propstuff

Not Quite Peter. I tried this when sculpting first became available, and it works only for a *section* of an individual wall. Wall sculpting does not work properly (as noted in the help) all the way to the end of an individual wall. It does not work when you have multiple walls and corners. N.

when you place the dimension, snap it to the end or corner points of the walls, not somewhere in the middle. If it has associated properly you will see a little box at each insertion point

Select the light and open the Data tab of the Object info pallette. at the top

Dan, What you were turning on in the preferences is not "a Background". Look up "Backgrounds" and "lit fog" in the help files to see what they are and how to apply them. Try making a 2 colour Background with Black as the top colour and dark grey as the bottom colour and apply that to the Layer. Note "Lit fog" usually takes lots of fiddling (for me) to get a satisfactory setting. I know nothing much about Spotlight and lighting rigs, but in your file all but your spandex LX were turned off and therefore not showing. Turn on maybe 5 of them and re render in Final Quality I would stay away from the human figure if you can. It takes huge amounts of rendering resources and looks ugly. In this image is a "Person shaped" 3D Polygon with a semi transparent texture applied. (Lit Fog is also visible near the Dichroics)

Light sources dont actually "glow" Look at the Library of Electrical-Accurate Lamps in the Objects-Building Services folder. These are a light object inside a "shape" object. If you model the body of a LED symbol (say a sphere) and apply the Lamp Material texture to it then place the light object inside that (then make a Symbol of both the body and the Light) you should get something like you want. N.

You will probably find the native door and window tools hiding under the Windoor icon. Windoor (and other usefull bits) is supplied free with the Au version of Architect

Although you are rendering with FastRW with shadows there are no apparent shadows in your scene. This suggests there are no lights to cast shadows apart from the line lights on the fabric. (?) From the images I would suggest the following: *Use Final Quality or Custom RW with Final Gather *Put the entire scene in a black box so it doesn't look like it's floating in space. OR use a Black (or alternate) Background. *Put some lights in (perhaps spots from the truss) better if they are the sort of LX you plan for the show, but even one directional light pointing not quite down will be better than nothing. *Use Lit Fog on the spots. This will increase render time a lot, but give a much more satisfying result. The links are to a set model I did for a friend. The LX are not actually plotted; just there to indicate the general effect for the team. You can see in picture 6 the effect of the Lit Fog. In the other shots are variations. good luck

All of the different rendering modes need to have the light adjusted to suit them individually. I've always assumed that Radiosity is brighter because the surfaces are receiving light more than once (from the bounces), but this could be entirely false. Using Custom Radiosity and turning up the size (>0.5m) and down the energy and accuracy settings(<65%) can make a huge difference in time with "relatively little" difference in visible result. HDRIs do add lots of time, but the shadows and reflections for exteriors and objects are so much nicer. ;-)

Note also that you may have to apply other constraints to stop the A and B circles from moving out of position. IE make the C circle fit *to* A and B

But did it "shrink" the texture/image at the poles to fit it in Dan?

Are the render modes and settings for the DLVP and SLVP exactly the same? BTW you can make very nice grass textures (for longer distance views) from the "Granite" shader by changing the sizes and all the colours to greens and a brown or so. This has the huge advantage of having to tiling lines at all

Have you tried using HDRI backgrounds for lighting and skies? Longer render times but much better shadows These are old tests from some years ago with free HDRIs I found on the interblog

Orlando, Interiors are extremely difficult to light well, and no solution will suit all views of even the same scene. Even changing views changes the way light effects everything. I have found that using one Directional light for the sun and Area Lights filling the windows to represent the "atmospheric" light give the best simple approximation of sunlight coming in through a window. Other fill lights with low intensity can be added to help the illusion of light bouncing around the room In addition using Custom renderworks with Final Gather usually helps (but can slow up render times) The attached were done with Radiosity on a fairly coarse setting (for speed) but you can get "most" of the same effect with Custom and Final gather set at about 1m and 50% In Picture 26 there is A directional light 500 Lux for the sun An Area light in the window 1000 Lux Smooth falloff An area light behind the view point for fill 80 Lux smooth falloff no shadows An area light on the other side of the island bench for fill against the far wall 250 Lux sharp fall off shadows on Ambient 26% In Picture 18 it's much the same but with another Area light placed on the floor where the sun hits it 200 Lux smooth falloff no shadows to provide the reflected "glow" from the floor reflection. All of these extra lights are to improve the details of the way the light falls in the room. Start with putting area lights in the windows. Some people use HDRI's as lighting as well as a Sun, and Final Gather in Custom RW or Radiosity, but I've not had reliable success with this approach personally. good luck

What symbol was this Eric? Was it one you made or one from a VW library?

