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Door Demolition Class


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Hello,

I am having some issues with the visibility settings for doors on demolition plans. Our files are set up with a existing/demo layer and a new construction layer. Existing items to remain are placed on an "existing" class and items to be removed are placed on the "demolition" class. New items are shown on the new construction layer on their respective classes.

Since the doors are auto classed I can not turn off the doors on one layer without turning them off on another. I have been told that turning off auto classing can create problems down the line (though they did not elaborate as to what kind of problems it would cause).

I tried going into the door settings and setting individual components to the demolition class but no matter what I do, I can not get the door jambs to disappear. I also tried exploding the door and converting to lines but it takes the entire wall with it

I like the idea of auto classing for convenience but I hate that these items can not be changed once they are auto classed. Is it possible to override the classes of individual doors without turning off auto classing or having to change the classes of multiple components per door.

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I'm not aware of what problems can be caused by turning auto-classing on and off. Except forgetting to turn it back on. That might be your only solution. Turning auto-classing on and off might be scriptable, so that would take a lot of the hassle out of it. It may be possible to select a door or doors and run a script that turns off auto-classing, assigns the doors to the demo class, and turns auto-classing back on.

I don't think you can easily edit the auto classing of parametric objects in Architect and Landmark the same way you can auto class Lighting Fixtures in Spotlight - i.e. there is no way (I know of) to create a new Door-Demo class and add that to the auto class list. Spotlight lets you use object parameters to create new classes on the fly without having to predefine them.

I wonder how many people are using auto-classing? It doesn't come up very often here in the forum.

To get rid of jambs, have you tried setting the jamb width to 0?

hth

mk

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So turning off auto classing works but after you turn it back on you can no longer move or modify the object in any way or it will revert to the auto class settings.

It turns out our drawings templates rely on many of the default VW auto class settings so you are correct in that most of the problems stem from not turning auto classing back on.

I did notice that if a door is within a wall that is on a demolition class and the demolition class is turned off the door will disappear as well. The only problem is when you need to demo just the door, you would need to draw a wall segment the width of the door and insert the door into the wall segment.

There seem to be multiple threads on this subject but they all call for multi step workarounds. It seems that, even with auto classing enable you should be able to modify the properties of any individual object for those "one of" situations.

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I've found that, since I generally don't need demo objects to be 3D, I don't need them to be doors anymore.

I think this will work with auto-classing turned on:

1. start with a door in a wall

2. select the door.

3. duplicate (make sure offset duplicates is off in preferences)

4. modify > convert > convert to group (Command-K)

5. in the next dialog box choose "Don't convert sub-objects to groups"

6. change the class of the group, letting the attributes apply to the members of the group

7. if you need the original opening in the wall, convert the original door to an opening and take it off the schedule. Otherwise delete it.

I usually send all the demo objects to an "overlay" layer so nothing gets buried underneath a wall.

This all assumes you no longer need to count or schedule the demo doors. And that you don't need to show them in 3D.

hth

mk

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Guest Wes Gardner

Hi All,

Dunno what issues turning Auto-Classing OFF will create. I've been drawing in Vectorworks for about 15 years with Auto-Classing OFF. In fact, ALL of my wall styles will NOT work with Auto-Classing therefore, for me, it's pretty much useless.

If someone can point me to an issue that REQUIRES, Auto-Classing, now's the time...

wgardner@vectorworks.net

Wes

Edited by Wes Gardner
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I'd like all annotation objects to be auto classable, like how dimensions get auto classed into the dimension class.

eg drawing labels, section markers etc.

get rid of the code then if it doesn,t work, instead of users trying to grapple with getting it (and expecting it) to work...

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Bear, if you find auto-classing useful, but need to turn it off to assign some normally auto-classed objects to another unique class, it is very important, when turning auto-classing back on, to uncheck to option to auto-class existing objects!

...auto-classing was once a useful feature but has not been upgraded to add new auto-classed objects in years, and all the effort spent setting up our custom auto-classes now applies to only a fraction of the classes populating our documents.

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Hi Alan,

Thanks for your file and image to explain how you deal with Demo / Existing / Proposed wall (and objects on VW).

Can you please confirm/advise if you need to have an existing plans (in 3D model) in the Existing Class. Then for the walls/object you would like it to be classed as Demolished, you simply duplicate those within the Existing Class and change the class to Demolished? And the same goes for the Proposed?

So affectively, you are making a duplicate of existing and demolished to a small portion to show both separately on drawings? (ie as shown in the small image attached).

Bad quality screen grabs but you get the picture I am sure.....

Thank you!

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Further to my comments just prior; I was trying things out on VW and am thinking the best way to illustrate Existing Plan | Demolition Plan | Proposed Plan separately would be to actually make exact copies of the Existing Plans for each classes.

And then within the respective classes; do you simply cut where necessary to illustrate and distinguish Demolition Plan and Proposed Plans as separate copies of the existing walls?

So in affect, the file would consist of three duplicates of some walls classed under separate headings - Existing, Demolition and Proposed?

Does this make sense and is this the most sensible way to work on VW?

