Presentation of 1:50 construction phase section drawings (from model)

[Christiaan]

For a long time now I've struggled to produce black and white construction phase section drawings (with Section Viewports) that I'm really happy with.

The main problems being:

- whether or not to display wall and slab components

- getting the correct relationship between Wall and Slab components if used

- line thicknesses

- how much detail to show and how best to manage this

Anyone care to post their tips? Show off examples of how they do it? Particularly those bigger than a house.

[AlanW]

Hi,

Once you get down to the pointy end of the project and need those 1:20 details etc, its back to drawing it all in 2d. the 3d model will not do it for you. I find it works well for the 1:100 elevations and plans but unless you are willing to draw the complete project in 3d you wont get the results, even then you will have to work over detailed section to get them up to a standard you are happy with.

This I am sure applies to most drawing programs, its the final details and project specific work that has to be done manually (In computer).

Detail this attachment in 3d to get a this 2D detail section, mmmm I think not.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Alan Woodwell

[Christiaan]

Alan, it's not the detail drawings I'm worried about. It's making the 1:50s look good.

[AlanW]

In simple terms the following even though it is a residence can be similarly applied to commercial.

To and extent I use the 3d Model and then 2d. See the screen pane info in the breakup.

You can get the plans 1:50 to a state that is comparable to Hand drafting or just 2d work fro totally a 3d file for plans and elevations.

Can't add a file here as all work stuff, it just takes a bit of setting up and using the right pen/class line weights and a few tricks along the way.

Especially wall styles, window class pen weights will all cause endless frustrations unless set up properly.

See this post may help.

https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=42295&Number=210631#Post210631

[Christiaan]

Hi again Alan, it's not plans I'm interested in. 1:50 sections, from the model.

And I'm looking for techniques that don't involve the Annotations layer.

[Peter Kovacs]

Christiaan,

I usually make a flattened section viewport - which has correct line thicknesses - on a new design layer and use further design layers for overtracing and to add more details and then I create a viewport on a sheet layer with all these design layers turned on. Hope this helps

[Peter Kovacs]

Christiaan,

I usually make a flattened section viewport - which has correct line thicknesses - on a new design layer and use further design layers for overtracing and to add more details and then I create a viewport on a sheet layer with all these design layers turned on. Hope this helps

[Christiaan]

Hey guys, what I want to achieve is a simplified section without a lot of manual work. We often need to make changes to our drawings quickly so any workflow that involves flattening the section or adding a lot of graphics to the Annotations layer is out of the question.

Attached are a couple of examples. One is typically what you get if you take a section through one of our models with the following settings:

Advanced Section Properties > Attributes > Separate Cross Sections > Use Attributes of Original Objects

Advanced Section Properties > Display > Show Wall and Slab Components > Merge Adjacent Components with Same Fill

The other one is an example of one of our 2D sections, the graphic convention of which I'd like to replicate.

I'm working on a section like this now and the way to replicate this is to use the same settings as above but to go back into your model and give the same Fill to any components you want to be merged. So, for instance, I've given all the components of my floating floors the same Fill and all the components of my ceilings the same Fill. This translates into the Section Viewport as a simplified representation of the floors as 4 lines.

This is not ideal because it kind of fixes you to that level of simplification. So if you then want to create a 1:20 section from the model with more detail or a 1:100 section with even less detail, it gets a bit difficult.

Ideally what I'd like is to be able to edit the Fill of components using Viewport Class Overrides and have the merge components option work in conjunction with those settings. Then we could alter each Section Viewport to suit whatever scale we're working with. The problem is the merge option ignores Fills set by Override, so it has to be set in the Wall/Slab/Roof Style.

[Kizza]

I typically model the shell of the building then use the convert copy to lines command and then tinker with it to get the desired result. Very tedious and very inefficient.

I know this is not what you wanted to hear.

What is needed is a section attribute applicable by class or by material. The section attribute can then be overidden in the viewport.

Revit handles this by allowing the user to set a Coarse, Medium, Fine attribute to the Viewport. Coarse settings result in black (or grey) sections suitable for 1:100 sections and fine settings result in the section attributes to show. These settings I think can be applied to scales as well, i.e. you can control what setting is used in which scale.

I'm sure Archicad can achieve this as well but in a different way.

