Fence to follow sloping site

[Stu Wilson 4]

Hi Guys,

 

Any ideas on how to put a fence into a site to follow the contours of the ground that slopes away from a building..... as most fences are in real life not infact, single perfectly level lines Vectorworks seems to work in!! 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated 

 

Stu

 

[CipesDesign 149]

One way is to use a Wall, set to 6ft High and about 2" thick, and textured with Wood Decking (turned vertically it looks just like fence boards). Draw the wall in Top Plan, on the Site Model Layer, then use the Send to Surface command. Once done, you will need to add some top vertices and adjust their elevation accordingly. Post back with further questions if needed.

[Stu Wilson 4]

22 minutes ago, CipesDesign said:

One way is to use a Wall, set to 6ft High and about 2" thick, and textured with Wood Decking (turned vertically it looks just like fence boards). Draw the wall in Top Plan, on the Site Model Layer, then use the Send to Surface command. Once done, you will need to add some top vertices and adjust their elevation accordingly. Post back with further questions if needed.

Top vertices? have absolutely no idea what that means... at all ! lol

[CipesDesign 149]

If you examine a Wall in 3d by Double Clicking, or by selecting the Reshape Tool, you will notice that in it's basic form there are six little nodes (vertices); one at each corner and one each at midspan along the top and bottom of the Wall. These define the Wall. One way to think of these is that they are almost exactly like the "handles" on a 2d rectangle (or polygon); but these are in 3d. If you create a basic Wall, then double click, you will also see that new options become available in the Mode Bar (by the way, all of this stuff is in VW's Help!). The first is Reshape. Try grabbing one of the corner vertices and pull it up or down; watch what happens! The second is "+", you can use it to create a new Vertex by clicking on an existing Vertex and pulling the new Vertex in the desired direction. The third is "-" which is used to delete a vertex (note: some vertices cannot be deleted as they are integral/required for the form of the Object). I recommend that you open a new file and play with these functions. I think you'll quickly get the idea. P

 

[mike m oz 372]

Stu, look at the end of this Vw video.  It shows how to do a fence that follows a sloped site.

 

 

[line-weight 772]

The method shown in that video is not very useful, because in most cases you want a fence to follow a line determined in plan view. You need to be able to project that line onto the surface of the site.

[Jonathan Pickup 286]

It surprises me that the railing fence tool can’t be drawn in plan and then simply sent to the surface of the site model to follow it exactly.

[Jonathan Pickup 286]

Stu,

you can work around this by using property line as a texture bed. Then you can use that to snap along the boundary edge.

[line-weight 772]

39 minutes ago, Jonathan Pickup said:

It surprises me that the railing fence tool can’t be drawn in plan and then simply sent to the surface of the site model to follow it exactly.

Yes, that would make life a lot easier and would seem like a fairly obvious functionality to provide.

Edited February 20, 2018 by line-weight

[line-weight 772]

39 minutes ago, Jonathan Pickup said:

Stu,

you can work around this by using property line as a texture bed. Then you can use that to snap along the boundary edge.

My workaround was to project a polygon down to the site surface, then draw the fence snapping along its bottom edges.

[AlanW 527]

Hi, Its a shame that the AUS/NZ fence tool hasn't been incorporated into the full VW rollout, it allows send to surface.

Also is attached a Marionette file that sends a fence to a terrain may assist in the interim.

Send_to_surface_004Cv2018.vwx

[Jonathan Pickup 286]

Alan, I agree.

 

[Boh 461]

2 hours ago, line-weight said:

My workaround was to project a polygon down to the site surface, then draw the fence snapping along its bottom edges.

If you then 3d move the 3d poly the height of the fence you then have a line to snap to get the top of the fence a constant height above the site. This works for the wall tool, not sure about fence tool - need to try that...

[line-weight 772]

1 hour ago, Boh said:

If you then 3d move the 3d poly the height of the fence you then have a line to snap to get the top of the fence a constant height above the site. This works for the wall tool, not sure about fence tool - need to try that...

 

It's not necessary for the fence tool as it maintains a constant height, unlike the wall tool.

[line-weight 772]

1 hour ago, Alan Woodwell said:

Hi, Its a shame that the AUS/NZ fence tool hasn't been incorporated into the full VW rollout, it allows send to surface.

Also is attached a Marionette file that sends a fence to a terrain may assist in the interim.

Send_to_surface_004Cv2018.vwx

 

Looks like that tool lets the top rail be below the top of the vertical pieces which is also handy.

[bob cleaver 31]

Alan, your work is incredible, thank you for sending the file