No Stories, No Problem

[EdwardMatthew]

Hello All. Thank you for providing such a comprehensive guide for transitioning from 2D to 3D BIM workflows, especially for those of us who may not be as comfortable with the concept of stories in Vectorworks. Your hands-on approach of learning by "reverse engineering" is particularly effective for understanding the practical implications of wall styles, slab styles, and offsets.

 

Best Regards,

Edward.

[digitalcarbon]

What story is this on? What would the elevation be?

I have 3 layers.  Foundation Wall, Footing and Slab.  each one is asking me for an elevation.

 

 

Edited January 2 by digitalcarbon

[digitalcarbon]

then what story would all the walls that sit on the foundation be on? Ok. its the 1st floor story but what elevation do I use?

[zoomer]

I have a similar but far less complicated basement situation

at a sloped site.

 

I divided Foundations over 2 Stories,

the lower Foundations with Walls on top in between,

the upper Foundations and all Walls starting from there.

 

Then there is an extra non standard Foundation, so it will get

its own (Wall)Style anyway and so it can also get its own Level.

 

Everything else that does not match gets local overwriting in OIP.

 

 

In your case it is a bit difficult.

Generally it looks more like custom modeling with Solids.

For IFC's sake you may want to put it on a Story and use VW Walls

or just tag it manually.

 

You can use a non level bound Wall Style for foundations and base

Walls. But you can also add 30+ of your Levels to assign them manually

to Walls in OIP, in case this can help organizing your modeling.

 

I did so in some cases where I had not enough data of existing and

had to correct some of the levels later over time when modeling.

This was quite handy as when you adapt such a Level, all related bound

Walls will update automatically.

[digitalcarbon]

@zoomer thanks.. for concrete I just do solid modeling with no wall tool 

[line-weight]

Is it a building with multiple levels, and are those multiple levels repetitive?

 

If not, just put everything in one storey. Then you don't need to worry about storey elevations. Just have a zero datum for the whole thing & relate all your levels to that.

[digitalcarbon]

@line-weight thanks.  That is what I have done, I just build it FF 1st floor at 100.00' in the air.  Then  I just turn on the foundation and place the sill plates, for example.

[E|FA]

On 1/2/2024 at 3:44 PM, line-weight said:

If not, just put everything in one storey. Then you don't need to worry about storey elevations. Just have a zero datum for the whole thing & relate all your levels to that.

If you're doing that why use Stories at all?  Take a look at the original post in this thread to see the No Story workflow.

[zoomer]

4 hours ago, E|FA said:

why use Stories at all?

 

A Story is mandatory to have access to  Story Levels.

And with Levels you can add some useful parametric control

to make later changes easier.

 

OK, VW's Story Level Settings Design is the worst of all option available

to make later changes in Levels any comfortable ...

 

But the more a project tends to go from completely chaotic to more

boring standardized and more changes/adaptions while design

expected, there comes a point where the unnecessary tedious

Story/Level setup starts to bring an advantage.

 

I basically like Story/Levels or parametric in Arch Modeling in general,

so I set them up wherever possible, even when renouncing of it would

likely be a bit faster at the end.

But it always depends on the special project and is a personal preference.

 

 

[line-weight]

5 hours ago, E|FA said:

If you're doing that why use Stories at all?  Take a look at the original post in this thread to see the No Story workflow.

 

Like Zoomer says, it's mainly about accessing Levels.

 

The parametric possibilities are one reason, but also the ability to have reference levels that I can use to create elevation benchmarks on elevations/section viewports. Even if I never really change the levels, I find them very useful for making sure everything is in the right place. It's a visual check that things are at the correct height relative to things like finished floor levels, and is also useful when I have "existing" vs "proposed" and need to match a height somewhere. I like that the elevation benchmarks will always be correct automatically. Similar to grid lines in plan views.

[digitalcarbon]

2 hours ago, line-weight said:

Similar to grid lines in plan views.

Now you have my attention. 

[E|FA]

@zoomer I understand the use of Stories, but in the particular instance referred to in the suggestion:

On 1/2/2024 at 3:44 PM, line-weight said:

If not, just put everything in one storey.

it doesn't seem like there's any benefit to using them.  If you have a building with multiple floor levels + foundation, can you get any benefit from setting Story Levels, and if so is the benefit worth the added complications?

[zoomer]

19 minutes ago, E|FA said:

and if so is the benefit worth the added complications?

 

I think Assigning (multiple Stories is the easiest thing and applicable in 98% of buildings.

Just @digitalcarbon screenshot looked a bit like it may either not have further Stories

or if that these may look similar chaotic.

So in the 2% where Stories may not help, I think @line-weight  proposed to use

a single Story anyway to have access to Levels.

 

28 minutes ago, E|FA said:

if so is the benefit worth the added complications?

 

Sometimes it is, sometimes it may not.

 

E.g. if you just have a singly Story defined - you do not need "default" Levels.

You can assign Levels directly to Story and don't get the mess when changing

Level Zs afterwards.

 

[Pat Stanford]

I dont' use Stories or Levels. Can those of you who do please comment on if there is any benefit to using them if you are not using Walls and PIOs that can automatically associate with the levels?

 

If I am only using modeled solids that won't automatically adjust when I change levels is there any benefit for me?

 

[cberg]

Elevation benchmarks are story-based.  You need to set up stories at a very dumb level to get them to work in your viewport annotations.

 

 

Edited January 4 by cberg
grammar

[zoomer]

1 hour ago, Pat Stanford said:

If I am only using modeled solids that won't automatically adjust when I change levels is there any benefit for me?

 

So far only PIOs and Symbols can make use of Levels ....

For mainly custom Solids geometry, Story/Levels are indeed useless.