EDIT:

A quick check reveals that the Coarse, Medium and Fine settings mentioned above can be applied globally to the view (VW viewport) but these settings can also be overidden as well by category (VW Class)

Edited November 26, 2015 by Kizza

[Christiaan]

What is needed is a section attribute applicable by class or by material. The section attribute can then be overidden in the viewport.

EDIT:

A quick check reveals that the Coarse, Medium and Fine settings mentioned above can be applied globally to the view (VW viewport) but these settings can also be overidden as well by category (VW Class)

Note sure what you mean here Kieran. Fills in Section Viewports can be set and overridden but this doesn't deal with the need to merge components in order to simplify the drawing.

[Kizza]

Firstly, I'm a huge fan of the "Materials" concept, whereby you can set the pen and fill colours for the surface and section cut patterns within the one material. Both Archicad and Revit do it. The most logical way for VW to implement this is by adding a section attribute to classes. I believe this is already been partially implemented in 2016 because roof components can be assigned a cut pattern but I can't verify how this works as I have 2012.

Secondly, I believe I spend too much time managing/creating classes in VW. Any feature that cuts down on the amount of classes required is a huge plus in my book.

Now with the above in mind, lets say you've created a section class for a 75mm cementitious slab topping and you want it to show in a 1:50 or 1:20 section but you don't want it to show in a 1:100 section. I believe that if we had the ability to set the "detail level" of a section class (i.e. coarse or fine) then we can quickly and accurately control the graphics within the section viewport. And any adjacent section attributes with the same "detail level" are merged together.

I hope I make a bit more sense.

[Diamond]

Hi Christiaan,

If I understand you correctly, I have a way around this.

I use a material set of classes under the "Component-…" prefix. These classes have hatches, fills, and textures set so they display correctly in plan, section, 3D elevation, and 3D renders. They can also be used for 2D section detailing.

So if an object is a wall, a floor, or roof etc. and it is made of the same type of concrete, I can use a the same "Component-Concrete" class.

What this means is that I do not go in for dozens of different component classes for walls, and then another heap for slabs, and more for roofs etc. I use the "Component-…" classes for all of my materials. Often I will also relate these to my finishes schedules as well. If I have a number of different concrete finishes, I will create more concrete "Component-…" classes.

Does that make sense? Love to hear your thoughts.

[Christiaan]

Now with the above in mind, lets say you've created a section class for a 75mm cementitious slab topping and you want it to show in a 1:50 or 1:20 section but you don't want it to show in a 1:100 section. I believe that if we had the ability to set the "detail level" of a section class (i.e. coarse or fine) then we can quickly and accurately control the graphics within the section viewport. And any adjacent section attributes with the same "detail level" are merged together.

Yes, this would be nice. Really though I'm interested in how people are achieving simple sections now.

[Christiaan]

So if an object is a wall, a floor, or roof etc. and it is made of the same type of concrete, I can use a the same "Component-Concrete" class.

yes we Class everything separately too, but the goal is to graphically merge components that are *not* necessarily the same material.

The only way I've found to do this so far is to set the Fill attribute for the components you want to merge in the Style and use advance section viewport property: Merge Adjacent Components with Same Fill

[line-weight]

Christiaan,

(have scrubbed my initial reply since fiddling around with my drawing)

Having drawn in VW mostly in 2d for many years I'm trying to make the transition to using the 3d model more, and to generate plans and sections from that.

The attached screenshots are from a messy and unfinished model which I'm using as an experiment but does the second one show the sort of thing you're after? There's no need to change the classes or fills of anything in the slabs or walls themselves - it seems you can have a dedicated class you can set to have the lineweight and fill properties you want to see in your sections (in my case that class is named "section style").

Edited December 2, 2015 by col37400

[Diamond]

Hi Christian,

Depending on how simplified you want it, I use a class that has a pattern fill (so it will print correctly in colour and black and white) to display the section plane. In fact I use this most of the time as I tend to show larger scale section details (1:10, 1:5), and keep my section to a simplified 1:100 or 1:50.

Depending on your LOD requirements this might be enough, although I appreciate, especially for single residential work, this is not always the case.

[Christiaan]

The attached screenshots are from a messy and unfinished model which I'm using as an experiment but does the second one show the sort of thing you're after? There's no need to change the classes or fills of anything in the slabs or walls themselves - it seems you can have a dedicated class you can set to have the lineweight and fill properties you want to see in your sections (in my case that class is named "section style").

