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GRID .... Struggling to get any sort of grid to work.


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Good Morning all, 

 

I am new to Vectorworks. Previously a Mac AutoCAD user, Im finding it very difficult to change over. 

 

My current problem is trying to get a grid to appear. Im working in Vectorworks Architecture and working on large 1:1 scale plans. My design layers will be covering over 1km. Is there any way to get a grid to cover everything. At the moment there is a tiny 840mm x 840mm grey 3x3 grid in the middle of my design layer. When I show the grid and play around with the smart cursor settings, sometimes blue lines will appear in this tiny grid. Thats all I can make it do. 

 

Please help me. As my new job uses Vectorworks Id love to be able to enjoy using the program but Im finding it very hard to see that happening at the moment. 

 

Using Vectorworks 2018 on Windows 7, on a Lenovo thinkpad with intel core i5

 

image.thumb.png.356f31d0f285fecae6ef3dea6c7ef734.png

Edited by twhitwell6
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Vectorworks is best when drawing using a Layer Scale. Say your intended output is 1:100, set all your layer scales to 1:100. This will NOT change the geometry in any way apart from how it looks at any particular scale. (This approach is fundamental to using Vectorworks and is often a tricky concept to grasp if you are coming from AutoCAD. However it gives you WYSIWYG functionality from the very beginning of your process.)

 

Then set your Grid to a what you need. That way, the grid will have a better chance of displaying at a more appropriate resolution as it will only display to the extent of the Page Size. Try that and come back with any questions.

 

 

Edited by markdd
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I think you have to make your page size larger irrational km size too.

 

Grid in 2D has an option (somewhere in snapping or VW settings ?)

to extend over page size settings.

But unfortunately this will not work in 3D views.

So if necessary I also adjust my page size to make it as big as my model.

(Although I do not print at all)

 

Nevertheless it is not a good idea in VW to work in 1:1 design layers,

as long as you don't have similar small sized projects like jewelry or mechanics.

VW Design Layer Scale isn't geometry related, you will always draw 1:1 but

is a WYSIWYG setting for things like stroke thicknesses and annotation element scale.

 

So you should always set it to the scale used by the majority of your 2D drawings in

Sheet Layers. This scale will make you page area look bigger against the model and

the depending grid will also get a more useful size automatically.

 

I assume, when you have some km project size, you will not want to print/output

any drawings in 1:1 anyway ?

 

 

Edited by zoomer
  • Like 2
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There is another recent post on this topic, but I couldn't find it right off the bat. For many reasons I had a manufacture who required drawing to be drawn at 1:1 as it made exporting to his CAM process easier & importing ACAD took less mental juggling. As we produced a large number of 3D symbols for his operation, I found that 1:1 scale drawing in VW made the files marginally larger files but more importantly the files on his system, running a more robust (at the time) Mac Pro was perceptibly slower. So as Zoomer & Markdd have said plan to set your Layer Scale at what you think the Majority of your Output scale will be.

 

So If you are planning at output at 1:5000 draw at 1:5000. If on the other hand you may have one plan at 1:5000 but the majority of your plans at 1:100 you may want to draw at 1:100 or even split the difference & draw at 1:500 and customize your lines & hatches of each viewport in the OIP

 

As the others have said, once you "get" how Layers & their scale works in VW it will go a long way in understanding the fundamental difference between the two pieces of software.

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