Resizing of Objects

[bschang]

Hello:

I apologize if these are stupid questions, but I have been pulling my hair out...

I am trying to design a playscape in VectorWorks. The playscape will be made of standard lumber.

Question 1: I have been "making" all of my lumber manually, by either using the rectangle tool (and extruding) or by using the extruded rectangle tool (which becomes a mesh). Am I reinventing the wheel? Is there a more efficient way to do this?

Question 2: If I want to change a piece of lumber from a 2x4 to a 2x6, I am lost. I cannot see a way to take a rectangular mesh object and change the size. Extruded objects seem to be easier. Is this what I should be doing??

Thanks!

Brian Schang

[P Retondo]

You're on the right track. Copy your extrudes and stretch to make pieces of different lengths.

[Guest]

When it's a mesh, it's alot harder to manipulate the size of the object.

When using the 3d polygon tool, and you draw a rectangle - you get 6 polygons. When you use the rectangle tool and extrude, you get a 2d rectangle and a 3d polygon.

Once the object is a mesh, you cannot resize it without doing some sort of solid subtraction or addition.

This is why the rectangle via 2d method and then extruding is preferred.

You can always change the z height of the extrude in the OIP along with the delta x and y (length and height). You can even go back and change the shape of the 2d object by going to Edit Group. This will put you back to the original 2d object. From there, you can resize and reshape the 2d object, then click on Done to exit. The end result is the new polygon with the same extrusion, just with a different shape.

It's an extra keyboard step to draw a 2d object and extrude than it is to use teh 3d polygon tool, but the benefits outweight the time consumed for most instances, especially if you plan on resizing or reshaping the objects.

[bschang]

Thank you very much for your help.

I have two follow-up questions:

(1) When is the extruded rectangle tool (mesh object) more convenient to use? What are their strengths over extruded 2D rectangles?

(2) When I extrude a 2D rectangle (extrude object), I can easily change the size. This is great ... thanks! However, I appear to loose the capability to precisely locate the object via the Object Info Palette. Once I have an extrude object, is there any way to pinpoint one of the eight vertices on a 3D rectangle?

Thanks again. I appreciate the tips!

Brian Schang

[Guest]

I suppose the 3d polygon object is good if you know you are not going to change the size or shape of your object in the future. It's good for 3d solids modeling too. I'm sure it's good for other things too, I just don't know of any off the top of my head. Generally, I don't use the program on a personal level to draw with, so I'm not the best person to ask in what cases is it good for.

After you make an extrude out of a 2d polygon, the OIP no longer shows the x and y coordinates.

You can use the x and y tabs at the top of the application window (right below the menus) to read the coordinates. As you move the mouse on the screen, those boxes read off the corrdinates of your mouse location.

You could place a locus point along one of the control points of the object and use that object's x and y information in the OIP.