Extent of 3D

[wavlas]

We are upgrading to Vectorworks 12 & implenting the use of more of the vectorworks tools and symbols with greater 3d use in general. This would include using walls and adopting more of the "in wall" elements, doors & windows, in plan. We would still draw the elevations & sections as 2d in the majority of our projects. Any user suggestions, precautions or tips which makes partial 3d a success in your world.

[Travis]

Welcome aboard. You don't say from which version you're upgrading. (And it's often helpful to post which platform/OS you're working on.)

Window & door sills (turning them off and on in 2D) will take a little getting used to. Do a search here. . .there are several threads in the last year addressing this.

My instinct would be that by the time you incorporate "partial" 3D in your drawings, you might as well go ahead and set wall, window and door heights accurately and you'll have more than half your elevation/section work already drawn . . . and any changes you make to the model (move windows, relocate doors) will automatically be updated. You'll be using the vertical perspectives (front, side, back) for your viewports in addition to Top/Plan. You'll still end up "drawing" at least some of the elevation and section detail directly in 2D: we do all of it directly in Viewport Annotations. Preferably, after the building is pretty much to final design.

I'm sure others will have additional pointers.

Good luck,

[islandmon]

I'm sure others will have additional pointers.

Always follow Travis's advise .. : )

[Petri]

We are upgrading to Vectorworks 12 & implenting the use of more of the vectorworks tools and symbols with greater 3d use in general.

It would be good to know where you are, too. The practices vary, the usefulness of VW's standard features vary even more.

[Christiaan]

A potential stumbling block to be aware of when modelling a building while producing 2D drawings in tandem is the tendency of some 3D plugin objects to potentially compromise the 2D aspect of your drawings.

For instance the Windows PIO's inablity to deal with bay or corner windows. Because we had a building with a lot of this sort of architecture we ended up having to use OzCad's Window PIO which was very good but it made the 2D aspect of our drawings a lot more difficult to manage.

This sort of thing will be less of a concern to you because you're not intending to fully model the building accurately (but instead use it to derive other drawings from).

I'm hoping the next version of VW won't have this problem, because PIOs can cut down draughting time enormously compared to creating Hybrid Symbols.

[Robert Anderson]

Christiaan, I'm curious, what do you mean by "it made the 2D aspect of our drawings a lot more difficult to manage"?

[Christiaan]

Robert, the walls in OzCad's plugin are not as integrated as the default Wall Tool, so we had problems such as the walls consisting of many parts instead of just being one, which makes editing a much more complex process (even when just moving a wall). This sort of thing is very problematic for us (where we can have a lot of people working on one job) because it creates a whole new level of complexity to the process (just when I'd convinced the office to standardise on the Wall Tool, too).

I also had problems with 2D graphical settings, which I don't recall correctly now, but I think it was along the lines of having to turn off certain 3D components if I wanted to get the 2D part looking right.

At the end of the day it's an excellent and robust plugin, but there's just no getting away from the fact that it's a hack. I really hope NNA integrate their own bay and corner windows in the Window PIO for the next release.