The inability of CNC software to deal with splines seems universal at least here in Au. I'm guessing modern CNC machines can do it, but the profile cutters here all seem to have stuck with their 1995 V1.0 Toolpath and don't wish to pay the $20K to get a new one. Have a look at this: http://scs-inc.us/default.php?page=products&subPage=Products/CAD~CAM~CNC/Default I've not tried it yet but.............. Can you post a sample of what you're trying to convert?

Yes this is a bit of a pain. The "smoothing" commands don't actually "smooth" so much as just *convert* existing verticies. Having a much higher vertex count than would otherwise be necessary will give better fidelity when converting from Beziers or Cubic Splines- at the cost of a much bigger pain in editing. I personally prefer drawing curves with Cubic Splines but gave up on this for CNC profile cutting and just draw with Arc Verticies from the start. The Tangent Arc mode in th Polyline tool makes this not too bad a prospect.

The "Simplify polys" script at this location might help you. I've used it many many times in the past and I think still worked with 2009 at least. (doesn't work inside groups) http://www.tecnoview.com.br/aec/vector_script_freebies.html

Some of this is out of date and many people will have other ways of doing things, but here's a start INTRODUCTION The usual way to set up an Architectural file is to place different elements (eg 1st floor, 2nd floor etc) of the building on different layers so that element?s visibility can be turned on and off as needed. With Vectorworks, there is the added advantage that the building elements can be assigned to their correct heights via the Layer set up. For this Model we will assume that the floor level is 800 above the ground level and we will refer to the top of the floor framing as 0.00 height) This is not the only way a file could be set up: Most Architectural users develop their own systems and standards to suit their own Practice. TASK 1: PREPARE A FILE FOR A HOUSE MODEL. PURPOSE:To practice using layer heights. 1/ Open a new file. Set the Layer Visibility Options to ?Show/Snap Others?. In the first Design Layer, set the layer scale to 1:100. Set the Units to mm and the precision for General Display and Primary Dimensions to ?1? (not the default ?0.1?) Call the layer ?GROUND?. Set it?s Z height to -1200 and its ?Z to 400. This will represent the thickness of the ground that the building is sitting on, and can be made any suitable thickness as desired. 2/ Make a new layer called FOOTINGS. Set it?s Z height to -800 and its ?Z to 800. 3/ Make a new layer called WALLS. Set it?s Z height to 0 and its ?Z to 2700. ☺ As you make new layers with a Z height set, Vectorworks will automatically make the next layer start at the Z height of the previous Layer in the Layers Pallette, and make the ?Z the same as the last one. You can keep doing this for as many storeys as you need. Sometimes this is convenient, and sometimes it?s not. Make sure your Layer heights are the way you want them to be for the particular project you are working on.. 4/ Make a new layer called ROOF. Set it?s Z height to 0 and it?s ?Z to 0. The Roof layer has it?s Z height set to 0 because the height of the roof is set separately in the Create Roof dialogue When working in a Design Layer; any walls, symbols, extrudes etc that you place are put in at a height of ?0.00? (IE on the ?ground Plane?) for that layer. ☺ Also; after you have set the Layer Z height, any walls you draw in a particular layer will automatically be made at that layer Z height. When this is done, the individual design layers can be used to contain the separate Levels of the overall structure. Different levels can be turned off for clarity when working on the job. Because the layers in Vectorworks are ?independent? of each other, If you change your 3D view of a layer, or render it, the other layers will stay where their own view was set. Often you will want to refer to other plan layers when working. In order to make them all line up to match the active Layer you can choose View> Align Layer Views. (NOTE this option may not be in the Workspace you are using. If it isn?t, and you want it; it can be added with the Workspace Editor) ☹ Because all the individual Layers have been working from ?0.00? Z height, all the layers will overlap if viewed in one of the Side views. Now what is needed is a way to see the whole model and render it. TASK 1 Part 2a : USE ?STACK LAYERS? TO VIEW THE MODEL. PURPOSE: To Connect up and view all the parts of the Model. If you have used the Layer Z heights when setting up the file, you can easily view the entire model using the ?Stack Layers? button. 