Explode components

[Mark Q]

Hi,

In our line of business we are required to explode our drawings for detailing purposes. At present we are manually selecting components and moving them in plan and front views before creating illustrations from exported perspective views. Is there an explode command similar to that in Solid Edge? or a simplified way of doing this as it is very time consumng. Thanks

[Ray Libby]

There is an explosion tool here:

http://www.vectordepot.com/market/

[Mark Q]

Thanks Ray,

I will look into this and see how it goes. thanks for your help..

Mark

[Mark Q]

will run with vectorworks 12 on a Mac 0S X Version 10.3.9 ?

[Gytis]

Yes, I use it. Just some issues with the isometric dims.

[Mark Q]

Thanks for the advice, the dims are not a major issue.

[Guest]

The other thing you can do is use the Convert Copy to Polygons command under the Modify menu.

This takes objects in a particular view and creates a copy of those objects. It then runs a hidden line rendering of the copy and leaves the faces of the objects as polygons.

Alternatively, if you want to explode everything, simply use Convert to Polygons - this method destroys the 3D definition of the objects.

If the objects are 2D and you need them to be broken into smaller parts, use the decompose command.

[IanH]

There is an explosion tool here:

http://www.vectordepot.com/market/

Does anyone know if this will work on 2008? VM-017 Explosion Tools - simply says VW 9 and higher but not sure whether to take it at its word.

Or maybe some other way of achieving the same thing.

Edited February 28, 2008 by IanH

[Pat Stanford]

I have purchased it and used it in both VW2008 and VW12. It works OK, but the interface takes some getting used to. It has both menu commands and tools that you need to add to your workspace.

Basic workflow is select the objects to explode, do an explode and then use nudge type tools to move the pieces to where you want them. There are also commands to unexplode and re-explode.

For $15 it is worth playing with.

If you get it and have problems, let me know.

Pat

[IanH]

Yep. Just received my download - it appears to work on 2008 with the brief test that I just performed, but need to work out how to get it to explode in a manner that I want - probably due to groups, extrudes and symbols and the centre of the extrude not being where I want it to be.