I am coming from Archicad where you can set renovation filters to allow you to draw/model one walls to achieve this.... can anyone help or comment please?

thanks

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I usually keep a copy of the existing and then from the Existing plan cut the sections of wall that need to be demolished and place them on the demolished class. Turn the Dem class off and with the remaining existing class start drawing the proposed all on the same design layer. Say Ground Floor (Design Layer).

In the viewports I set up the Existing plan with the remaining existing and the demolished. Change the demolished class through the viewport to show it as per the Existing. No need to use the total existing plan.

Then do a demo viewport and change the Demo back in the viewport to dotted.

Then another VP do the new.

HTH

Edited by Alan Woodwell
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Right, that makes some sense to me now.

So simply put, have a copy of existing plan all the time and perhaps class it as Existing Original or something like that.

Make a copy of that existing plan and split walls/objects that needs to be classed as Demolition - which will affectively become the Demolition Plan (showing partial existing and demo parts)

And then just have Existing Class walls/object and use that to draw Proposed.

I guess this way, I am only duplicating the existing plans once and keeping that as more of a back up copy. Will give that a go now and see where that leads me to....

Thank you Alan!

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They all come in on their own classes and I don't mess with them. If the container class is turned off all the other classes within are turned off.

You will be using Windoor and there are a few more classes than the VW standard Window setup.

See file attached above for setup.

Edited by Alan Woodwell
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  • 3 weeks later...

Right, but I guess my point is this. If one wants a very very simple file, with a bare minimum of Classes, one must still go through the file & weed out these baked in Classes despite Auto Classing being turned off, despite turning off the Auto Generated Classes in the PIO prior to building, in this example, a door. (AND this is true of all PIOs so if one hasn't anticipated this Auto Classing, one must continue to weed this garden each time a new PIO is launched)

So my point is Auto Classing turned off, should mean, well, turned off. Not, sorta kinda turned off, except for a bunch of stuff you don't want that you need to get rid of later.

I'm going to post this as a wish list item.

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  • 2 years later...

Existing, Demo and Proposed work flow in a BIM world

I see a number of post on the subject of how to work with Existing, Demo, and Proposed items in a drawing set.

 

All of the answers look like work arounds that are fine for simple drawings or a 2D drawing.  Building a model using stories, styles and BIM objects change everything.

 

The more I work with VectorWorks the way I believe it is designed to work the easier it is be to build and maintain standards and transition between versions.

To work in the BIM world it is important it is to control lots of objects with classes and think of layers as floor levels.

 

Problem with setting up a basic architectural drawing

I believe a core process of anyone using VectorWorks for Architecture is to draw existing walls and doors, be able to turn some walls and doors into demo work, then add new doors and walls.  I can do all of this and maintain my building model, but I need to create 3 versions of every class and/or style. 

 

Setting up classes or styles for one project is not a big deal but you don't want to customized every item in every project you work on.

Setting up templates, symbols and styles for new, existing and demo is really to much to manage.

 

Proposed Solution for VectorWorks to consider

  • Draw your walls and insert your doors 
  • Click the doors and or walls you want and designate them as "demolition, proposed, existing, phase one or phase two"
  • This could be managed with a check box in the object info pallet or as sub class. (maybe even a right click with the mouse)
    • The class might be "door main and a sub class might be "door main - Existing" 
  • You would need be able to control visibility and graphics
    • but not have to manually make then assign all the parts of a wall or door to another class
  • You might even be able to turn on auto classing 
  • A bonus feature might be:
    • If you demo a door you tell it how to infill the hole in the wall, maybe a new wall or a new door.
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1 hour ago, Matt Hall said:

 

The more I work with VectorWorks the way I believe it is designed to work the easier it is be to build and maintain standards and transition between versions.

 

Unfortunately it so often seems the case that if you use it the way it is designed to work, then lots of things don't work.

 

I have autoclassing turned off but am still bothered by baked-in classes that appear in my class list, and because I frequently don't know what they are or what they do I have to just leave them there.

 

The kind of class control you describe in your post above would be nice, if it were part of a consistent, clean and controllable class setup, but in my opinion VW is currently a bit of a mess in this regard at present, so I wouldn't want to trust control of my drawings to the standard VW setup. In particular, the application of classes within PIOs is such a tangle (and isn't really documented properly anywhere) that it gives me a headache to even think about it. I largely try and ignore it, and my classes are largely applied to container objects.

 

My solution to existing/demolition/proposed plans is generally the same I've used since working in 2d: draw up the 'existing' layers, then preserve them in aspic, duplicate each to a 'proposed' version and then make any further alterations to those layers. It's not ideal but it's fairly reliable because whatever you do to your 'proposed' geometry you know you aren't messing up any information in the 'existing' which is always there in the background to refer back to.

 

Both in 2D and 3D I've found it just ends up getting too fiddly trying to maintain a model that has three classifications of 'stuff' - retained, demolished, new. In practice it doesn't seem to save any time. For complex alterations you just end up trying to build walls out of hundreds of small segments, some of which are switched on and off in different scenarios, and each time you alter one of your model's states-of-being you have to go back and check it hasn't done something weird to the others.

Edited by line-weight
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