Jeff Prince

@zoomer doesn't it seem Vectorworks w/C4D is the one at a disadvantage here with regards to being connected to a greater ecosystem of modeling and rendering? Modelers like Blender, Sketchup, and Rhino have many rendering engines they support and integrate with. Where those of us who model in Vectorworks have fewer choices and more difficult workflows when we are required by client/collaborators to move our work into other software environments. Exports like: Vectorworks to Sketchup? Vectorworks to ArchiCAD? far from seamless. Lots of export formats kick out 3D only, leaving textures behind. That's kinda painful. It's still not flawless moving from Vectorworks into Twinmotion, which has sync and support from both vendors, yet fails on many fronts. It's getting better, but still... I can see why several of my Vectorworks architects still use Sketchup for their conceptual work.

You are hitting a bunch of topics all at once. You should probably try the Materials workflow if you want your 2D and 3D to match all the time. Using the Hardscape tool's Joint feature with Textures doesn't work the way you would like to.

No, you have to do that manually. The 2D and 3D need to behave separately... 2D needs are driven by plans at various scales while 3D needs are typically driven by rendering or diagrams.

You will likely reconsider this the first time you accidentally turn off Autosaving. People usually don’t notice this happened until disaster strikes. The reminder creates some piece of mind that your backup will probably be there when you need it.

@DDD How about changing the modifiers for your cheekwalls to retaining modifiers, deleting your riser/retaining modifiers, adding tread/pad modifiers? Attached is an example. rw modifiers.vwx

@Pat Stanford I know I've seen this before and I seem to remember you having the solution.

Did someone claim that wasn’t possible? How are you going to develop thickness though 🙂

grab the vertices you want to reposition and use the 3D dragger to get them positioned. All the connected faces and edges vine along for the ride.

I agree. That's why I keep mentioning Rhino, Sketchup, Blender, Scaniverse, Recap .... 🙂 Vectorworks, jack of all trades, but the master of none.

I'm done demonstrating these new workflows only for Virtual Möbius Donut to kill the mood 🙂 This forum is becoming a place of despair instead of innovation.

Yes, Edit Subdivision, Add Edge. if the object has thickened, you’ll have to add an edge for each face, typically.

There are a lot of good ways to do this in VWX or Rhino, it depends on if you are documenting something that is already figured out or designing and developing the form. If the latter, SubD with iteration set to 0 is a quick and easy way to make these shapes. I find it best to use SubD when I'm designing something and sculpting it as I go since it's essentially a parametric mesh or digital clay. Iteration 0 keeps it planar, which works for @suz's project. The SubD editor has a provision for extruding, but I prefer to make a rectangle, extrude it, and convert it to a SubD. I can then add creases and combine vertices to create the form. It's easier if you break the shapes down into simple pieces and combine them rather than try to do an element as one continuous SubD. Although, it's possible to go crazy with them... https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/98446-subdivision-challenge/#comment-444459 I posted a bunch of useful information about Rhino SubD on this thread, if you ignore the naysayer. https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/107517-vectorworks-vs-rhino-3d-vs-home-depot/#comment-468312 It took me longer to write this post than to make the attached example, which is pretty typical with SubD 🙂

Turn it into a 3D face or extrude it. Then you can apply a texture to it.

What tool did you use to model the floor, aka, what type of object is it listed as in the OIP? generally, if you select your object and change it’s attributes to “byclass” you can use the class settings to control the graphics and textures. If it it a complex object, you might have to use component settings.

I guess the take away here is you can take your advice from people in the trenches that know how the tools work, or people who play with trenches and software that is not Vectorworks. Either way is viable, one is useful for achieving the stated goal.

@demetris ktorides That's why I provided the second technique. DTMs are really just a model of the top facing surface, the sides and bottoms are just provided as a frameworks to help depict the top surface. This might change in the future, but it's a good way to think about it in the mean time. So, if you actually need a DTM for the portion of the site that will sit over an irregular roof, you might want to use a similar technique to what I describe in this thread... The recommended deviation... use the DTM with out a skirt to represent the ground surface for the purpose of receiving plants and other DTM specific workflows. Also, where I mention export/import to AutoCAD, you can simply take a copy of the DTM and ungroup it to get the contours, which is a handy trick for a lot of things,I didn't know that in 2019 when that I wrote that post 🙂 Then, use the solid modeling tools tool to sculpt the volume you are interested in depicting which exists above the roof. This gives you the best of both worlds and allows you to calculate volumes above structure.

You can likely create a passable site model just using the data on following classes: Kaikki objektit StakeOutStringStructure_ StakeOutStringTopLevel_ This will get you pretty close to a good solution without any editing. Then you can can go in and delete the messes around the intersections and such, if required Adding the site data, which you have not provided, will fill in the areas between roads, presumably. Then, you can graphically depict the roads by convert the meshes representing the topmost surface to 2D polys. Once you have added those together, you could convert it to texture beds for mapping to the site model surface... depending on your desired workflow and outcome. Just the layers mentioned will produce something like this: Without editing, you get errors at the intersections, though it did a nice job with the swales along the roads and cuts into the presumed hillsides adjacent to the road. Converting the road meshes to polys and then to texture bed site modifiers will give the a semblance of a road pretty quickly. The same strategy could be used for the texture of the roadway cut slopes and swales to depict vegetation, cut stone, etc.

That's why I keep telling people to post a file... the solution jumps of the screen typically.

You could draw a poly of the plan view shape of these two conditions and extrude those new shapes and Add the resulting solids. or You could push/pull the background shape forward and curved pieces backwards. Then, grab the resulting geometry and use Intersect to create geometry where the two occupy the same space. The latter should work, depending on how you created the geometry, but I think the former is a better method.

You don't. Accessories only work on Roofs, not Roof Faces. See help menu and/or tutorials on the subject.

Nice wall @zoomer😉 Good catch @Tom W.

How you approach this depends on the desired end result. It's difficult to provide helpful guidance without knowing where your site is within this roadway context and what data you have to represent that surface. Based on your most recent post, it looks like you just want to add the roads for visual rendering purposes, not for construction documentation. Is that correct? When you look really close at this roadway data, there is a lot of conflicting geometry. The swales next the road for instance, their geometry is not valid where two roads intersect. Then there are problems with the road surfaces where they intersect, sometimes meeting at unequal camber. I would ask the roadway person for a point file representing the topmost surface of the areas of interest and then just map 2D graphics to the site model to texture the roads and related structures, assuming it's not that important.

Select the roof. Look at the OIP. Add the Roof accessories by hitting the appropriate button in the OIP.

Based on all the problems people have been having with 3DConnexion drivers, I wouldn't buy another one of their products until they start dealing with things in a timely fashion.

Or they could just post a file with the offending objects and the guessing game could come to a tidy conclusion 🙂