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how many of you does 3d in VW?


Sandking

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Sandking,

I?unlike my Helsinky ?wild-man? Finish compadre` ?Petri the impetuous? and the infamous ?V-I `l..sandmon? along with the Great Retondo ?Pete? ?.have not even touched the surface of 3D depths to which these VW 3D pioneers have gone before all of us amateur rookies?.

The pictures above?..I?ve shown only a few of the 3D items I created in reference to home design. VW has provided a means by which I am able to add any objects I feel are necessary to accurately describe and communicate my design intention to the personnel who will use my plans for construction. This includes many interior as well as exterior aspects. I as a regular practice do not include a complete 3D framing construct (fully framed buildings in most cases are not necessary), however many framing and also finish objects are inserted that assist to portray section and elevation presentations. I prefer to take full advantage of the 3D systems to give me an additional look into the virtual structure to see how all of its loads are distributed to the foundation. This takes more draw time to make sure that building sections and elevation details can eliminate field confusion in construction.

Most importantly my reliance on a computer system to generate a building with all of its many aspects stops at walls, windows and doors. There are just too many variables to consider allowing an automated program to consider drawing them for me. However, a system that empowers the designer to present an accurate model including ways to display the variables is an extremely valuable asset. VW has such value to me as a building designer. I take full advantage of the tools available in VW for building very complex roof structures with ceilings, lookouts, beams, trays, pans and cathedral construction options as well as many interior and exterior foundation, framed wall, floor and stair components. VW provides in some cases (i.e. stair and roof tool) ways to build simple components but when you need complex solutions the 3D array of tools is there to provide a means to build a very intricate model.

The big question?. and it may be apparent from your original discussion?.are you and your peers looking for an easier and quicker way of drafting production? Is that the reason for their non-use of VW advanced 3D tools?not enough time? Were you just making conversation at the local waterhole and VW was the only thing you had in common to talk about? Is your corporate structure allowing its employees the time necessary and essential to learn advanced techniques? Do they provide training or are you left on your own? Are you an old dog, comfortable with your current 3D system that is ?good enough? and ?gets the job done? as opposed to learning a new system which will take too much time and effort? Did she dump you because of your 3D ineffectiveness?

Disclaimer: If I have for any reason stepped on, embarrassed, harassed or somewhat inferred to be associated with persons located anywhere on the seven continents not to exclude anyone close to or in direct contact with equatorial New Guinea and Denmark including the land of California?please excuse me. I can?t help myself.

Pete A.

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every file we start, we anticipate using VW's 3D capabilities (layers, wall heights, roofs, etc.). In the end not every one get the 3D treatment, but most do. we find it especially useful for design ambitious projects. i am going to guess that some sort of 3D imaging is used 90% of the time. we may export a VW image into Photoshop, but rarely.

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100% of my designs are modeled in 3d. I "build" the structure in the computer from foundation to roof. I sometimes even put shelves in the closets (but not always).

One of the (many) great things about VW's is that it allows me to add new layers and classes along the way. So for example, in the early stages of a project I might just want a "quick & dirty" 3d model, including floors, walls and roof objects. But later, when the design is "nailed down" I might go back and actually draw the floor joists and the rafters (or trusses) and use them to "frame" the floor(s) and roof(s). By using dicreet classes (within well defined layers) I can choose which items I want to be visible (and what their attributes are) for various different (2d & 3d) views, and for the final construction set.

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I must admit that I use 3D usually to generate interior room sketch perspectives, which I usually print out and render by hand. Most of my vw stuff is straight 2D construction documents, although I will use walls, plugins, schedules, etc..The good thing about vw is that it has features you can grow with, I'm using Architect 1.01 and have not exhausted all of ITS features.

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Yup, even though i'm a new user...i took the scary but important step from 2D to 3D drafting(thinking) while using Bentley Architecture at my present office. When i started a private practice on the side recently i bought VW mainly because it is half the price of the others (ADT, Revit, ArchiCAD and Bentley) however i find (so far) that you can do as much with VW all-be-it in fewer(round about) ways as you can with the others (read: Bentley is too complex for it's own good!) I think it's impossible to avoid the 3D drawing boom in the near future...apart from this i don't think my clients would have accepted my designs without the support of photorealistic renderings....and walk-throughs.

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While I've been using VWA for many years, I've hardly used the 3D aspect of the application due to some clunkiness in the implementation. So, for the past 3 years, I've used SketchUp to do my modeling, sketch work and visualization as it has proven so fluid and intuitive, as well as infinitely flexible to achieve the desired results for my clients to understand the design concepts.

Of late, though, with VWA 12 and its many improvements and working alone for the past year, I thought to use its 3D aspects for a number of smaller projects to see how I might be better able to leverage VWA's features to speed up my putting together design and contract documents, including the BIM aspects.

I have found that the roof and stair tools, for example, are greatly improved and facilitate a more fully developed model with many options for rendering, but more importantly, facilitating a finalized design to go more readily to working drawings.

That said, I still use SketchUp extensively early in the design process for conceptualization, early schematic and continuously through development of the contract documents for testing out detailing issues and design opportunities that may arise along the way, and even during construction.

As with any profession, and ours in particular, the more tools in our box, the better we can deliver on the vision.

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i use 3D for my work and I teach my students to use 3D from the beginning. My Architect Tutorial shows you the advantages for working in 3D from the beginning.

I have just finished a 3D modelling tutorial. This tutorial shows you how to create all sorts of shapes using the 3D tools and commands. I don?t show you walls and doors, I figure that this is covered in other manuals.

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I will be using VW in 3D as much as I can, but it is not a very well developed program for the purpose. If you really want to work in 3d and you have something complex your wireframe view makes navigation difficult. Any other view (the open gl is not detailed enough to really count) requires continual refreshing of the view complete with annoying reminder. Consider the navigation ease and detail of the 3d views you get in Sketchup compared with VW. VW is about ten years behind the times when it comes to 3d. But hey, if you want the an up-to-date 3d program you have to pay the big $$$.

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Double beg... The whole point of Open GL is that it *does* stay rendered during fly-overs and walkthroughs. Perhaps you need to adjust your 3d pref's? While I sort of agree that the level of detail is weak (when compared to FQRW or RAD renderings) it is more than good enought to get you where you need to be and to get you there in "real-time".

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If you guys are getting a good image in Open GL that's great. I cannot even tell if a roof is pitched or not since there are no edges. Stairs and doors disappear since without edges everything blends together. Perhaps there is a setting that needs tweaking, but out of the box it is not good enough to work with. I have set it to the highest setting and it changes nothing. If there is a setting somewhere that I am missing I would like to know about it. I realize that compared to wireframe OPenGL looks good, but I cannot see what is going on without edges to differentiate surfaces.

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Joe, could your problem have to do with either: 1) Needing more ambient light (VIEW>LIGHTING>LAYER LIGHTING), or; 2) Needing to change yours walls, roofs, etc. to some color (or texture) other than white (and perhaps a color or texture different from each other)? I would also be helpful to know what hardware/software you are running. Could you let us know?

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