Simulate truss motion

[jacoporicci]

Hello,

 

is there anyway to attach a truss to an hoist and simulate its motion at different angles without having to duplicate the truss and all the fixture multiple times to visualize the different configurations?

 

If not, is there a more efficient way to approach this?

 

Thanks

[TomWhiteLight]

This is not currently possible as the connected objects would rely on a kinematic chain to understand their changing relationship. Vectorworks currently organises geometry through classes and layers which are not aware of other object relations via a 'physical connection' of some sort. We are interested in applying the logic of this within Vectorworks and it is an existing enhancement request.

I believe Vision may support this workflow better but I will defer to a more knowledgeable colleague to answer for sure.

[jcogdell]

@jacoporicci
This will be partially possible in 2025 in the new Showcase pervis mode using either DMX transfomrs or PSN.
The main limitation will be that hoists and other rigging will not realistically move based on the new truss positions.
 

[jacoporicci]

Thanks both of you for the replies. Hopefully this is going to be implement in some way or another in the future.

 

Thanks!

[scottmoore]

If you disregard the hoist attachment (and frankly, there are plenty of other ways to do this like we have for the past 30-40 years), then design layer viewports are a great solution to this.  Draw all of your elements of the automated structure on a dedicated design layer.  Create a viewport of that and place that viewport on whatever design layer makes sense.  In my case these always go to the RIGGING layer.  Place that design layer viewport (DLVP) on a dedicated class.  Now you can duplicate this viewport as many times as you want and assign each to a dedicated class.  You can show your structure at any trim height and any rotation with each iteration just being a viewport that has been moved/rotated to the proper location.  I do this on a large percentage of my projects.  Two really nice byproducts:  

1.) You already have a lovely 2D plan view of the structure without the need of a schematic view.  

2.) Any changes to the geometry are done in plan view like you would any other part of a drawing.  No dealing with rotations or any additional, time-consuming nonsense.  

 

And, as you mentioned, there is only one set of geometry.  Once you get the gist of it, this is a very quick workflow.  

 

Downsides:

- As mentioned, you can't specifically hang hoists to this structure but truly, if this structure is really going to rotate in real time, a rigger should place the geometry into another drawing and rotate it to each necessary position and attach hoists to each iteration to calculate the dynamic load in each of those positions, so this is not much of a downside. 

 

- If you export to a visualizer, you will want to export this structure as it's own entity that can then be rotated in the pre-vis program as required.  If it is indeed moving, you were probably going to have to do that anyway.  I do that on every project and it is quite simple.  

 

- There is a bug in VWX that appeared a few versions ago where if you save a file with rotated viewports in top/plan view, the DLVPs tend to roate back to flat.  Very frustrating.  So I create another class that has guides and notes as to how to rotate those viewports back into position.  Put that in a saved view so you have the correct orientation to perform that task.  That is really the only downside for me.    

 

Thanks to Andy Dunning for coming up with this concept in the first place.