 

If you are doing BIM with mainly sophisticated stylized Level bound PIOs

on Component Level, maybe similar repeating projects,

VW Story/Levels, once pre set, can be a great help and time saver.

 

But working the old school, less abstract, pre-Story/Level way,

with Layer and Layer Wall Heights,

in many cases may not be much less effective.

It is more a preference of how you like to work.

 

Since manual height overwriting in OIP works reliably in VW and

is needed in both cases.

 

Similar to Stair Tool, some hate it in general for its abstraction, complexity

and on the other hand its limitations and prefer to model a Stair manually.

I like to set up a Stair Style parametrically and reuse it,

but get annoyed when it can't make it look the way I want.

Edited January 4 by zoomer

[line-weight]

2 hours ago, Pat Stanford said:

I dont' use Stories or Levels. Can those of you who do please comment on if there is any benefit to using them if you are not using Walls and PIOs that can automatically associate with the levels?

 

If I am only using modeled solids that won't automatically adjust when I change levels is there any benefit for me?

 

As l said above, the ability to use elevation benchmarks is benefit enough for me. Even if no objects are actually associated with them.

 

I no longer need to have the bit of paper stuck next to the screen with a project's significant levels written on it.

 

Part of the attraction for me is that I don't really like giving layers elevations, because I like to be able to paste-in-place between different building storeys. Having a single storey with a number of important/useful "levels" proves to be a good way of keeping Z values organised and recorded. For me and the kind of projects I do.

 

I find it quite satisfying/reassuring when I can make, say, a steelwork setting-out drawing and with a couple of clicks have things like finished floor levels, or top-of-steel levels, or whatever appear in the right locations in viewports.

[digitalcarbon]

20 hours ago, line-weight said:

I don't really like giving layers elevations, because I like to be able to paste-in-place between different building storeys

EXACTLY! I do this a lot.  I paste to another layer only to have it move on me because I set elevations to the layers.  I stopped doing that. 

[homero]

I'm just getting started on 3d after a long time using only 2d.  Are the slab setting under organization/stories referring to the same slab as drawn with the slab tool?  For example, I'm starting from the template file which has stories set up with 1' slabs, but the actual slab assembly will be something like 10 3/4".  If not, should they not be referred to differently?  Also, when I got to top and bottom bounding, which slab definition is it referring to?  I'm getting a little confused.  

Edited Tuesday at 05:44 PM by homero

[line-weight]

14 hours ago, homero said:

I'm just getting started on 3d after a long time using only 2d.  Are the slab setting under organization/stories referring to the same slab as drawn with the slab tool?  For example, I'm starting from the template file which has stories set up with 1' slabs, but the actual slab assembly will be something like 10 3/4".  If not, should they not be referred to differently?  Also, when I got to top and bottom bounding, which slab definition is it referring to?  I'm getting a little confused.  

 

What template file are you looking at?

 

If it's one from the first page of this thread, note that the point of this thread is to explain a model set-up that does not need the use of stories.

 

If you are looking at organisation/stories and seeing the "default storey levels" then if there's one with slab in the name, no it is not necessarily connected to any slabs you've drawn. You can set a storey level to any elevation you like, and you can call it what you want. The name of the storey level is just that, a descriptive name. You can then choose to relate various objects to a storey level, including slab objects.

[Tom W.]

46 minutes ago, line-weight said:

you can call it what you want. The name of the storey level is just that, a descriptive name.

 

Another thing to consider is that you can return the story level names in Elevation Benchmarks so worth thinking about what you want to see in your section VPs when naming them.

 

I have only just started doing this + it is pretty impressive functionality (having things set up so Elev BMs automatically display in section VPs).

[line-weight]

Just now, Tom W. said:

 

Another thing to consider is that you can return the story level names in Elevation Benchmarks so worth thinking about what you want to see in your section VPs when naming them.

 

I have only just started doing this + it is pretty impressive functionality (having things set up so Elev BMs automatically display in section VPs).

 

Yes I have been doing this for a while now and it's very useful. It's one of VW's best-implemented features. Just waiting for section-elevation lines to be updated to behave as nicely.

 

Relating elevation benchmarks to storey levels is one of the main reasons I use "storeys" even though I actually just use one storey and put all of my levels (for multiple floor levels) within it.

 

But this is all a bit off topic for this thread, which is supposed to be about getting by without using storeys at all.

[Tom W.]

1 minute ago, line-weight said:

 

Yes I have been doing this for a while now and it's very useful. It's one of VW's best-implemented features. Just waiting for section-elevation lines to be updated to behave as nicely.

 

Relating elevation benchmarks to storey levels is one of the main reasons I use "storeys" even though I actually just use one storey and put all of my levels (for multiple floor levels) within it.

 

But this is all a bit off topic for this thread, which is supposed to be about getting by without using storeys at all.

 

I'd be interested in quizzing you over your set-up as I'm not sure I completely know what I'm doing (with Stories) yet, but like you say probably better in another thread... 

 

It was actually after you clarified for me elsewhere that to get the full benefit of Elev BMs you needed to use Stories that I finally decided to do so on a current project. Although I added them halfway through which wasn't perhaps the most effective way of doing it 🙂

[line-weight]

2 hours ago, Tom W. said:

 

I'd be interested in quizzing you over your set-up as I'm not sure I completely know what I'm doing (with Stories) yet, but like you say probably better in another thread... 

 

It was actually after you clarified for me elsewhere that to get the full benefit of Elev BMs you needed to use Stories that I finally decided to do so on a current project. Although I added them halfway through which wasn't perhaps the most effective way of doing it 🙂

My setup is pretty simple in the end really.

This was the thread I made when first trying it: