Popular Post Taproot Posted November 22, 2016 Popular Post Share Posted November 22, 2016 Here's some tips and resources to help you with your framing drawings. Textures Here in the Northwest, we use fir for most of our framing. After spending some time searching for a suitable texture, I finally just scanned a block of wood from my shop ... Sometimes it's easier to make what you need than to find it. I've found that light textures are often the best - as you can add pigment to change their appearance. To do this, edit the texture and "Use Chosen Color" to alter its appearance. For example, my Pressure Treated texture is just a green color applied to a standard wood grain. See Graphic. Texture Orientation The textures for framing members are counter intuitive. I can never remember which orientation is appropriate for which framing member. The best solution that I've found is to create two copies of each wood texture (one horizontal and one vertical). You can then apply the one best suited to the object - Post, joist, etc.. Here's an example: The solid-sawn joist and the I-joist pictured below both have the same texture applied. As you can see, they go in opposite directions. Here's the most common textures that I use: Natural wood, Stained (oiled) wood, Ply, OSB, and PT lumber. I'll include a file with these at the end of this post for you to use. Note - I named the orientation backwards from the image as an attempt to guide my selection to what would display correctly (most frequently). Drawing Posts / Piers I've tried using extrudes and walls for posts. Walls can be useful if you are fitting objects to something, but in general - I prefer to use the floor object. Floor objects give you the ability to texture the faces differently. It allows you to control the height in the OIP. You can also create an “X” within the plan view rectangle by editing the floor polygon and adding two lines. The perimeter rectangle and the "X" can be different line weights. This doesn't effect the 3D rendering of the object and will resize with the rectangle to create different member sizes. Use Class Overrides Wall footings are a good example. I place my footings in a class with dashed line attributes when viewed in plan. For viewports where footings are visible in 3D, I override the class in that viewport to show lines as solid. The same technique can be done for framing. This graphic shows the same footing in both plan and isometric views. 3D Hardware Sometime ago, I converted the Simpson Strong Tie catalog to VW objects. You can download them here and extrude the 2d geometry into whatever shapes you need. By now, there may be a simpler way to do it as well. Setup Standard Framing Symbols In my template, I've set up folders with settings for joists and I-joists. That way, I don't need to remember what the flange width on a 14" TJI I-joist is .... I can just select it and start drawings. That ensures accuracy and I only have to do it once. Texture File Attached in v2017 and v2012 Framing Textures.vwx Framing Textures v2012.vwx 5 Quote Link to comment
jmartinarch Posted December 19, 2016 Share Posted December 19, 2016 Some really good ideas. I've struggled with posts. Used the column tool, extruded rectangles, and wall tool. Never tried a floor object however. Seems like VW could provide a solution. Same with "I" joists, can't believe VW does not provide. Question; how do you do mudsills? An extrude, a wall or some other method? Quote Link to comment
rDesign Posted December 19, 2016 Share Posted December 19, 2016 @Taproot- thank you for sharing your workflow insights and sample files! Some really great tips. Quote Link to comment
Taproot Posted December 19, 2016 Author Share Posted December 19, 2016 8 hours ago, jmartinarch said: Some really good ideas. I've struggled with posts. Used the column tool, extruded rectangles, and wall tool. Never tried a floor object however. Seems like VW could provide a solution. Same with "I" joists, can't believe VW does not provide. Question; how do you do mudsills? An extrude, a wall or some other method? I usually do an extrude along path for the mudsill. Reshaping a poly when things change tends to be simpler than dealing with a whole bunch of short walls. 28 minutes ago, rDesign said: @Taproot- thank you for sharing your workflow insights and sample files! Some really great tips. I'm glad that you found the information helpful. Quote Link to comment
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