Linear Materials

[Donald Wardlaw]

This tool is new to me. I'm sure they'd want the graphics for the materials to be user definable because the default graphics are nothing a lot of us would ever use.

So, my question is, how to I alter the definition of the defined materials, like "gyp. bd. (detailed)".

thanks,

Donald

[Bryan G.]

Glad you brought that up Donald. I understand how to make a new line in the resource browser but to alter one you need to right click in the resource browser and select edit then select geometry from there you can alter the line just like a symbol would be altered.

And yes I had the initial frustrations with that one too.

[Donald Wardlaw]

Well, thus far I've not been able to do as suggested. I really don't get this tool.

Is this a tool that is supposed to be used to denote materials in a detail? I'm going to have to put this up there with the edit/create hatch tool.

I don't find any straightforward and easy way to edit the linear material. I can see some editable feature in the resource pallet but it seems to affect only the line style of the enclosing lines. Everything else remains inscrutable to me.

Donald

PS. I don't know what a right click is, but I've tried different modifier key combinations with no revealing result.

Edited September 25, 2012 by Donald Wardlaw

[mike m oz]

Donald if you are a Mac user try using Control + Click to bring up the contextual editing option menu in the Resource Browser (and the drawing). It is an alternative to the Right Click.

[Donald Wardlaw]

Mike,

Thanks. I can get to the contextual menu. My frustration is that there doesn't seem to be any way to customize linear materials to have the graphic nature I want to have. Am I missing something? Is there a way to create my own graphic and make it a linear material? Or substitute it for the graphic for one of the predefined materials?

[taoist]

Density is what controls the amount of detail (Gyp. Bd.)you see.

The hight the number the denser the detail.

It would be nice if we could create our own fill.

[Danielj1]

The linear material tool has a limited number of controls that allow you to do some customization, although perhaps not to the specific level you need in this case, Donald. If you need significantly more control, consider using the 2-D polygon tool with components, which works similarly to the wall tool, and allows the insertion of hatches, patterns, tiles, class control over appearance, etc.

Dan J.

[Donald Wardlaw]

Daniel,

Long time no see! Good suggestion, I'll explore that.

All the best,

Donald

[J Lucas]

Create a set of classes with attributes for the different materials you use in detailing. Then use the Double-Line Polygon tool to draw the liner materials at the thickness you set. You can even set multiple components and attributes with this tool.

[Joe-SA]

You can add your own custom hatch to the Linear Material Board(Generic) setting. This, however, won't give you a hatch that stays oriented to changing direction of the material.

I think the hatch orientation is also a problem with the 2d poly with components idea.

Years ago in the days before the Linear Material tool I used to use a suite of custom walls designed for drafting details. I had over a dozen for various thickness and materials. This was (and may still be) the only way to create a linear material where the hatch changes orientation with every change of angle of the material since a custom hatch can be set to maintain its orientation to walls. It would be nice if this setting also applied to the Linear Material PIO at the same time.

Joe

[line-weight]

Bumping this thread, as I've only just started trying to use this tool. 2 questions:

 

1) As per the above discussion, is it still the case that essentially you can't really customise it? There's no such thing as a user defined 'linear material style'?

2) Do you use it in practice, and is it reliable? I found another thread that suggests some people find it glitchy ( https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/64420-linear-materials-flipping-vw2017/ ). Am I setting myself up for problems if I start using it a lot?

 

[Boh]

I've never used this tool but would like to know if others are finding it useful.

[line-weight]

I'm currently working on something where there are quite a lot of details involving roofing membrane, folded metal flashings and so on, where I want to draw these elements as a double line, with radiused corners, and crucially easily editable/adjustable. Previously I might have drawn a polyline, filleted the corners, then offset by the thickness of the material. That is then a pain to edit retrospectively. This tool (so far) seems quite useful for this purpose. Changing from the 2nd to 3rd arrangement illustrated below simply involves moving one vertex on the object.

 

At the same time I've discovered the "fillet point mode" for polylines which I'd never noticed before, and am going to be using a fair bit for lots of things from now on I think!

 

[bcd]

Laugh not, but you can also call the Wall tool to action here.

