panthony

Pete, You can rotate the texture (to any angle on the surface)...that is if all of the surfaces are individual. I do what you are attempting all the time. Pete A.

Simon, Are you using hybrid symbols with your doors and windows? Pete A.

hmv, If you have a 3D symbol all you need to do is place it on the wall in 2d making sure you have turned off "WALL INSERTION MODE". This will place the symbol as an objecct wherever you want...adjust the position in 3D space and you should get what you need. No need to "ADD SOLIDS" as this will destroy the wall data as you have described. Pete A.

VW does not recognize arcs in the viewport annotations. I have found the best thing to do is exactly as you are attempting...however I do not delete the arcs as they just overlap what is allready there. Pete A.

Build your dormers as they would be done in the field and place a roof using the roof plane tool...just like Pete C. has suggested above. You will need to play with the roof planes to get them correct but this will give you the best results. Pete A.

I like Peter C. use the viewport tools to produce my final document output. I will usually have a rendered viewport underneath a hidden line viewport. I notate the HL VP on the final docs and print to PDF in B&W for presentation to the field. I also present in color to the client. Plans come out really nice depending on the printhouse....sometimes they print a little dark and have to adjust thier intensity. Go to TOULOUSE PDF SAMPLE PLANS to see what I send to the field with the method described above. Pete A

When you make the roof object check to make sure that you attributes are all set to class attributes...otherwise they will default to whatever the attribute pallate has as its default at the time of object creation. I have noticed that at times the attribute pallette collects its own defaults and I must change them back to my setting. I think this is why the roof and floor objects will not take a texture from the class settings after the object creation. Check me on this.... Pete A.

But they left out hammer, chisel and rock???

Ralph, Bob, George....As long as interjected for the sake of simplicity what the hey. Petri...though I am confused since you are of Finnish origin; would that be Pertti's your uncle? I know that down here in the southeast it's Ned's your uncle and for that matter he is more than likely your brother but for sure your mom is his wife.... Pete

Don, One of the tricks I use in punching holes into roof objects is to trace over the area in plan with a poly where I want the hole in the roof...i.e.(chase, pipe...). Then Ctrl-C copy (make sure stacked layers is off)...delete the poly from plan(not needed anymore). Make the roof layer and class active...go to edit group as Robert suggests the copy/paste in place the poly Ctrl/Alt-V. The poly will be placed right to the area where you want the hole and when you leave the group edit...as Petri would put it...Ralph's your uncle. If you have some customer who absolutly demands that you modify the hole than you can do so in the edit group with 2D edit commands. Pete A.

Peter, Using a exterior surface (wall style) to insert a band around a second floor deck is what I do all the time which is the same technique I use on the first floor deck. That band will blend with the walls above and below if it is in the same vertical plane. So allmost all of my wally sytles will have the stud cavity, sheathing cavity and siding cavity. It's the siding cavity that will is carried around the deck with a wall style just the size of the siding cavity. I think that is represents a more realistic detail when a section is cut. What is cheating is the way the wall styles do not allow for multiple manipulation of individual cavities. Now that would solve this whole issue. Pete A

Ok...here is my 2 cents. Here is the way I do my walls in order to accomplish three things. 1.) Get the model as close to field accurate as possible. 2.) Add objects that will make section details accurate and less time consuming. 3.) Produce a visual model that can also calculate materials. I will start by showing my wall styles library which I bring over from my favorites library for each project one at a time as I build the model. This keeps me from dragging to many styles around. The styles used for this exercise are?BLOCK 12?, ?BLOCK 8?, ?FILLER BRICK?, ?FILLER BRICK LG?, and ?FRAME 2X4 EXT?. The foundation is constructed just as it would be in the field with 12? block under 8? block to form the brick veneer ledge as pictured below in the foundation plan. I used three wall styles to make the composite wall structure with the 12? block (?BLOCK 12?) at 12 courses with 2 courses of 8? block (?BLOCK 8?) above exposing a 4? brick ledge to support the brick veneer (?FILLER BRICK LG?) that must be set out a minimum of 1? to all a drain cavity between the framing and masonry veneer. This space must also extend into the foundation where weep holes or moisture wicks are installed to the veneer. Next you would create the floor deck above the foundation as shown below In this view you have only the objects that make up the floor deck and the brick veneer band (?FILLER BRICK?) around the floor deck. The 1? space is very easy to achieve as each element of this plan falls directly above the foundation so I grey with snap the foundation and trace over with these objects. Notice the absence of a dashed line in the ?FILLER BRICK? as I only want to see that line on my foundations which relays to the mason that the veneer is corbelled out over the 12? block below. The next step is to install the first floor wall on its appropriate level with ?FRAME 2X4 EXT? wall style using the left edge and trace either the foundation or floor deck below for accuracy. (See picture below) NOTE: I have found that at times you must zoom in really tight to your snap points as you begin to accumulate many walls especially when you get to the upper levels. For this reason I hold off with any interior walls until the exterior is complete. Here are the steps shown in 3D? Foundation with brick to grade band installed. Floor deck with brick band installed. First floor walls Here is a picture of the walls stacked with the grey levels to show a 3D visual. Larger images are here Click link Foundation Click link Deck Click link First Floor Walls Here is a picture with the finished render Notice the brick veneer band is slightly off in the vertical direction?this will need to be adjusted. I will usually only do these adjustments to the walls affected in a high res rendering. Notice also how the section detail will cut correctly leaving me with only adding lines to show the air space to the framed 2 x 4 wall on the first floor. It will be nice when VW gives us component wall styles so we can create walls with multiple components that will have adjustable ?Z? heights to make a situation like this a thing of the past when you can project wall components in the ?Z? direction. I hope this explanation does not bring more confusion. This document is available in PDF at Clink link Stacking Walls in VW Pete A.

