To further complicate this discussion while I wander around trying to focus on the subject, a portrait lense is typically regarded to be about 80 mm when used on a 35 mm camera. Thus, the Vectorworks "Normal" setting would be too narrow (or slightly telephoto) to represent what people are generally credited with being able to see. As said by another, that's similar to a 50 mm lense. (When a photographer uses a standard 50 mm lense to take someone's portrait, the person's nose may be disproportionately enlarged ... and people don't like that since smaller noses are more popular.... so that's why they prefer the portrait lense.) Back to verifying if your image is 'normal.' A normal scene typically represents a 60 degree viewing angle. Of course people can see much wider (closer to 180 degrees, if their nose isn't too big and blocks some of the center of their view :-) )... so we use 'normal' to distinguish our more detailed field of view instead of the broader view with peripheral vision. It isn't too hard to display a 60 degree angle on your site plan for the planning commission, and to correlate that with your illustration. But I suspect any planning commissioner raising this issue will never be really satisfied by an answer, since the entire concept is hard to pin down. Just smile and point to your work as being accurate.
