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JoeF

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Everything posted by JoeF

  1. Can you create a symbol that is just an opening? No geometry, just a hole in a wall?
  2. Thanks Peter, I think the parameters in the OIP will suffice for most wall openings that I may need. I tried creating a face in sketchup with an unusual opening cut into it and then imported it into VW. VW will turn this into a wall, no problem. This could prove quite handy.
  3. My intention with Vectorworks is to use the model for CD's. Since this is an unusual sort of condition I can probably deal with using whatever fills or linework are needed to recreate the wall in plan. Has anyone tried creating a wall with an opening in Sketchup and bringing it into VW? Would it still be a wall?
  4. Thanks Peter, I hadn't thought to look there. The documentation should probably deal with openings in walls, floors and roofs as an architectural element. As it stands the solution is not that obvious. (At least to me it wasn't that obvious.) What do you do if the opening does not conform to one of the shapes available as a window or door?
  5. Sorry for the newbie question, but I haven't found an answer in the usual places. How do I create an arched, or any opening for that matter, in a wall? I guess I would have the same question regarding a floor or roof.
  6. Thanks Pete! This looks great. I'm getting very optimistic I'll be able accomplish what we want. Nice house BTW.
  7. I see the problem now. After I installed the downloaded plug-in I wondered why there were two Import Sketchup command in my menu. Ooops. I must uninstall and re-install. Thanks for sorting this out.
  8. My sample is not a rendered view. It is hidden line. I should have mentioned that. If I can produce this in VW I'll be happy. So far I have been unable to define wall patterns in a hidden line view. Can you have textures in Open GL? My mission is to avoid having to maually add textures to my model in elevation. We just finished a project that was done in AutoCAD and much time was spent manually applying complex hatching to elevations. We have been looking to avoid this manual labour by switching to Vectoworks. The promise of a 3d model that changes in elevation when you change the plans is very attractive.
  9. It is 2006. Most CAD programs are capable of realtime manipulation of shaded models. Here is a sample of what I am used to producing. http://static.flickr.com/85/258251553_d527ac5596_o.jpg If it were not a perspective view I could spin this in real time no problem. Of course the program I use to create this image is more expensive than VW. That's the reason I am learning VW.
  10. I'm on a PC and the Import Sketchup does absolutely nothing. Has anyone gotten this to work?
  11. Thanks for the replies. Gonna take some getting used to. Is there any way to have the program automatically use Open GL when in a 3d view so you do not have to set it each time? Wireframe is rarely the option I want as a default.
  12. Here is a quick screen shot I made while trying out the roof tool. I drew a rectangle and created a roof then used the flyover tool with Open GL turned on to see what I had created. Smack in the middle of the 3d view is a 2d rectangle. Why in the world do you see 2d stuff in a 3d view. What possible purpose can this serve? I just don't get it. http://static.flickr.com/121/257612019_0c55380db5_o.jpg
  13. My dimensions were landing on the dimension class, but the lineweights were being set by whatever lineweights happenned to be active. I checked the "use at creation" box in the class dialog box and now the dimensions take on the settings of the class.
  14. Yes I am talking about line weigths. I am still researching dimensions and haven't figured out how to control their line weight. I printed out a sheet today (no print preview!!!!)and the dimensions lines were too thick and the arrows too small. I was dimensioning a section of a terrain model so I had to place the dims in an annotation view. (is there another way?) I'm having some difficulty adjusting to Vectorworks so pardon me if I freak out every now and then. There is a lot of stuff to get used to. Most noticeable of them is having to work in wireframe most of the time. Yuk.
  15. I am also learning Vectorworks in my spare time. I think what you are supposed to do to dimension your viewport is double click on the viewport and select annotation from the selection that comes up. Afterwards you return to the viewport. There is a tab or something at the top right of the screen. Now if you can figure out how to get the dimensions to not look like thick blobs when you are finished, I'll consider it a fair trade.
  16. Thank You Jonathan, that was a very useful 2 minutes!
  17. Actually I didn't locate the problem, but I now have a way of dealing with it by cutting and pasting the polygons into a new file.
