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It's impossible for Vectorworks to draw this very simple object correctly.... right?


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I think we've been around the houses on this issue before, but want to make sure I'm not missing something, because it causes me endless trouble.

 

All this is, is a wall, with a top section formed of two directly modelled solids. The wall and the two top pieces are all finished in the same material, and where their surfaces join each other they are coplanar. So, when I generate elevations from the model, there should not be any lines between them. But there are, and as far as I know there is no way to get rid of them.

 

820066022_ScreenShot2018-12-04at19_23_55.thumb.jpg.3498533a68c50e9f11de3e1946831130.jpg

 

Ok, so errant line A could be made to disappear by making an addition of solids A and B, even if there might be drawing setup reasons that doing so would cause other issues.

 

But there's absolutely no way of making errant line B disappear.

 

Is that right?

 

(I've attached the drawing file below too)

vwimpossible.vwx

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You could add them all together as a solid addition. That works in 2019. The drawback is that the wall will no longer adjust with the door should you wish to move the door.

 

You will also need to change the hidden line detail to something like 45 to remove the Line A where it changes direction.

 

 

 

image.thumb.png.3526cbebfe92a362ce64e293f254d9d1.png

Edited by markdd
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I attempted modeling this all as "One" object as well by creating the look with a Feature In Wall, but end up with exactly the same results in Hidden Line. This was the only other method (that i could think of anyway) of creating it whilst still leaving parametric objects intact and it still fell short:

 

image.png image.png

We've long needed a way to control these lines manually though, as its blatantly obvious to a human which lines would and wouldnt be shown, but its much harder to make Vectorworks see this automatically. However I would as you imply, expect that more of these lines be detected just by virtue of the lines being adjacent to wall geometry.

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8 minutes ago, markdd said:

You could add them all together as a solid addition. That works in 2019. The drawback is that the wall will no longer adjust with the door should you wish to move the door.

 

You sort of can, you just need to do it twice. Memory of the door seems to remain within the solid addition, so you would need to move it both inside and outside.

 

Kevin

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While I'm aware it's sort of possible to add things together into a solid addition, that kind of defeats the purpose of having BIM type objects in the first place. And makes subsequent editing very messy.

 

It also becomes impractical in a large model where there might be lots of these instances throughout.

 

Finally it doesn't work if the objects to be added are on different layers (for example they are part of an external wall which spans several storeys).

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@Jim Wilson I know there are in theory ways of doing things like features-in-walls; however in practice I've found these very unreliable and all sorts of things go wrong when you want to edit and change stuff.

 

The basic issue is with the way it's rendered. If the two surfaces adjoin and are coplanar, then there shouldn't be a line between. Doesn't need to be much more complicated than that really. But as you say sometimes there are situations where human and computer might disagree, and there is absolutely no way in dealing with this in VW other than horrible patching-up in viewport annotations which creates unsatisfactory drawings (as raised in another thread some time ago).

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Just now, line-weight said:

If the two surfaces adjoin and are coplanar, then there shouldn't be a line between.


I think this would catch a HUGE number of instances on it's own, you're right. Lemme go see what happened with the last filing I did for something like this and give it a poke.

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1 minute ago, Jim Wilson said:


I think this would catch a HUGE number of instances on it's own, you're right. Lemme go see what happened with the last filing I did for something like this and give it a poke.

 

Renderworks, in effect, knows this and does this. But can't produce linework output of course.

I've wondered if there is some way of tricking Renderworks into producing something nearly like a line drawing elevation.

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1 minute ago, line-weight said:

@Jim Wilson I know there are in theory ways of doing things like features-in-walls; however in practice I've found these very unreliable and all sorts of things go wrong when you want to edit and change stuff.

 

^ That's my experience too. After my last experience with Wall Projections / Wall Recesses I'm not sure I'd use it again.

 

3 minutes ago, Jim Wilson said:

I think this would catch a HUGE number of instances on it's own, you're right. Lemme go see what happened with the last filing I did for something like this and give it a poke.

 

I wouldn't want this in general since if you're modelling from scratch you usually separate geometry where you want a line, but I can see it being very useful for PIOs like walls.

 

Kevin

 

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Just now, Kevin McAllister said:

if you're modelling from scratch you usually separate geometry where you want a line,

 

 

Can you think of an example situation? I might want a line between different materials but perhaps that could be addressed by giving them different classes, if VW knew that meant they were to be drawn with a line at the join.

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2 minutes ago, line-weight said:

 

Can you think of an example situation? I might want a line between different materials but perhaps that could be addressed by giving them different classes, if VW knew that meant they were to be drawn with a line at the join.

 

Lots. I often model plank table tops as separate planks to get board lines, same thing for floor boards, masonite floor layouts, or flush drawers where I don't want to model tiny gaps (gaps create a snapping nightmare) . I'm not an architect though so I'm using VW in a different way.

 

Kevin

 

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1 minute ago, Kevin McAllister said:

but I can see it being very useful for PIOs like walls.


Apologies, thats mostly what I meant. I also envision it as a toggle-able option as well, similar to Intersecting Lines.

The Feature in Wall I only bothered with since that the way we "Intend" users to be able to make geometry like this theoretically. I avoid it too because of the same limitations mentioned, especially near corners and joins, but not only does it have those issues it doesn't fix the lines either so I tossed the line of thinking out.

 

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1 minute ago, Jim Wilson said:


Apologies, thats mostly what I meant. I also envision it as a toggle-able option as well, similar to Intersecting Lines.

The Feature in Wall I only bothered with since that the way we "Intend" users to be able to make geometry like this theoretically. I avoid it too because of the same limitations mentioned, especially near corners and joins, but not only does it have those issues it doesn't fix the lines either so I tossed the line of thinking out.

 

I've often wondered why I can't define any object as a "wall". I could see wanted to use wall hole object symbols on all sorts of objects... but that's way off topic except that the shape above would be way easier to generate as a EAP type of wall.....

 

Kevin

 

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2 minutes ago, Kevin McAllister said:

 

I've often wondered why I can't define any object as a "wall". I could see wanted to use wall hole object symbols on all sorts of objects... but that's way off topic except that the shape above would be way easier to generate as a EAP type of wall.....

 

Kevin

 

I've often wanted to do this. It would be especially useful for Entertainment designers where nothing tends to follow strict architectural rules although the need to have some of the Wall tool's functionality is often required.

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19 minutes ago, Kevin McAllister said:

 

I can see it being very useful for PIOs like walls.

 

It *does* work with wall PIOs currently though - if you stack two walls on top of each other or in line with each other it knows not to put a line (most of the time).

 

So the programming must be there somehow. I'd like it to apply to all objects though. It could perhaps be a user preference to have it switched on or off.

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Walls on Walls generally works as expected, its when things that aren't walls or things that have the same class/material/fill have a coplanar (coliniar?) edges that it rapidly breaks down. Going to push this a bit more with the engineer tomorrow, we've set aside some time to chat about it.

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1 hour ago, Kevin McAllister said:

 

Lots. I often model plank table tops as separate planks to get board lines, same thing for floor boards, masonite floor layouts, or flush drawers where I don't want to model tiny gaps (gaps create a snapping nightmare) . I'm not an architect though so I'm using VW in a different way.

 

Kevin

 

Yes I can understand these use cases and I realise I sometimes do similar myself.

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