It's 2d (Top/Plan) depiction should give you what you need:

Benefit of multiple, highly customizable, connectable components.

You can Fillet a corners to produce a curved Wall- and wall joins will elegantly allow you to keep your membranes continuous.

 

AFAIK sometime in the middle of the last century the double line tool was was first conceived of to draw walls.

[line-weight]

1 hour ago, bcd said:

Laugh not, but you can also call the Wall tool to action here.

It's 2d (Top/Plan) depiction should give you what you need:

Benefit of multiple, highly customizable, connectable components.

You can Fillet a corners to produce a curved Wall- and wall joins will elegantly allow you to keep your membranes continuous.

 

AFAIK sometime in the middle of the last century the double line tool was was first conceived of to draw walls.

 

The fillet command doesn't work on walls for me... I get this

 

 

Also... assuming I could get a curved join between the two walls, would I be able to pick up that corner by the imagined intersection of the two straight portions, and move it precisely to another location (ie what would be the steps to make the change shown in my 2nd/3rd screenshots in my previous post?

 

[bcd]

I think your radius might be too big - here's what I'm seeing.

 

You can move the straights at will and if your careful not break the Join.

Once you've filleted the corners moving them will break the joins, ie the radius isn't going to adjust automatically, but you can simply rejoin using the corner join mode and recreate the fillets with a couple of clicks.

 

 Fillet this:

 

to get this.

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by bcd

[line-weight]

Hm, the filleting seems to work a little inconsistently for me, on walls.

Assuming it works fine though... moving a corner does mean the following steps:

- delete fillet

- move end of wall segment 1 to new location

- move end of wall segment 2 to new location

- re-fillet.

Not too bad, but with the linear material tool, in theory the same operation involves only one step (or two if you include double-click to access plyline edit mode).

 

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by line-weight

[Boh]

I find when detailing flashings in 2d sections there is a lot of editing of them before the detail is actually finished. Why not just use a single poly line set to a line weight to match the flashing gauge? Much easier to edit. 

[line-weight]

1 hour ago, Boh said:

I find when detailing flashings in 2d sections there is a lot of editing of them before the detail is actually finished. Why not just use a single poly line set to a line weight to match the flashing gauge? Much easier to edit. 

 

I think sometimes that can work fine... but then you can get into problems with lineweights working at different scales, for example if you have a 1:10 detail and a 1:5 detail, and you have chosen lineweights for 'cut' lines and 'elevation' lines, you want those lines to be the same weight at each scale, but if you have another linetype that's supposed to match the actual thickness of the material then you want those lines to be twice the weight in the 1:5 detail as in the 1:10 one.

 

[bcd]

Could you use a combination of both?

The single Polyline to represent the flashing, and then convert to Walls.

You retain the Polyline for future edits.

[line-weight]

41 minutes ago, bcd said:

Could you use a combination of both?

The single Polyline to represent the flashing, and then convert to Walls.

You retain the Polyline for future edits.

Yeah...but then you might as well just offset the polyline.

[Boh]

1 hour ago, line-weight said:

I think sometimes that can work fine... but then you can get into problems with lineweights working at different scales, for example if you have a 1:10 detail and a 1:5 detail, and you have chosen lineweights for 'cut' lines and 'elevation' lines, you want those lines to be the same weight at each scale, but if you have another linetype that's supposed to match the actual thickness of the material then you want those lines to be twice the weight in the 1:5 detail as in the 1:10 one.

For 1:50 to 1:10 scales I use a "Sections_Flashings" class which has a 0.18 liineweight. For 1:5 scales I have different classes depending on the gauge. e.g. "Detail-Metal Sheet_0.55." & "Details-Metal Sheet_0.35". As all lieweights for flashing are set by class I can override these setting for viewports in different scales if need be. If a flashing in a 1:5 or smaller scale needs to be >1mm such as an aluminium head flashing I might consider using a double line poly or wall style as this does displays better.

 

 

[line-weight]

Roofing membrane which can be around 2mm is something that I often find is helpful to draw as a double line at larger scales, to clearly show things like lapping details.

If you show a lapping detail of two elements, and you are using solid single lines, then you have to be careful to make sure that they are somewhat thinner than their 'actual' thickness in order that they are legible as distinct lines.