  18. Thanks for the tips! I think I have located the source of the problem. I was using contours from an AutoCAD drawing and I traced the contours on the same layer as the imported drawing. The AutoCAD elements seemed to confuse things. I cut and pasted the polygons to a new file and things went better.
  19. I am trying to create a topo model from polygons that I traced. When I go to create the 3d loci using the 2d poly to 3d contour, the program does not highlight any of the contour lines and simply proceeds to ask me if I want to delete the polygons when I hit the "next" button. Are there any rules about creating the polygons that I should know about? Are circular contour lines allowed? Is there a limit to the number of segments in the polygons? BTW when you hit F1 for help it takes you to a completely unrelated command. Joe Feldman Victoria, BC
  20. Most of the features that are being wished for here exist in other more expensive programs. I am currently devoting a lot of my spare time to learning Vectorworks as the full featured programs that do all these things are too expensive for our office. I own one of these programs and have used it in the office on few projects and everyone agrees that it is fantastic. But.. it is expensive. It is hard to prove that everyone will be faster with a more expensive program. The ROI is all very nice in theory, but the temptation of the cheaper software is hard to resist.
  21. Thank You Pete, Now were are getting somewhere. I too have used several programs and am trying to figure out the best way to leverage the 3d features in Vectorworks ao I can avoid some of the tedious time consuming work I have found myself in. I have found the 3d features of VW easy to use and the viewports feature looks very promising. So what it comes down to for condocs is one of two methods. 1. Use a hidden line view and paint on hatches. 2. Use a rendered view and print to grey scale PDF. The second method is the one that appeals to me, as it means that elements at an angle to the view will display correctly. Of course one will have to tweak the textures so that they will not turn up as a solid in grey greyscale but that is the way with any program. I think that once you have a library of textures set up at different scales you will have gone a long way to automating this process. I will now conduct some experiments!! Thank You for your help! Joe
  22. What I am trying to get a handle on is how to produce a finished elevation on a sheet. Ready to send off for printing and then off to the building department for your permit. As it is, the elevation would be devoid of patterns or hatches because the hidden line view cannot show patterns or hatches. No bricks, no shingles, no stucco,no stonework, etc. So how do you do it? Do you draw over top of the hidden line view with 2d elements? Do you create monochrome textures that resemble hatches and use a rendered view for documentation? There must be some work flow that everyone uses. One day I will get to to the bottom of this mystery.
  23. Do textures show in hidden line view, or is the idea to use textures and use rendered elevations for the documentation? Is this the usual practice? This is why I am trying (without much luck) to get my hands on a sample file of a finished set of plans so I can see how it is put together. I've been going throught the online Video Library, but all the videos stop short of showing an actual set of dimensioned plans ready for printing. Thanks for the clue, I'll see if this leads anywhere. Joe
  24. Thanks for the information. I have been going through tutorials and I could not find the answer to this question. Thank you. I was hoping to use the 3d model to produce my elevations but if hatches and patterns are 2d only my elevations will look a bit drab. And since they are 2d they will no doubt be independant of the 3d walls, so if I have to make changes all the hatching will have to be redone. I was also thinking that I could produce perspective views to place in a sheet, but they again will be pretty dull without patterns. A brick wall will look the same as a board and batten. Most of the people I know who use Vectorworks rarely use the 3d features to produce their drawings. They might create 3d elements, but the drawings were always 2d. I can see how the lack of 3d patterns and hatches kind of dictates this work flow.
  25. I have been viewing tutorials and reading up stuff on Vectorworks as it appears we will be adopting it as our platform. So far I see some good things, but I cannot yet figure out how to get walls to display a pattern in hidden line mode. Since this will be the view that I will be using to generate the elevations in my finished drawings I am hoping I can avoid the tedium of having to hatch everything like AutoCAD. Also, I asked our dealer for an example of a project that has all the plans and elevations generated from the 3d model(not drafted in 2d) using viewports. Seems a difficult thing to obtain. Does no one do this? Is it too difficult? This is what I would like to do , but if it is not realistic I will just do 2d I guess. I would expect this would be a big selling point and a sample file would be available. What I want it for is to see if there are going to be challenges related to computer hardware etc. and to get some insight into techniques. Thanks in advance for any help in these matters. Joe
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