Sloped Floor

[ticorules]

I have a client that would like me to add their sloped floor into the drawing. I have attached an image of top view. I cant for the life of me figure out the best route for this. All the chairs are already added with the heights (I manually added each chair one by one). As you can see, my latest option was drawing the slope then I extruded it. However the floor curves, that is where I am stuck. Would love any ideas or suggestions.

[Kevin K]

Probably a few ways to approach your request, but one way comes to mind that may be the least painful 🙂

just create a site model using 3d polys with the correct elevational data….then select all your chair symbols (hopefully you made a symbol for the chair?)…then just choose the ‘send to surface, command.  That should take care of it, quickly and easily, seems to me.

Perhaps other users may have other methodologies.

[Tom W.]

Need to know which VW product @ticorules is using as might not have access to Site Model tools...

 

23 hours ago, ticorules said:

my latest option was drawing the slope then I extruded it. However the floor curves, that is where I am stuck. Would love any ideas or suggestions.

 

Would using the Deform Tool to bend the Extrude work?

[Kevin K]

Tom

Good point regarding the site model tools, but even the basic architect module has some basic Landmark tools. Probably enough to create a basic site model. 

Getting back to the issue...the main reason I mentioned using the site model paradigm is that it is the only tool, to my knowledge, that allows ' send to surface'?

It would be really arduous to snap every one of those seats to a sloped surface.  The only other rub is that sometimes creating a site model does NOT play nice with inside curves like he has shown....

I will give this a try an report back...

[E|FA]

Couldn't you use known (or computed) spot elevations along the perimeter, place 3D loci at those locations, and then connect them with a 3D polygon to create the surface and then extrude?

[Kevin K]

Ok, so....using the site model tool worked as advertised. I suppose the only caveat is hopefully @ticorules did create a symbol for his seat??

So they would all be sent to the surface one click!

 

1) What I did was to create that approximate shape from the screenshot image

2) converted it to a 3d polygon and looking at it from a side view, rotated it to an angle so it sloped

3) then created a site model from that shape

4) ** as expected the site model arrived without the curve on the top portion, but a simple 're-crop' of that shape on the site model took care of that.

5) I just put in some goofy chairs as a test to make sure they did go to the surface.

 

I attached a 2022 version of the file if needed as a reference.

There are other ways to make that sloped shape, but it will be hell on earth to get all the seats to align perfectly to the surface, seems to me.

 

 

 

theater test v2022.vwx

[Tom W.]

1 hour ago, Kevin K said:

even the basic architect module has some basic Landmark tools.

 

Was thinking they might only have Spotlight... Hopefully not as Send to Surface would save a lot of tedium like you say!

[Tom W.]

3 minutes ago, Kevin K said:

2) converted it to a 3d polygon and looking at it from a side view, rotated it to an angle so it sloped

 

Oh I though the floor needed to be concave in shape as well? Maybe I misunderstood

[Kevin K]

Whoa Tom..

That could be...guess we need to hear from @ticorules

[Kevin K]

To follow up on this a bit…IF there is to be some concave voodoo involved in the overall shape of the floor…which was not explained very well from the original post…the basic floor could be constructed using site model protocol, so all the seats could arrive at the surface, then the final modeled floor could be converted to a solids object, then any concave shape could be used to tweak the overall shape of the floor.

 

[Tom W.]

Or you could model the floor as a bowl-shaped solid first (Deform Tool), extract the top surface, convert the surface to 3D Polys, run '3D Polys to 3D Loci', run 'Validate 3D Data' to remove duplicate loci, then create the Site Model, then run Send to Surface. Then probably convert it back to a 3D Solid 😁

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

50 minutes ago, Kevin K said:

IF there is to be some concave voodoo involved in the overall shape of the floor…which was not explained very well from the original post…

I have been watching this thread out of interest, I figured he was in good hands, but I still don't understand what this fellow needs to accomplish.

[Jesse Cogswell]

There's a pretty easy way to create a "bowl" shape in this instance that I've used in the past for orchestra floors using Extrude Along Path and Subtract Solid, though I've never encountered a bowl shape going into a curved house wall, so this method might not get accurate results on the edges:

 

Path matching US side of orchestra floor ("Bowl"):

 

Profile matching house rake and floor thickness (6" in this case):

 

Extrude Along Path Result:

 

Creating Polyline for Extrude for Subtraction:

 

Final Shape Top View:

 

Final Shape Right Rear Isometric:

 

There is another way to do this using NURBS that could also work (and might be a bit more accurate):

 

Two Arcs representing each curve:

 

DS NURBS Curve set to Z height of back of house (8'-0" in this example):

 

DS NURBS Curve edited so that US points match with lower NURBS

 

 

NURBS Curves Ctrl+click-and-drag 6" lower to duplicate, ending with 4 NURBS Curves:

 

Loft Surface Tool in No Rail Mode, selecting 4 NURBS Curves:

 

Ungrouping Revealing 4 NURBS Surfaces:

 

Creating Solid by using Model - Add Solids:

 

Both methods produce "Water-tight" solids, good for Section Viewports:

 

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

Does this floor require stepping or rows, I don't really understand the terminology, but I am assuming there would be rows for people to walk that were not sloped.  

 

Hello ticorules.

 

 

[Kevin K]

Oh man I totally did not understand the concept if these latest shapes were what was intended.

i was off the mark by about 5 light years!.I think the owner of the post needs to be articulate what he wants in a bit more detail…otherwise we are all going down the wrong rabbit hole 🙂

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

1 hour ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

Does this floor require stepping or rows

Going to respond to my own question.   Does the seating arrangement look like this?

