Hatching a "live"elevation

[CS1]

I am relativly new to viewports, once I have created a "side view" viewport from my model how can i assign a hatch"(say a brick hatch) to the wall without having to draw a polygon in annotation mode and assign the hatch to the 2D polygon

[CipesDesign]

CS1, I'm a bit surprised no one has responded to this yet. The answer is "yes" & "no". There are a few good ways to get where you're going, but perhaps not the exact solution you are searching for. Here are two ways:

1) Use a simple texture (instead of a hatch) on the exterior of your walls and then render the viewport (VP) using Open GL or Final Quality RW's in the background and Hidden Line in the foreground. You can make a texture from just about any graphic image, so making one from a hatch is relatively easy and consists of exporting an image file then using the image to create the texture.

This method has many advantages including: elevations will dynamically update as things are changed/moved; elevations will exhibit shadows (if there is a light source & RenderWorks is used), and; you might find yourself using more than a simple texture and creating some very nice presentation models...

2) Go to a front (or side) view of your model and render in Hidden Line, then use the Convert Copy to Poly's command. You will then have a 2d Group consisting of polygons which can be hatched, filled, whatever (some amount of tracing over, etc may be needed).

While this method might seem much faster, it does not allow dynamic updating (the elevations will need to be redrawn or at least fixed for each change)....

Hope that helps ;-)

Edited November 29, 2007 by CipesDesign

[altoids]

Wow. Is this true? All the sections/elevations created with the live elev tool ignore the wall type settings and render the wall as a texture? VW can only accurately apply hatches if I draw the elevation longhand?

In all the discussions of VW vs. ArchiCAD, this one never reared its ugly head. ArchiCAD has a 2d and 3d surface rendering associated with every object, so tht brick looks like 2D brick in an elevation, or a 3D brick in a rendering, as it should.

[gmm18]

There should be an option in Hidden line rendering to show hatches, for simple black-and-white elevations. This would be while you can still render using an object's assigned texture using Open GL, or other rendering modes without going back and changing the texture of each object.

[Petri]

In all the discussions of VW vs. ArchiCAD, this one never reared its ugly head. ArchiCAD has a 2d and 3d surface rendering associated with every object, so tht brick looks like 2D brick in an elevation, or a 3D brick in a rendering, as it should.

Oh Lord! Did you think you would get a Rolls Royce for the price of a Mercedes Benz?

[altoids]

Hell No, but I didn't expect to end up driving a Yugo .

[Guest]

VW 2008 gets you close to what you are looking for. The plan view hatch for each wall style component is now visible in Section Vieweports (when the setting is enabled in Advanced Properties)

From there, you can use annotations to embellish the detail/section.

What I like about this is I now have a visual guide letting me distinguish the various wall components from each other by hatch pattern. From there, I detail the wall section using the Detailing tool suite.

[mike m oz]

That is a bit of a harsh judgement Altoids. There are many worse programs out there than VW.

VectorWorks has its strengths and weaknesses, but so does Archicad.

The incremental improvement path that VW has been on over the last several versions shows promise. Most of us would like the development to be quicker and the program to do certain things that it doesn't do now. NNA are fairly good though at responding to user's needs. Posting what you want on the wish list and showing the demand exists is a better way of getting changes.

[Petri]

Hell No, but I didn't expect to end up driving a Yugo .

You didn't? Yet you rave and rant for not having Cruise & Climate Control, V8 turbo and 12-speed transmission, having paid what amounts to a deposit for a Trabant. Tough.

[billtheia]

Katie, are you saying that we can use plan view hatch to somehow hatch elevation viewports? If so, can you please explain how?

Thanks.

[CipesDesign]

For the sake of those who have not yet seen it, here is a link to my previous post (from some time ago) describing in detail one method of creating 2d elevations from 3d models, including a link to an example of the result: http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=77297&page=1#Post77297

There are a couple things in the method that I have updated since the original post:

1) I hardly ever use layer links any more. I use "stack layers" in its place.

2) For shadows/light from one side of the building to another I now use various different "sun" light sources, putting each into its own class. Then choose which class to make visible/active for each elevation.

3) It is no longer necessary to use "layered" viewports, as NNA has now given us foreground & background rendering within one VP.

Hope this helps...

Edited November 30, 2007 by CipesDesign

[Pat Stanford]

Peter,

Are you also aware that in 2008, you no longer need to use two stacked viewports? Viewports in VW2008 have both a foreground and background rendering mode. Make it much easier to keep everything aligned and updated.

Pat

[Guest]

Billthea - Yes, the hatch viewed in plan view is displayed in the section view.

There's an image of this on the Architect product page - what's new.

I'll see if I can find a better example.

[CS1]

I have tried both the methods as described above, each way is a lot quicker than the old way I used to create elevations (without using viewports), however the problem with having a black and white texture then using "final quality rendorworks" is that even with the "accuracy" at 100% and the "fuzz" at 0, the lines don't look nice and crisp. I have refined all the settings available (eg scale, factors and line thickness) but still cannot get the desired affect. The problem with using polygons traced over the "live viewport" in annotation mode is that the elevation is now not really live and still requires editing when changes are made. I know that there is always going to be some editing required but would have thought that having crisp hatches on elevations that are live would be an easy process.

[CipesDesign]

Katie, I think you guys are talking about two different things. The original poster and Billthea are both asking how to (or if one can) apply a hatch to an EXTERIOR ELEVATION, ie: a 'side' or 'front' view of a 3d model. Your answer refers to SECTION VP's, and yes the new capabilities are very neat, however as far as I know are not in way applicable to elevations. If I'm wrong please let me know ;-)

Additionally, the capability to apply (what would amount to) a '3d Hatch' (in other words, a 2d line-based hatch that 'sticks' to 3d surfaces like walls and roofs), would be an enormously useful thing for many users. Regards! p

[CipesDesign]

CS1: it sounds like you're on the right track. You should post your desire to hatch 3d objects to the "Wish List" portion of this board. p

[CS1]

CipesDesign: Thanks for the assistance, it sounds like this is something that most users would find useful.

[Jonathan Pickup]

Check out podcast 047 and 048

http://web.mac.com/jpickup1/Site/podcasts/podcasts.html

[Guest]

Sorry for the confusion.

Thanks Peter!

[altoids]

Is the conclusion that the only way to get a non-fuzzy 2D hatch (oh, lets go out on a limb and call it a vector hatch) on an generated elevation is to apply it manually, that is, additional drawing steps within the viewport?

Petri, are you sure about the hood emblem, because a few weeks ago you were bitching about painful editing of class attributes and I was defending VW.

Edited November 30, 2007 by altoids

[Dieter @ DWorks]

Or you can make the hatch in 3D. Which is a method spoken of elsewhere on this forum.

Draw what you want in front view and turn it to 3D polygons for example.

[Jonathan Pickup]

if you look at the two podcasts i mentioned, you will see two ways to create the line hatching on elevations:

2d Lines;

3D polygons.

[taoist]

I have viewed your podcasts. The one for lines on polygons if you will was great. Do you have more info other than the podcast as how to do this?

Taoist

[altoids]

These are very helpful techniques, but a even better would be that the wall in elevation shows the surface material as a vector hatch, as the wall sections do in VW08.

[Dieter @ DWorks]

If the rendering method 'polygons' only could shown hatches, this would all be solved.

It can display patterns, so why not hatches?