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new to the forum, couple of questions


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hey all! i've been in vwx for 4 years now all 2D. Finally taking the plunge into BIM, but i've got a revit background from a previous job, so i expect things to work one way and get lost when they don't.

 

i've got a great three story model built already and viewports created on most of my sheets. i'm having trouble getting the viewport settings set right i believe, but it could be that i need to break out my model into more classes in order to adjust visibilities at will.

 

my ground floor plan is great, but the next story up is where things get finicky. i've got some ceilings and high walls above and they're blocking some of the plan. not sure if there's a way to set the viewport "slice" height above the floor? 

 

secondly, maybe i'm using the wrong "background render setting?" i've got it set to "hidden line" but the fill hatch doesn't show like it does when viewing design layer in "top/plan" set to wireframe. not sure what i should be setting viewports to for floor plans and section cuts when doing BIM. some of my windows and doors show up and others don't.

 

third, what's the proper way to make wall sections and enlarged detail viewports? so far i've just taken the building section and duplicated it, changed the scale and cropped it to show what i want. is this the best method?

 

finally, can someone point me to tutorials on creating smart worksheets for door, window, plumbing and lighting schedules? this is where we're banking on BIM speeding up our workflow (aside from updated elevations and sections automatically). 

 

all help is appreicated, thanks in advance. the group here seems friendly!

 

 

  

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Not too sure I can answer all your points but here are a few tips I've noted.

- 1) Classes are vital & key to complex plans. The project I'm on now has three pages of Reflected Ceiling Plans, with two RCP's on each (6 plans) for the same one storey space, the same Viewport six times, with different Classes turned on or off or grey. 

- 2)  I'm not sure what your asking as you're comparing Hidden Line to Wireframe. Top / Plan is a 2D view & TOP is a 3D view so they are different things. In a Viewport's Annotation Layer one may add Hatches & line work to make for a more finished presentation

- 3) That's what I do too, but if I need a different view I always start with a new Section Viewport rather than try and re-jigger a copy of an existing Section. I have also used the Clip Cube for details

- 4)   Do you have Service Select? This has a great number of resources & there are many Videos on YouTube that you can find with a quick Google

 

Hope some of this helps!

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AlabamaJ - brace yourself for a painful learning curve.

 

Lots of BIM-ish stuff basically doesn't quite work in VW but with some workarounds and perseverance you can tame it. Having never used Revit I'm not sure how it compares.

 

The video tutorials will get you up to the point where you discover all the things that don't work. From then onwards, this forum is your best bet. If the forum here didn't exist (and the ever helpful VW employee JimW who seems to keep it afloat single-handedly) I'd have given up on trying to use VW for 3D stuff long ago.

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Hello Alabama,

 

I've talked to folks who have migrated to VW from Revit, and once they get the hang of it, invariably, they like it better.  The versatility of the 2D tools and the ability to fine tune the drawing precisely in 2d and 3d is the main plus.  VW sacrifices order and organizational clarity in favor of user control and flexibility.  So - getting started it can be confusing, because there is often more than one way to do things.  Later, it's a blessing because you can almost always find a way to achieve the result that you want.

 

Regarding the plan view - your viewport settings in the OIP should be set to View:  "Top/Plan" and Background Render "Wireframe."

Controlling visibility of objects is usually fine tuned through the use of classes.  Jim answered this pretty well.  If you have an object that you want dashed in plan view (say a beam above or a roof).  You would need to set the objects' attributes to "by class." It's the funny box with an arrow pointing up in the Attribute Pallet.

  58e6a667f00b1_ScreenShot2017-04-06at1_33_56PM.png.32ed2c68a6e490efe4fc66fc499ca686.png

You can do this quickly by selecting "make all attributes by class" from the pop up menu at the bottom.  Then in the viewport, you can override the class settings ~ i.e. changing the fill to none, the line to dash, or you can just turn off display of that class.  There are ways to adjust the "slice height" of a plan view, but it's complicated and you would be better off learning the conventional way first before improvising too much.

 

The standard for section cuts is to set the Background Render to "Hidden Line."

 

Details:  Personally, I rarely link my details to section views.  The reason being, that I routinely copy details from older projects and work with a large library of standards that are easy to modify in 2d.  Having all of my details on one 2d layer tends to be more efficient - as I can easily move notes, hatches, and objects between details without having to enter and exit viewport annotations.  The way you described - enlarged viewports with annotations is common enough, so experiment some more and see what you like.

 

As your base information and templates grow, you'll see remarkable productivity gains ... and much more comprehensive drawing materials.  Modifications in design telegraph through the whole set and worksheets do a remarkably good job of reporting that information in clear and concise terms.

 

Here's a good starting place for worksheet help:  http://app-help.vectorworks.net/2016/eng/VW2016_Guide/Worksheets/Worksheets.htm

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Taproot said:

Controlling visibility of objects is usually fine tuned through the use of classes.  Jim answered this pretty well.  If you have an object that you want dashed in plan view (say a beam above or a roof).  You would need to set the objects' attributes to "by class." It's the funny box with an arrow pointing up in the Attribute Pallet.

 

 

 

I don't really understand what you're advising here...setting the object's attributes to "by class" will only help if it's in a class with the attributes you want.

 

I think the OP is hoping that VW is intelligent enough in top/plan view to know what's above the cutting plane and so on. But largely it's not, sadly.

 

 

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On 4/6/2017 at 5:32 PM, line-weight said:

I don't really understand what you're advising here...setting the object's attributes to "by class" will only help if it's in a class with the attributes you want.

 

I think the OP is hoping that VW is intelligent enough in top/plan view to know what's above the cutting plane and so on. But largely it's not, sadly.

 

 

 

I was referring to the use of Class Overrides in viewports to adjust visibility.  For example if the cut plane height were the problem, turn off visibility of classed objects above that plane or override the class to change them to dashed, etc. 

 

I'm just guessing ...

If Alabama posted an example of a plan with comments on the desired result ... then we could give more constructive advice.

 

 

 

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On 09/04/2017 at 0:08 AM, Taproot said:

 

I was referring to the use of Class Overrides in viewports to adjust visibility.  For example if the cut plane height were the problem, turn off visibility of classed objects above that plane or override the class to change them to dashed, etc. 

 

 

Ah, I see what you mean.

 

The objects have to be set to "by class" in order for the class over-ride settings for the viewport to have any effect (strange that this should be required really - I see no logical reason!)

 

This of course all relies on objects being classed according to location as well as type. So for example you have to have one class for light fittings that are above the cut plane and another for those which are below. That's fine working in a 2D mode... but once you're modelling stuff in 3D, the top/plan view should be able to know for itself whether something's above of below the cut plane. At the moment it just doesn't - even though all the information is there for it in the model. Discovering this is one of the big disappointments as you launch yourself into what you thought was a new and efficient 3D BIM paradigm, only to find you have to keep using the same kind of tricks for floorplans as you did when you were drawing them in 2D

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