1/ Go to View>Stack Layers or use the Stack Layers button in the Menu bar. ☺ You will now have the whole model ?hooked together? with the different Layers assembled at their correct heights and all in the same orientation. The Model can be rendered, spun around etc. Which ever layer is active will be sitting on the Ground Plane and the others will be above and below it in the appropriate places. ☹ The Stack Layers function is primarily for displaying the model. You can only work in the Active layer, and some of the functions are not enabled when stack layers is turned on. ☺ If you set any of the layers to ?Grey? visibility(eg the roof), it will render as mostly transparent, and you will be able to see the other parts of the model through it. TASK 2: PREPARE A HOUSE MODEL. PURPOSE: To practice using multiple layers to create an Architectural Model. Your file has been set up and now you will be making a house model in it. 1/ Start with the ?Ground? layer and make a circular extrusion about 150m dia and 400 thick (the Z height of the layer you set up) Colour it green. 2/ Change to the ?Footings? Layer and select a wall style you want for the house. Draw the exterior walls for the footprint of the house (about 10m X 15m) These will automatically come out at 800 high if the file was set up and ?Link Wall height to Layer Z? is selected in the OIP. Use AEC> Create Polys from Walls, then AEC>Floor commands to make the floor. You want it to come out flush with the top of the 800 high footings (and at the bottom of the Walls), so you can set the Bottom Z of 700 and a Thickness of 100 3/ Change to the ?Walls? Layer and trace the outside of the footings layer to produce the outside Walls. You can also just duplicate the walls from the footings layer and move them to the Walls layer. if the Z heights are set up correctly they will automatically pick up the correct height for taht layer. 4/ Select the Outside walls and choose AEC> Create Roof. There are many settings there to experiment with. Ensure that the Bearing Height is set to the height of the walls, and the Layer is set to the Roof Layer you created. ☺ You will now have the whole model ?hooked together? if the Stack layers is turned on. The Model can be rendered, spun around etc. 5/ Once you have the building shell complete; fill in the interior walls, doors windows etc.

I tried a Rounded Rectangle from Illustrator CS3 Yes, they get smashed, however what appeared to happen was that verticies which should have been arcs got turned into corners. PS it also turned it into 2 identical Polys (as well as the bitmap parts etc.) Using the 2D reshape tool to convert the errant corner verticies and the other curve verticies (which were Beziers) to Arcs made it *appear* correct

Indeed! but things did change with the start of the Parasolids implementation including filletting, (2D and 3D), export integrity etc. Note: the limitation of exporting only arc/ corner vertex polys for lasercutting etc is more a limitation of the ancient CNC software still widely in use rather than anything else.

Don, If you edit the flouro light symbol you were using, you will probably find light object/s in there. Their light settings will probably set to Sharp Fallloff. Change these to Smooth Falloff and see what happens.

Create a new texture with an Image Transparency Draw the perf pattern you want in VW (or other program). Cut the pattern at the repeat points in both directions for tiling. Export the image at exactly the size of the trimmed pattern. Create the texture using that image. It works a treat. N.

Try Bob Wagner's unfolding plugin at http://vectorwiki.org/index.php?title=Geometry_Plug-ins

Would that program start with "Re" and end with "er"? :-) Thanks Raymond, thats a big help. cheers, N.

I have received a model consisting of a bazillion linear (2 vertex) 3D polys. I want to find the length of some of them, but none of the Engineering or 3D properties tools will yield their length. Would anyone have a script which would return the true length of a 3D poly? TIA, N.