Modeling alternate positions of Symbols

[Wood]

I'm sure this has been covered extensively, but not sure what search terms to use. 

 

I'd like to present symbols/3D geometry in alternate positions. Is there a way to create 'scenes' without duplicating all the geometry?

I've seen this done with a bunch of different classes turned on and off, but that seems cumbersome. 

 

Can anybody point me in a direction to search and learn?

 

 

Thank you!

[jmcewen]

Sorry if i am late to the party, but even within the symbol I would still use the classes, I think. 

 

For example if you had a car symbol, it could be modeled with doors that were closed, and those doors could occupy a class called "doors-closed"  You could have identical doors but in the open position in the same symbol, and they could occupy a class called "doors-open."  

This gives you the potential for many different looks for the doors:

1. Turn on "doors-open" and turn off "doors-closed" and the doors will appear open
2. Reverse the states of the 2 classes and the doors will appear closed.
3. turn off the class "doors" and neither state will appear.  Your car will not have doors at all
4. set one class to greyed and the other to be visible and you can see the car with a door and have the alternate state be viewed but with less clarity.

Unless you are just talking about drawing a car once and then filling a parking lot with it.  In that case, a symbol is exactly what you are looking for.  Draw it once, convert it to a symbol, and the data will  only take up the space of the first model and every instance beyond the symbol definition will only be coordinates for  the location of your symbol insertion point rather than the entire geometry of the model  for each instance.

 

Here is a nice intro to symbols.  The Vectorworks University classes are pretty good and are broken into small enough chunks that you don't need to wade through a huge lecture to find the snippet of info you are looking for.

 

https://university.vectorworks.net/mod/overview/view.php?id=2200

 

As a side note, I took longer to realize that container objects like groups  could have classes of their own, so if you are using your classes for other things like individual materials or systems you can also group any item and give it the opportunity to have another class assigned to it.  If either class visibility is turned off the object will not be visible.  

[Wood]

Thanks for the detailed reply @jmcewen, and I use what you've described often. To stick with your comparison, I'm looking for the option to have that car on one side of the stage, and then show a later scene where the car has moved to the other side, or perhaps rotated on a turntable. 

 

Using the class instances you have described is definitely functional, and works easily with saved views. However, this ends up complicating gear counts if you're using those same symbols for inventory. 

 

In my case, I'm showing a bunch of different automated components that move, and if I duplicate them in alternate positions, I now have to manually adjust my gear pull sheets, or play a bunch of games filtering by class. 

 

 

Thanks again!

[markdd]

Design Layer Viewports should be able to give you most of what you want. It's a shameless plug, but I have a website that will show you how you can leverage them for just this kind of scenario.

 

https://showvector.com/viewports-design-layer-viewports/

[Wood]

Thanks Mark, I'll have a look!