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Landmark and site modeling


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I was doing some work on a 3d site model, and in trying to deal with the physics and rocket science involved

in trying to slope a pad in two directions, the thought came to me how much easier and kinder it would be if we 

could just use a 3d polygon and give each vertex a Z height, then that became to pad. instant sloped pad!!

Doesn’t that kinda make sense ?

 

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Tamsin

Actually it did not work.  Perhaps I missed something,  I tried it several times, to no avail.

i wanted it to be a sloped pad object, that correctly reflected the solid surface under the house and inside 

the foundation walls, as I had shown in the screenshot I had previously attached. Sorry, kinda hard to articulate

with words.

 

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Oh, and by the way.....pertaining to landmark and site modeling, did you ever notice

that when using the clip cube tool cutting through a solid mesh of the site model, that it appears hollow??

This alone is the reason I did not upgrade to VW 2020. I had brought this more than irksome issue 

up to tech support many times over the years, and it has still never been addressed.

So......as a very longtime user.....I am boycotting  for the time being, sad to say.

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
6 hours ago, Kevin K said:

Tamsin

Actually it did not work.  Perhaps I missed something,  I tried it several times, to no avail.

i wanted it to be a sloped pad object, that correctly reflected the solid surface under the house and inside 

the foundation walls, as I had shown in the screenshot I had previously attached. Sorry, kinda hard to articulate

with words.

 

I'm sorry to hear it didn't work, but I am guessing something was wrong in the workflow, as I have used and taught this method many, many times. For success, you must use the class that is generated by the system - not create it yourself. The presence of any other site modifier in the file will automatically create the class - so if you have no other modifiers, create a Grade Limit, and you'll see the class created. Use this class for your 3D Polygon and it will become a modifier.

If you still have problems, please post a link to your file, and I'll take a look as soon as I get a chance. 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
9 hours ago, Kevin K said:

Oh, and by the way.....pertaining to landmark and site modeling, did you ever notice

that when using the clip cube tool cutting through a solid mesh of the site model, that it appears hollow??

This alone is the reason I did not upgrade to VW 2020. I had brought this more than irksome issue 

up to tech support many times over the years, and it has still never been addressed.

So......as a very longtime user.....I am boycotting  for the time being, sad to say.

 

Yes, this is the case with the Clip Cube. I just tested it, and it displays hollow even in a viewport. I am more than happy to raise this with our engineering team and see if it is something that can be changed, via an enhancement request.

 

Of course, in a section viewport, even one created with the clip cube, it's possible to display the section plane with graphics from a selected class, but I assume you want to show in a 3D view.

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Tamsin

First, thank you for being so proactive regarding the issue with the hollow site model. 

Since you seem to have such a direct line to bug reports, perhaps you could also have the powers that be look into 

the fact that it is not possible to rotate a material texture on a Texture Bed item. I have tried every workaround

humanly possible to get this to work, like even resorting to the attribute mapping tool, but that tool is not acknowledged

when dealing with Texture Beds. To better demonstrate this issue I attached a down and dirty screenshot.

Notice the scored concrete driveway and sidewalk. It is a texture bed item, but it comes in in that particular angle, with no way to 

modify the angle.

 

I realize that you most likely have lots of other fish to fry, but not being able to rotate textures in this situation is an issue.

And lastly......as I prattle on, regarding the question I posed about the 3d poly site modifier....perhaps a quick team viewer session

would be a good idea to resolve the issue?

 

Thanks

-Kev

 

NON ROTATING TEXTURE BED.jpg

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hi Kevin

The wish to rotate the texture on a texture bed is already filed. It is something I have done myself, so no need to re-register that one.

As a workaround, perhaps edit a copy of the texture itself and within its settings, change the rotation? If the texture is image-based, you can edit the image shader and at least rotate it through 90º chunks (no finer tuning I'm afraid). I think the complexity here is that you are in effect trying to map a texture onto a complex mesh. But anyway, the wish is known. I can't guarantee any timescales, or even if this is possible, as I am not an engineer.

 

Regarding the Site-DTM-Modifier issue, I'm afraid we are on different time-zones, so it would probably be easier for you to share your file, and I'll take a look and post back. If you don't want to share with the public forum, please feel free to share a link in a private message and I'll take a look tomorrow. If you could save the file with the correct layers active and the relevant 3D poly selected, that would save me time.

 

Thanks

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
7 hours ago, Tamsin Slatter said:

Yes, this is the case with the Clip Cube. I just tested it, and it displays hollow even in a viewport. I am more than happy to raise this with our engineering team and see if it is something that can be changed, via an enhancement request.

 

Of course, in a section viewport, even one created with the clip cube, it's possible to display the section plane with graphics from a selected class, but I assume you want to show in a 3D view.

@Kevin K I know this does not solve your issue exactly but figured I'd throw this out there anyways...If you use 3D Extruded Contours for the Site Model 3D Display Mode, the Clip Cube will treat it as a true solid (same with section viewports). When the Site Model 3D Display Style is set to Mesh, the Clip Cube reads the Site Model as a TIN element, and not a solid—I wish this were not the case. Thank you for your comment and I'll also raise your concern internally.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I have just returned your file to you Kevin. 

The 3D Polygon, when placed in the Site-DTM-Modifier class (just as it is, no conversion to any other kind of object necessary), does modify your site.

But, the other problem I saw was that the site model was set to be modified only by the same layer as the site model. Your 3D Poly was on a different layer. So I changed the setting in the site model to 'Visible Layers Only". I also change the 3D Display to Proposed, and all was good.

