Jeff Prince

I think vectorworks hasn’t advanced on that, but it will import LiDAR files, which is what was used to make the DEM in all likelihood. If you can’t get the source LiDAR used to make the DEM, you could convert the DEM into contours in QGIS or contours/point/surface in Rhino (with grasshopper routine).

It works great once you find good folks. I got my best hook up from one of our project partners (a knighted architect of airports). Architecture is becoming like manufacturing in the 80s & 90s… outsource to the countries with cheap labor to extract more profit.

If you will be doing this on a regular basis, seems like a good candidate for Marrionette. Otherwise, you are modeling the fin assembly manually and using a wall style to depict the wall it will attach to as you indicated. You could have a component in the wall object to depict the maximum extents of these fins for 2D depiction or convert your modeled parts to auto hybrids if something more accurate is required.

@Kevin K perhaps you should create a kickstarter to see if you can get it off the ground. just put AI in the description and some venture capitalist will just give you all the money you need. My group killed the idea before we got that far. It was a fun study during the pandemic, so not a total loss 🙂 In regards to you question where I find $5 modelers. I found mine through projects and relationships, but you can find similar on the various outsourcing websites. It seems there are a lot of Vectorworks modelers in SE Asia for some reason. The only problem is the software piracy thing…. Revit folks are plentiful and faster.

It would be nice but…. Too niche to be economically viable, at least that’s what a few of us decided during the pandemic. Most manufactures don’t seem interested in providing native vectorworks content, but will sometimes pay people to develop Revit objects & libraries. I think you know where the rendering market’s preferences are and it ain’t VWX. I have a few Revit contacts that that do contract work for manufactures, it’s pretty low paying and frequently offshored from what I understand. Same thing for arch viz, it seems like all the big firms are outsourcing to SE Asia and Eastern Europe. All that equals a race to the bottom in terms of fees. I can pay someone $5 to model any object I want from a sketch or photograph for less time/money than me browsing google or the resource manager… Ali Baba of digital assets.

The safest way to use auto save is by # of operations and keeping the reminder on. Yes, it is initially annoying to dismiss the reminder (every 20 operations in my case), but it is less annoying than losing work.

Yes, when the workgroup > 1, it becomes harder to control. What about using some templates to fix those issues? The Project Sharing style highlighting would be cool, maybe the Magic Wand could be updated to enhance the highlighting functionality, that is much needed.

I’m not following you logic here. Why would you need to copy anything in the existing system? You just set up a master layer to control the common items and share with the option layers. it would be nice to have dependent layers collapsible in the stack compared to the current method like: Floor01-Master Floor01-Opt1 Floor01-Opt2 Floor01-Opt3

Thankfully.

I haven't been a fan of the Home Screen on hardly any program I use, but I guess it is the way of the future as OS function awareness decreases rapidly. Prior to Vectorworks creating their version, I just made a search query and saved it to the sidebar of finder (on a Mac here, I assume windows has a similar functionality). It's more powerful and makes up for the shortcomings with the Home Screen when it comes to previewing and opening up containing folders for other purposes. Plus, it can see your network and portable drives and present those recents too, assuming they are reconnected. Vectorworks forgets they exist the first time you launch and the drive is not connected. And here's one way it can look 🙂 One handy thing about this is you can make it report it report .pdfs generated by Vectorworks at the same time... This is handy for finding plots that may have been dropped off in the wrong location. Different strokes for different folks I guess. I didn't get serious about usingMac OS until 2016, so it's not hard 🙂

Typically, this behavior is caused by a layer or class being turned off in the viewport, but you say this is not the case. It sounds like you are doing everything correctly. Mac or PC?

Nice work! FYI, all that furniture is actually “off the rack” rather than “bespoke” 🙂 Great word as long as it ‘B spoke’ in a British accent.

That’s interesting. Governments at all levels don’t seem to have a problem paying Autodesk or ESRI subscriptions. These software companies are effectively extortion ring when they can change government policy to their advantage.

Nice catch

Compare the record definition of the misbehaving symbol vs one that is working. Are they the same record definition or different? It looks like your name and weight records are not set to the correct data type. A file by would help with further troubleshooting.

here’s one method… https://university.vectorworks.net/course/info.php?id=284

Are you just doing 2D illustration or trying to make hardscapes? If the latter, draw the centerline of the sidewalk using the Polyline Tool, probably Arc Tangent Mode the best, and layout your centerlines. Then, right click on the polyline, select Create Objects from Shapes, and pick the hardscape option. That works well for sidewalks of uniform width, which sounds like what you are after. When it comes to tangent arc designs with intersecting arcs, you just have to lay out the shapes the old fashion way and convert to hardscapes after the layout is complete.

I think Vectorworks will be happiest if the retaining modifier looks more like this (forgive the poor sketch from my phone)… That’s how it’s done for real too and will result in more accurate calcs for excavation. Site models can’t have tunnels or overhangs, so if you need to calc and/or show that backfill against the wall, you can model it.

You should only need one, unless I am misunderstanding your situation. I’m your images, it appears as if the site modifier needs to be reshaped.

Be careful what you wish for when it comes to “improving” the user interface. There are literally a 1000 more important things to fix with this software. The teapot iconography has a fairly universal understanding and is historically relevant to multiple softwares.

You can model the footings with a wall style specifically for that object. You can adjust the retaining site modifier to suite your purpose as well. Then you just create walls on to of those footings using an appropriate style.

That’s probably your best solution if you aren’t going to invest in training or contacting technical support with your issue. Sounds like a workspace issue.

Just make a backup copy of your modified database on a regular basis and you should be good. Also, store it in a location other than the default location and tell Vevtorworks where to look for it. This can be handy if you need to share it between multiple workstations and have a network.

it sounds like you have your image editor set to the wrong color profile or the image you downloaded was saved with the incorrect one. Verify it is set to sRGB before importing into Vectorworks and you should be good. This happens with aerial photos and other image based resources too, so something to be aware of.

the first plant looks like a 2D plane, hence the flat appearance. the second plant is an actual 3D model.