No, that's easy enough. I don't want to merge all components. I want to merge some components, some of which aren't the same material. Examples attached.

First one is a slab in a Section Viewport with these settings:

Advanced Section Properties > Attributes > Separate Cross Sections > Use Attributes of Original Objects

Advanced Section Properties > Display > Show Wall and Slab Components > Merge Adjacent Components with Same Fill

Next one is what I want it to look like at 1:50, which is simple enough. You set the fills for the ceiling and floating floor components to the same Fill in the Slab Style in the model. And then use the same settings as above for your Section Viewport. The problem with this technique is that it fixes you to this level of simplicity, so if you then want to create a 1:20 section from the model with more detail or a 1:100 section with even less detail, it gets a bit difficult.

[line-weight]

Ah, sorry, I didn't look at your previous screenshot carefully enough. I see what you mean.

This is maybe a bit messy but might work. Once set up you wouldn't have to change any object's class or fill to render the section either way.

Create two identical section viewports. On one, set it to merge everything and fill using section style A (light grey to match your example).

On the other viewport, turn off "display objects beyond view plane" and then turn off all wall and slab component classes except for whichever components you want to display as the core, dark grey elements (So in this viewport your floating floor, ceiling finish etc simply is not shown).

Then stack the viewports exactly on top of each other and you get what my second screenshot shows. In my case I have coloured the timber joist zone in the floor, and the brickwork of the wall, the dark "core" colour. The only reason they don't join up and merge is that I haven't got my slab/wall junction set up properly.

My third screenshot shows the two viewports offset from each other.

Could this work? In theory you could stack more than two viewports if you wanted to have more than two levels of distinction.

[Diamond]

Hi Christiaan,

I think we need extra features in Vectorworks. These would be;

1. Being able to merge overridden SLVP classes that have the same fill or hatch.

2. Additionally it would be helpful to know exactly what objects are Structural and Nonstructural so we can merge them as desired.

3. And finally be able to override Structural and Nonstructural assignments, and assign them to material classes. As not all components are structural.

Does that make sense?

[Diamond]

I have added what I think are required extra features to Wishlist requests.

Cheers.

[Christiaan]

This is the kind of thing I went with in the end. It was more effort to show the background selectively than it was just to show the whole lot, so I went with a greyed out background despite the problems this can cause with black and white printing.

To get this look I used 3x Section Viewports:

1. An outline only (with merge components on) to provide a thick section line.

2. The main section

3. A background viewport, with 'show objects beyond section plane' on and masked with a polygon set to 85% transparency.

It's an ass to have to update 3 viewports (especially with bugs that cause the viewports to move when updated and a 'beyond view plane' bug that requires turning on and off at the right point to get the right look), and there are still a couple of things I need to tidy up, but these are the first set of construction sections I've produced from a model that I'm happy with.

I also modified my model file a little. Any double layers of plasterboard were combined into one component. Not only did this make it easier to simplify the look of the Section Viewport but it also helped with Slab bindings, in that I was able to make use of the "bind to outer face of inner component" option to ensure the structural Slab components intersected correctly with the structural Wall components. Downside is that at more detailed scales I will need to add back the line between the two layers of plasterboard manually.

I also edited the floating floor Slab to give the components the same Fill, so I could merge them in the Section Viewport. This is even more problematic than the plasterboard when it comes to more detailed scales, but I'll deal with that problem when I come to it.

Oh, and one last thing, everything is greyscale, apart from the insulation which is yellow. This is partly because I thought it looked nice on screen but also because it helps me and the builder concentrate the mind on insulation continuity. I've got some black and white prints coming on Monday from the printer (they're A0 drawings) so we'll see how that goes.

Edited December 12, 2015 by Christiaan

[zoomer]

Sounds like a lot of work - but I like it !

[Christiaan]

yeah, both the outline and background with transparency could potentially be supported in one viewport. Putting on wishlist

[Christiaan]

bah, updated my description of VP 3. Of course there is no transparency setting for a VP. Rather, what I did was masked it with a polygon set to 85% transparency.

[zoomer]

what I did was masked it with a polygon set to 85% transparency.

:grin: