VIRTUALENVIRONS

HI Tom Your statement is correct and I appreciate that you have pointed out that using Vectorworks in its intended hybrid 3D form is a skill level all of its own. I never really took that into account. My background is mechanical design, but I am also a trained technical/patent illustrator, pen and ink. In 1985 there was little choice for CAD design on the first little square Mac's, but I modelled an F-16 on one, sent it to Dheil Graphsoft because it was crashing the program. They called back, explained I was out of RAM, but I never paid for MiniCad or Vectorworks during my career. They used my work through the years even up to 2017 and last year I wrote tutorials for them. By MiniCad 4, they were going Architectural, but still wanted a hand in other 3D areas of engineering and I gave them that. For example, when America first went to Mars, they radar mapped its surface. The Godard space centre sent me that data to see what we could do with it. I reconstructed a 3D crater in MiniCad from that data and presented that work in a talk at the 1992 San Francisco MacWorld exposition. Even before the Vectorworks/CINEMA 4D combination became a thing, I used them together via DXF (~2001). C4D also supplied free software to me at that time. From 2001 to 2006 I led three Federally funded Historical restoration projects where a knowledge of Architecture was critical, but wall and roofs were not. Below is a low res animation (high for the time) of the Grand Trunk Union Railway Station Ottawa Ontario, circa 1932. I led a team of College students to reconstruct it in 2000. The movie is nearly a quarter century old. This is a hybrid, mostly Vectorworks, but the ornate column tops are C4D, but the pocketed ceiling is VW's. As I have mentioned perhaps too many times, the VW's/C4D combination is amazing. Anyways, that is how it all started.

Hi Francois, (I enjoy this conversation and your expertise) Depicting Jet fighter combat is tricky. It's not like 1917 when the pilots could literally throw rocks at each other. Today it's 1000 mph and miles apart mostly. Although I am retired for nearly. 20 years I have continued to do things pro bono that are in the National Interest in Canada. In 2018 I put together a team of aviation experts on the legendary AVRO Arrow. Authors, Air Force General, Aeronautical engineers and a jet engine specialist. They supplied the expertise, engineering, flight and historical knowledge. I did all the modelling in Vectorworks except for characters and a few other things in C4D. All the animation in C4D. It is heavy on pyroclastic and Dynamics. I only used what came with C4D, no plugins, etc. and iMovie to put it together. There are twelve episodes that tally close to six hours. Below is the Trailer to Episode 6. I was too cheap to buy music, so I am playing the piano on this trailer.

Unfortunately I haven't a clue what Chaos Scatter is. Wish I did. Thought you might be interested is this. I am not an architect or landscape designer, but have been drawn into both worlds during my career. I am/was primarily a movie animator. Below is a sequence that I needed 15000 trees to fly this jet over. I used Mograph. Pulled a Carboard tree out of C4D and applied a look at camera tag. Then I cloned 15000 trees. I was using a 2019 iMac so I could not even rotate the file in full clone, but it worked fine in animation mode.

Hi Tobias, It will take a little time to do this, but I will put together a video showing the construction of both. Would you like to have the files already created. I can post them. regards......Paul

This of course is a true statement, but this is the way I would do this. See below. This also gives me the option to use Variable fillet and ungroup at any time removes the fillet, but also the dialogue box will change the fillet as in history

@frv Hi, not a landscape person, but had to create topology sometimes in the past. When it came to trees, I used C4D Mograph. Posted example earlier on this thread. Zoomer pointed out that it only comes with the full suite. I am assuming you have that. Have you used Mograph for topology?

Using NURBS tools with standard 3D tools causes a problem in the modelling pipeline in terms of history or Parametric as users are accustomed to. But, it is not insurmountable. The option to "keep curves" in the dialogue boxes is key. Ungroup will undo fillets/chamfers. The models I have posted on this thread were not made without trial and error. If I could not have gone back in time with NURBS curves, I could not have made the models, but it is an undocumented process. With NURBS, time is the only teacher.

@Chame_liam Hi. I build these things for fun to keep busy, as I am long retired. If you would like any of the models on this thread that I made, let me know and I will post them.

If you look up onto the thread you will see the version with straight segments.....cheers.....Paul

Hi, I made a version of this with straight segments. But, the curved version was the most complex. regards.....Paul

This thread is so far off base it may come around to the original point. Vectorworks did look at the Rhino thing as I understand it a few years ago. Perhaps they thought that Rhino would do the support, taking that cost away from them. Anyway it fizzled out. I suppose for users who already use Rhino, having it within Vectorworks has value. But, it would be a surface modeller within a solid modeller, which would be problematic. Another problem would be Rhino has a learning curve that is not easy, takes some work. Like 3D modelling in Vectorworks. There would be no walls, roofs, site model work done in 2D and then presto, a 3D model. This would be foreign to many users.

My apologies, completely off base (not the first time). Thought the original question was about Fluid dynamics.

In the past when I was working for the Government, I occasionally had to create a model for fluid dynamics, etc. I would just export a IGES file for that and it seemed to work. I am sure Rhino has some capability in this area either on its own or a plugin, but it would be limited by being a surface model as I understand it. This is not an area I am very familiar with and could be way off base.

Now below is something that neither Rhino or Blender can do. This is a copy of a Formula one concept car. It may have been done in Rhino, but it would be a surface model and would have a ceiling eventually in the engineering world. This is a full solid model.

As you say there are many good reasons why Rhino will never be incorporated into Vectorworks, but they may not be the reasons you believe. Primarily, most users only use a small fraction of Vectorworks 3D capability and that is pretty much the way Vectorworks likes it. There is no money in supporting complex 3D design. Excluding sculpting and other animation tools, the tools to compete with the Rhino's, C4D's, Max, etc. already exist within Vectorworks, but are not promoted. The models below are all done in VW2012 or VW2015 or VW2018. They could be found on Rhino's gallery page.