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@Tamsin Slatter

Hey,

Coupla questions...

  1.  Is it normal that i need to "force select" anything related to my site model? eg roads, site modifiers (all types) etc..?
  2.  Is there a simple way to cut pad into a slope with vertical cut faces without disturbing the surrounding gradients? as is commonly required for footings and basements. So far I have experimented with two very clunky work around's.
    1. use a two pads, one above and one below the cut face (slightly offset).
    2. use a pad with minimally offset grade limiter
  3. Why not have an option to use a wall or slab to control a site model? this would be intuitive to use, reflecting real world construction and smooth out workflow when making edits?

Appreciate your thoughts

Cheers,

Andy

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hi Andy

 

1. No, not normal to have to Force Select, but if your modifiers are on the same layer as your site model, the cursor can have a hard time deciding what it is that you want to select. For that reason, I always put my modifiers on different design layers and ensure that my model is set to be updated by either visible layers only, or a set of specific layers (in site model settings).

2. Yes - try Pad with Retaining Edge. Then use Send to Surface to send the retaining edge to the existing surface.

3. Nice idea.

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On 10/8/2019 at 11:16 AM, Tamsin Slatter said:

Of course, in a section viewport, even one created with the clip cube, it's possible to display the section plane with graphics from a selected class, but I assume you want to show in a 3D view.

 

While this thread is 'live' -

 

At least in VW2018 there are still issues with the site model being rendered hollow in *some* section viewports.

 

Is that a bug that was ever fixed?

 

See here

 

 

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@Tamsin Slatter It looks like VW Landmark does have a retaining wall site modifier (https://app-help.vectorworks.net/2020/eng/index.htm#t=VW2020_Guide%2FSiteModel2%2FCreating_retaining_walls.htm) that @A McDonell is asking about.  Why is this not available to VW Architect users?

 

Edit: Looks like there's a wishlist item for this.  Please visit & vote up @ the top left corner.

 

Edited by E|FA
added link
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I'm still on 2019, and am looking forward to using the added/improved hardscape tool once I update.

 

Any chance of getting the retaining wall added to Architect in a 2021 SP?  Almost every project I work on has retaining walls.  I don't understand the logic of restricting this particular site modifier to VW Landmark users.

 

Edit: Updated to request for VW 2021SP.   @Tamsin Slatter, any chance this will happen?  2022?  I'm assuming this is a business decision, rather than a technical issue.

Edited by E|FA
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On 10/17/2019 at 10:39 PM, Tamsin Slatter said:

Hi Andy

 

1. No, not normal to have to Force Select, but if your modifiers are on the same layer as your site model, the cursor can have a hard time deciding what it is that you want to select. For that reason, I always put my modifiers on different design layers and ensure that my model is set to be updated by either visible layers only, or a set of specific layers (in site model settings). I also follow this structure (Site mod-exist & site mod-prop layers, but in 2020 im still finding that i can't click select occasionally, but marquis selection or force select always works, this is problematic when you have lots of modifiers at play. 

2. Yes - try Pad with Retaining Edge. Then use Send to Surface to send the retaining edge to the existing surface. Send to surface! Ill try this.

3. Nice idea. Thanks! but apparently not original because there is such thing in Landmark, just not Architect? This should change, maybe you can make it happen?

 

I might add another question here

4. Im finding that i get lots of conflict alerts and inhibited model when I add a "proposed' site modifiers which cross over ' existing site modifiers. Yet this is an essentially ability. I need to use existing SM's to  clean up my survey point data generated site model and then my proposed SM's are naturally going to edit these existing conditions.

 

Is there a work around? Like a way to export a "clean" site model which integrates existing SM's as permanent edits? Once i have established existing conditions accurately Id be happy to lose the ability to retroactively edit existing conditions (and possibly make the file lighter?) once I commence design  (proposed) iterations.

 

Thanks for your thoughtful engagement Tamsin, much appreciated.

Edited by A McDonell
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
On 10/8/2019 at 1:24 PM, Tamsin Slatter said:

I just filed the request. Here's the number for our internal reference. VE-100226.

Thanks for filing this request! Sounds like a good idea, and not just for the site model.

 

Here are some more details about it:

The Site model is TIN-based which means that we currently model only the terrain surface. What the "3D Mesh" with "skirt" option does is to create a mesh which encloses a volume but at the end it is still a mesh and that is why when using Clip Cube or Clop Cube Viewport, it appears hollow (same is the behavior when Clip Cube works on any meshes which enclose volumes - to see it just ungroup the site model from the test file). It seems that in order to change this behavior we need changes in the Clip Cube functionality so it interprets enclosed meshes as "solids"?

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
6 minutes ago, bozho said:

Thanks for filing this request! Sounds like a good idea, and not just for the site model.

 

Here are some more details about it:

The Site model is TIN-based which means that we currently model only the terrain surface. What the "3D Mesh" with "skirt" option does is to create a mesh which encloses a volume but at the end it is still a mesh and that is why when using Clip Cube or Clop Cube Viewport, it appears hollow (same is the behavior when Clip Cube works on any meshes which enclose volumes - to see it just ungroup the site model from the test file). It seems that in order to change this behavior we need changes in the Clip Cube functionality so it interprets enclosed meshes as "solids"?

Thanks for the explanation. Very helpful, and yes, it would be great if it were possible to enhance the Clip Cube in this way.

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