 

[Jesse Cogswell]

@VIRTUALENVIRONS I understand that this might be a little out of your wheelhouse, but it is very common for the seating section closest to the stage (known as the "orchestra") to be bowled rather than stepped, particularly in "proscenium" style theaters (your example is a "thrust" theater, which I've only ever seen stepped).  The seating structures that make up the "legs" are either shimmed or built to compensate for the slope (or "rake") of the floor.  While I'm not familiar with the theater that @ticorules is referencing, based on the plan and section views they've provided and the nature of their question, I strongly suspect that the floor is indeed bowled.  Usually the slope is relatively minor, my example above was exaggerated to better show the "bowl" shape.

 

Ordway Theater in Saint Paul, MN with a "bowled" orchestra:

Edited August 14, 2023 by Jesse Cogswell

[Tom W.]

@Jesse Cogswell what's the best way then to place the seating on such a bowled floor? Is there a special seating tool you use? We were getting a bit fixated on Site Models because there you can automatically send objects to the surface with one click. But I can't imagine theatres are routinely being constructed out of DTMs... 🙂

[Jesse Cogswell]

The way I typically approach it is to build a row of seats as a group, then use the clip cube to limit the view to the center of the bowl on one side.  I then go into an orthographic side view with a Shaded render and move the row until it contacts the bottom of the bowl.  I usually build a Saved View to quickly get back to this.

 

Here's an example from a small theater that I drafted a couple of years ago:

 

Capri Theater CL Section

 

Right Rear Isometric of house floor:

 

I created the floor using the first example (extrude along path) mentioned above, but would probably try to do it with the NURBS method if I were to attempt it today.  You'll see at the back of the house where the bowl transitions to a flat floor that there is a little bit of a gap.  I think the NURBS way of tackling this might produce a cleaner transition, though it might also be too much for Vectorworks to handle.

 

EDIT: All that being said, it does take a bit to get the curve of the seating to match the curve of the floor.  At the Capri, I made sure that the seating row arc used the same center point as the front arc making up the bowl.  In @ticorules's example, you wouldn't necessarily be able to do that since the seating rows have a much more shallow arc than the bowl does, without having a copy of the drawing, I suspect I would work to try to get it as close as possible, then match the height based on centerline and hope for the best.

 

As for the seats, I don't usually worry too much about the "legs" meeting the floor in a 100% accurate fashion (the ones in this example are drawn flat, slightly protruding into the floor on the downstage end).  What's important is making sure that the seat bottoms are accurate so that you can surmise where an average audience member's head will be to calculate sight lines.  If someone is fixated on the seating not cleanly meeting the floor in your rendering, then you probably have far more worrisome problems happening with your scenery...

Edited August 14, 2023 by Jesse Cogswell

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

7 hours ago, Jesse Cogswell said:

might be a little out of your wheelhouse,

Yes, the language is confusing for me as usual, but thank you for explaining, still not really squared away on this.

 

I have some experience in this area as a 3D modeller only.   The images I posted above were the Theatre of the National Arts Centre, Ottawa Canada in 2001.

For reason other than Architecture or interior design, I led a project to reconstruct the venue in 3D.  Modelled in VW's, rendered/animated in CINEMA 4D.  We created a prototype website (using VRML) to view the stage online from any seat, but in 2002 the bandwidth was not there for the public.  

The movie below was made for a News segment, very low res, 360 x 480

 

I will continue o follow this thread out of interest.

 

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

7 hours ago, Jesse Cogswell said:

a bit to get the curve of the seating to match the curve

Playing a bit with this.  The video below shows the venue with a "bowl" shape to it.  The surface is spherical as it dips in the centre.

 

The cubes match to the bowl using Duplicate along a path and an extract curve or isoparm.

 

It would be good to hear from the original post, but is this what this fellow is thinking?

 

 

[Tom W.]

33 minutes ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

The cubes match to the bowl using Duplicate along a path and an extract curve or isoparm.

 

Paul I'm not clear how you generated the path curve. How did you get an iso-parametric curve to be curved in plan...?

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

28 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

How did you get an iso-parametric curve to be curved in plan...?

Hi Tom,

I am embarrassed to admit I don't fully understand the terminology, but I think I know what you are asking.

 

I did not use Loft NURBS to make this shape,  I went old school....fitting for me.😀

 

The shape and seat planning are more controllable using Solids and then extracting the paths for the seats.  But again, I used simple tools.

 

But, is this the shape?  We don't know.  If the thread originator can confirm, I can make a little video.

 

 

 

[Tom W.]

5 minutes ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

Hi Tom,

I am embarrassed to admit I don't fully understand the terminology, but I think I know what you are asking.

 

I did not use Loft NURBS to make this shape,  I went old school....fitting for me.😀

 

The shape and seat planning are more controllable using Solids and then extracting the paths for the seats.  But again, I used simple tools.

 

But, is this the shape?  We don't know.  If the thread originator can confirm, I can make a little video.

 

 

 

 

Thanks Paul it's how you 'extracted the path for the seats' that I'm interested in. When you referred to 'an extract curve or isoparm' I assumed you meant the third mode of the Extract Tool:

 

But this creates a straight line in plan:

 

Whereas we need a curved line in plan. I thought using Duplicate Along Path to place the seats in a curved line across the concave floor surface sounded like a great idea but I don't know how you generated the NURBS Curve path. Do the blue cubes follow the surface of the floor exactly or did you just extract the front edge?

 

Thanks!

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

I am trying to figure out how to put this in words, but I can't.  If you don't mind leave this with me for a few hours and I will see if I can do a short video.

 

Paul