Arena seating

[Jake Wilson]

Hello all

 

I am working on a drawing of a small hockey arena that I can use as a template for future events.

 

The overall drawing is coming along nicely but I am running into issues with the seating, I have tried several of the included seating options within VW and they look good, however when I export to a PDF in the  top plan view to replicate a 2D plan the file size is ridiculous and when others try to open the PDF, even when I save it at a lower resolution, it take forever and seems to be loading each seat separately. It's brutal.

 

Does anyone have any pointers on creating arena style seating that has a 3D and 2D image but does not bog down my drawing when exported to PDF? 

[mjm]

maybe: https://www.verysmallgroup.com/theaterow

 

Works very well for me, but have not tried it on a multi-thousand seat venue.

[Scott C. Parker]

Please post a sample file so that the collective can take a look. It’s best to copy the problem items into a new file to keep the file small and avoid any NDA issues at hand. Please use a definable file name. We get so many named “sample.” 🙂
Thanks, Scott

[Jake Wilson]

12 minutes ago, Scott C. Parker said:

Please post a sample file so that the collective can take a look. It’s best to copy the problem items into a new file to keep the file small and avoid any NDA issues at hand. Please use a definable file name. We get so many named “sample.” 🙂
Thanks, Scott

Hi Scott

 

Sorry, there's not much of a file to post yet, just the concrete raised sections where the seats will go.

 

What I'm looking for is pointers to create arena seats that will have both 2D and 3D options without making the file size of a PDF export so big it stalls standard PC or MAC when they try to open the file.

 

What kind of steps would help keep file size low when duplicating in the thousands kind of thing. You know, like avoiding textures and sticking with color fills, things like that. The seats don't need to be fancy, but I do want them recognizable to clients.

 

I have tried to use the seating section tool but it doesn't elevate the seats how I would like, it seems like every time I elevate a row to meet the height of the riser level the row will also move forward or back when I am only using the move 3D function, I even tried creating one row at a time with same tool and raising each row individually but the file size went up as you would expect.

[Scott C. Parker]

2 minutes ago, Jake Wilson said:

I have tried to use the seating section tool but it doesn't elevate the seats how I would like, it seems like every time I elevate a row to meet the height of the riser level the row will also move forward or back when I am only using the move 3D function, I

I guess this is why I'm asking. I've had good luck with the seating tool, though sometimes it needs a bunch of trial and error playing with for risers and curves.

[michaelk]

5 hours ago, mjm said:

maybe: https://www.verysmallgroup.com/theaterow

 

Works very well for me, but have not tried it on a multi-thousand seat venue.

 

Hey @mjm.  Glad you like it :-).

 

@Jake Wilson  I've used TheateRow for arenas where the row transitions from straight to radius (or old fashioned theater balconies where the curve reverses at the ends).  It handles that condition really well.

 

In 2D you can make it as simple as you need - or 3D for that matter.  It uses regular symbols.  But even in stock form it only puts one arm between seats (instead of 2) so it cuts down on a lot of clutter.

 

BUT - bad news - you have to draw each row (instead of in sections).  I've done several 3000 seat theaters and it's not that long of a process.  Maybe an hour or two.

[EAlexander]

We find the VW stock seat symbols to be heavier than needed for arenas. We built our own hybrid symbol, keeping it as simple as possible in 3d. The 2d is literally a rectangle and a line to show the seat back. No materials and all fused together into one generic solid. 

 

Occasionally when the pdfs take too long to generate on clients computers, we will output high dpi jpegs from VW and stitch them together into a pdf in Acrobat. You lose some quality, but clients who just need to look at drawings can open them. 

[Peter Neufeld.]

On 3/26/2026 at 10:31 PM, EAlexander said:

we will output high dpi jpegs from VW and stitch them together into a pdf in Acrobat.

 

 

Hello,

Did you know that's what the 'Rasterise' option does in the PDF options dialogue?

 

 

 

As well have you @Jake Wilson tried the built in 'File Size Reduction' compression in the same dialogue?

 

The Portable Document Format file type is inherently not a good way to transport and show CAD files because PDFs contain all the geometry!  Hence why of course you can snap and explode 💥.

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

 

 

 

 

[Jake Wilson]

On 3/27/2026 at 11:58 PM, Peter Neufeld. said:

 

 

Hello,

Did you know that's what the 'Rasterise' option does in the PDF options dialogue?

 

 

 

As well have you @Jake Wilson tried the built in 'File Size Reduction' compression in the same dialogue?

 

The Portable Document Format file type is inherently not a good way to transport and show CAD files because PDFs contain all the geometry!  Hence why of course you can snap and explode 💥.

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Peter, unfortunately PDF files are something of a standard as everyone has at least Acrobat available to view.

 

I will try the rasterize function you mentioned.

 

Thank you

 

Jake

[Peter Neufeld.]

Hi Jake,

Oh yes definitely the standard myself included. It's just an observation that for CAD drawings the format makes for large files. When rasterising it might make the file larger because it's an image in which case it won't help. I was wondering though if you have tried using the 'File Size Reduction' options in the export to PDF dialogue?

 

Cheers,

Peter

[mjm]

 ilovepdf.com is a great tool, greatly compresses almost everything I throw at it - drawing sets, renders, all the usual office documents etc. It's visual quality is better than most, including Adobe Acrobat online

 

Am a real fan

[Peter Neufeld.]

Wow that is a great tip thanks @mjm What an amazing website. 

 

Cheers,

Peter

[Jake Wilson]

On 4/3/2026 at 9:25 PM, Peter Neufeld. said:

Hi Jake,

Oh yes definitely the standard myself included. It's just an observation that for CAD drawings the format makes for large files. When rasterising it might make the file larger because it's an image in which case it won't help. I was wondering though if you have tried using the 'File Size Reduction' options in the export to PDF dialogue?

 

Cheers,

Peter

Hi Peter

 

I have tried the file reduction in the past and found it hit or miss, With really large drawings I generally have to start going through each section to find what is increasing the file size and manually reduce if possible, however this is quite time consuming as you can imagine.

 

For arena size drawings though it is generally the seats that push up the file size, so many times I have just turned off the seating layers for overhead plots to try and reduce the size.

 

It would be nice for Spotlight to have a generic small size arena seat sections option that is adjustable but does not require all the extra architectural bells and whistles. 99% of the time our clients don't care what the arena seat spacing is or what texture the cloth is, all they care about is the seats are visible as reference, if they are the right color it's a bonus.

 

I find that in event drawings, from a client stand point, it is not necessary for every element of a drawing to be 100% life accurate.  All they care about are the bits that directly affect their show. 

[Peter Neufeld.]

Hi Jake,

I totally understand but what happens if you simplify the geometry? The enclosed Vectorworks file has 100,000 modified Default 'Event Chair-Stacking' symbols. For the 3D part I Model>Added Solids then made the result Modify>Generic Solids so there was no history left, and the 2D just a very simple rectangle and one line. 

 

 

 

The Vectorworks file is 12MB and the PDF 1.8MB and both draw instantly.

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

Simple chair.pdf

 

Simple chair.vwx