then I am wondering if I should report this as a bug. There is no real way for me to know if the problem is to do with how it was exported. But the fact that it opens fine in the CloudCompare software suggests that the problem might be with VW.

It would be useful if the VW Help documentation gave some guidance on what the best format is, for importing into VW. I'd then request specifically that format from surveyors.

Some clues may be in this post, from someone having the same problem in Rhino: https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/e57-point-cloud-loaded-in-rhino-loses-colors/85387 I've tried doing what is suggested there, altering in Cloud Compare. Only with partial success (I manage to get a kind of grayscale image). For now I've asked the person who sent me the file if they can try a different format.

It's in class "none" but attributes are not by class. The point cloud object does have a black pen attribute, but changing this makes no difference. If I understand correctly though, the pen attribute should not be relevant as long as I have "original" ticked under color scale in the OIP?

Have just double checked and no, I don't have this preference on.

I have been sent a point cloud in .e57 format, which I can successfully import into Vectorworks, but it shows up all as black points. I know that the file must contain colour information, because I tried opening it in cloudcompare and the colour info was there. Is there any way I can get it into VW with the colour info?

Have to say I've never been quite clear about what it means to be on the "3d plane". After all, a plane is by definition 2d. Does it actually mean "not on the layer plane"?