Poot

Hi All, I am getting a handle on the VECC tool, and am wondering how many have used it outside of the UK? The default/template is developed around the RICS standards for LCA in the UK, which uses a 60 year time horizon, while most of Europe/Scandinavia uses a 50 year timeline. I dont know if I fully understand whether this is reflected in the computation of values within the VECC spreadsheet, but appreciate any insight from those who have used it. In theory, it could be that the 60 year period isnt reflected in any calculations, if you enter the # of times a product/material must be renewed (a.k.a. phase B4 in LCA)...but I could be misunderstanding things.

Back on the topic actively now, and going to build up a simple library of materials since I am doing a large product database from EPD's for my office (I am currently the only person using VW, and not officially for our projects). I am just wondering if either @Luka Stefanovic or @Marketa Hermova know if the 60 year RICS lifespan makes a difference for general calculations outside of the B4-phase replacement cycle, and if there is any way to change this lifespan? In Denmark (and scandinavia/Germany) we are on a 50-year lifespan for LCA calculations. For my examples, we are just covering A1-A3, B4 plus C3-C4. The use case for my office will start for early phase, mostly with large-scale and masterplan sized projects and mostly on landscape side of things. Adding the relevant EPD data to the materials aspect is fairly straight-forward - but it would be nice to avoid any miscalculations! Thanks in advance 🙂

If I recall correctly, if you set up the retaining edge with grade limits, and update the site model before you 'send to surface', it will grade like a normal pad as you showed.

Check out this thread below. You can turn your site model into a mesh that you can cut a hole in. Otherwise, you can't currently have an open hole cut out within a site model. Basically, once you make your site model, you can right click on it and ungroup it, turning it into a mesh. You can then use an extruded shape to, and subtract that from the mesh to get your hole. You can keep a site model within that hole if you want, but sounds like you just want something simple. Shout out to @Benson Shaw for the process.

I had a similar issue with exporting some site boundaries to DWG, where the results were similar to your 2nd picture in that new and strange arcs were created in the DWG production. Since my geometry was two complicated boundaries, I ended up decomposing them (aka. exploding the polyline) and this seemed to avoid the issue. Seems like a bug, as there is no way you could practically do this in normal project geometries - or should have to.

Right! Thanks for the tip! These shapes are originally coming from Rhino, which often leads to issues when moving from Nurbs over to polygons/polylines. I redrew some of the shapes to get polylines (for long arcs) but didnt do all of them. Could also be an issue when using the polygon area fill in a nurbs curve. Would be nice to be able to go straight from Nurbs to polylines, but not the root issue here and still has its own challenges to represent nurbs curves in nice ways.

Hmm... I can get tjhem all to display black by checking 'pitched roof'.....which is nice, but not really what we want in this situation. THey revert to the same when that option is un checked.

Hi All, I have made some simple massing models from a variety of closed polylines/polygons. some of them display solid fill, while others don't - for no reason I can figure out (shapes are closed, settings the same, etc) I attached a file with the objects and original shapes - so if anyone can figure it out, just let me know! Thanks 🙂 POOT Massing Model problem.vwx

Yes, the internal origin needs to be close by for the needs of the program to function well of course. Changing the user origin is useful - either to correspond to internal origin when sharing drawings with architects who work in local/project coordinates - or to have user origin correspond with world/geographic coordinate system origin when sharing/exporting the drawing with engineers, planners, etc. in these cases, it's by changing the user origin that you alter the origin in the exported drawings. I guess my assumption that AutoTurn Online recognized the user origin rather than internal origin was wrong! But it makes sense.

I guess I thought I could change the user origin on export to have a closer 0,0 - as one might do when exporting drawings with different origins for collaboration - but it seems that autoturn Online only reads coordinates via the internal origin. I just had to create a new blank file with an internal origin close by, and copy the geometry in again - then it works.

Was there any update on this??

Member 196 Posted yesterday at 01:27 PM I am just wondering if anyone else has had the issue with Autoturn Online as shown below - where the geometry is completely unusable and distorted. I have tried various options, changing the internal origin, user origin, etc. within the drawing, but I cant get better results. I tried pasting the same geometry in a blank new file at the 0,0, which gives me something usable. I am not sure what the best workflow is to avoid these issues - given that I don't want to be moving my origins around existing drawings just for Autoturn! I've uploaded a copy of the file. Any ideas? POOT Autoturn Test.vwx

I am just wondering if anyone else has had the issue with Autoturn Online as shown below - where the geometry is completely unusable. I have tried various options, changing the internal origin, user origin, etc.... but to no avail. I tried pasting the same geometry in a blank new file at the 0,0, and I get something usable. I am not sure what the best workflow is - given that I don't want to be moving my origins around just for Autoturn! I've uploaded a copy of the file. Any ideas? POOT Autoturn Test.vwx

Depends a bit on how the foundations of the house are going to be constructed. If it is basically a large slab foundation with some subgrade excavation, and extra excavation for waterproofing on the non-walkout sides, it should work to use either a simple slab/pad as the site modifier (taking into account the subgrade). The main difference will be how you aplpy the retaining edge of the pad, where 'fit the retaining edge' follows the surface most accurately for calculations You can use a massing model with the site modifier turned on to get the basic house model/floors showing as well as a basic slab (same as elevated pad site modifiers I believe) and this will give you cut/fill on the site model that you can change according to different elevations/options, or you can keep the site modifier option off and model more accurately with a specific site modifier. You can also make site model snapshots that capture each option, which is useful to show them all together if needed visually. If you were needing to model cut fill of complicated footings (e.g. T shaped) then I think you are out of luck as I havent seen this capability in VW. Maybe too much info here 🙃

I 2nd @Jeff Prince in saying that its best practice to wait a while until you have a solid understanding before one starts messing with defaults of class creation that come with plug-in objects and symbols(plants, hardscapes, etc). Of course you can adjust graphic attributes for the classes, and control which ones are visible in many ways - but you can also get very far just with slight mods, before editing the details of the plugin options themselves. This video might help: INDUSTRY CLASS AND LAYER USE AND ORGANIZATION While I think the VW University is great, it can be hard to find the discipline specific info or help. I figured that since you had a lot of different questions, it thought it might help to check into either something like the Core Certification course, or alternatively something like the Core Concepts course (which has a section on Drawing Organization that covers classes and layers) to fill some of the gaps. While they take a lot of time (8-16 hours) these have given me a pretty strong base. Not sure how long you've been using VW - but I got the impression it wasn't super long - so forgive me if I'm mistaken! and my favourite most simple intro vid to classes/layers,