3D Holes

[jp]

I am having trouble placing 3D holes in the proper orientation with respect to my object. I have a 3D rectangular block. I want to drill a hole through it. When I go to place 3D hole, it snaps to the top/plan view and will only allow me to place the hole parallel to this plane. I want to be placing the hole perpendicular, i.e., into this plane. How do I do this? (There is no field in the hole parameters window which allows me to do this as there are for the 2D holes or tapped holes, i.e. the "view" field). I have also tried setting the working plane to the appropriate face but this also does not work, it continues to snap to the top/plan view.

For reference I am working with Vectorworks Mechanical 10 for Mac OSX.

thanks!

[Guest]

jp -

Unfortunately, it is the nature of plug-in objects (of which the Hole - Drilled - 3D is one) that they can only be placed while in Top/Plan view. There are two ways to get it in the correct orientation.

(1) After placing the hole switch to a view where you can see the profile of the hole and use the 2D Rotate and 2D Selection tools to move the hole to the proper position and orientation.

(2) Insert the 2D Hole - Drilled while in Top/Plan view with the proper dimensions. Switch to the view that you want the hole to be parallel to and move the 2D hole to the proper location. With the 2D hole selected, use the Mechanical..Create 3D Object From 2D command and the 3D hole will be created in the current view. You may have to switch back to the top view and use the 2D Selection to move the 3D hole to the proper location. Delete the 2D hole.

Tom Urie

Nemetschek, N.A.