I know this site is going down here soon so I will see if I can spend a little time to get together some pics to show explaning what I do. It is very simeple and works very well in merging the surfaces for elevations. Sometimes there is the need to adjust textures to align surfaces but that is rare and only in cases where it is seen. More to come... Pete A

This is a known bug. VW has a problem with this...they have really got the math screwed up in relation to walls. Programmer probably had a severe hangover when the code was written to the extent that he could not remember where he put it. Maybe they should look under the sofa cushions. Pete A

Gary, If you are attempting to build your model to represent real field conditions than changing the model to perform a "look" will give you the wrong section cuts. I build my floors, walls, ceilings and roofs exactly as they would appear in real time. I have made my wall styles to represent the actual materials applied than wrap the floor deck perimieter with the siding, brick or surface material as a wall style the thickness of the floor. Works great and gives me the right live section detail. Pete A

Ok...using the plan... My first attempt was to blend all planes into each other without changing slope or addiing additional planes. This attempt I kept the original layout and added new matching planes. I guess if I missed it again than I have no idea what you are trying to achieve. Pete A

I matched the center roof to the outside perimeter roof. Did I miss your intention? Pete A

I would have to say that more than 75% of the roof structures I do are "Asymetrical" (dual pitch). This is where the power of VW really plays out. Hip, Gable, Polynesian, Gambrel, Mansard, Pavilion-hipped, Pagoda, Shed...and all done using only what is available at present in VW....no math calulations from the user. In any asymetrical roof face collision you will find the hip, valley and ridge can be found using the geometry of the planes in VW. And it is also true that the method Robert suggests to assit in locating collision vectors using the clip operation works to locate many other derivitave type non-conventional roof structures with 3D solids and roof objects working together.

I don't do any math at all and can build very complex roof structures...I can't understand why bringing roof planes together is so difficult. Using the geometry and haveing a basic understanding of objects in 3 dimensions (i.e. opposing planes) should be more than enough to solve planer collision issues in VW because they have allready done the math. It's up to you to make sure that your roof works....I kind of like it that way. Maybe I'm wrong...but I think the time will come when you will be able to click one surface and tell it which plane to collide with and the system will cut, trim and add objects to roof plane collision. In the mean time put your calculators down, work with the objects you have and let VW do all the math for you. Just my thoughts... Pete A

Jeff, I just upgraded to 2gb from 1gb (PC not a mac) and have not seen a really substantial increase in speed. However I am now able to render much larger images for greater detail one after another.

I guess I've just gotten used to approaching the vertex from the line I want to add a new vertex. Works for me in 2D and 3D that way...I have my selection radius set to 15 pixels if that makes any difference. I also approach from the outside of an object where I won't make contact with any other line before I dig the vertex. Pete A.

As you follow along a line the 2D Reshape tool will add a vertex to the end of that line...so approach the vertex corner from the line in which you want to add the new vertex. Pete A.

Daryl, Right now there is no way to extract the wall height using any function or formula available from NNA due to the bug in the WALLAVERAGEHEIGHT, WALLAREA_GROSS and WALLAREA_NET functions. There is a vectorscript function that sets the "Z" and "Delta Z" when a wall is placed but that data is not retrievable in a worksheet. We will all need to wait on the Math Guru's at NNA to fix the bug. Pete A.

Larry, Depending on how tight your tolerances are setup your walls are more than likely off to cause the hidden line rendering to not clean up. Soom in as tight as you can where the intersection of the two walls are and see if they are slightly off.

Yes, length(criteria) X Wallaverageheight...wall average height is kind of amusing as it is trying to calculate sloped walls..it can get pretty close but takes some pretty intricate math. I am going to see if there is a way to find the wall delta Z height x length that should work for non sloped walls. C'mon NNA