Seating Tool Help

[Ryan Seybert]

I'm having a hard time trying to get the seating tool to do what I want.

 

I get that the tool is geared more towards drawing the boundary and populating the area with the chairs that will fit but its super difficult to hit specific seating goals such as 12 chairs wide by 14 rows.  More often than not, in the corporate event world, seating is dictated by fire marshal regulations and now with the pandemic, additional regulations are going to follow.  I've tried messing with the various settings to achieve what I'm shooting for but it just never works out.

 

That is the workflow that is meant to be followed with this tool?  What have other users had success with?

[SCParker]

Hi Ryan,

I happen to be in the middle of making a series of how-to videos on just this topic. Here's a rough edit covering exactly this. I'll be posting the series soon.

 

hth, Scott

 

[TomWhiteLight]

This is excellent Scott!

 

[Ryan Seybert]

@SCParker Thanks for the great walk-through.  It really clarified some things for me.  For the most part, I was doing everything that you guided us to do.  I guess I was getting caught up on the boundary and trying to get too specific with it and letting it determine the number of chairs.

 

Side question: I have some custom chair symbols that I've tried to use with the seating tool but every time I select one in the settings pane, it crashes VW.  Have you noticed this as well?  If the symbol is in the drawing already it works but if its from my resources then it crashes.

 

Thanks again for the walk through!

[scottmoore]

23 hours ago, SCParker said:

Hi Ryan,

I happen to be in the middle of making a series of how-to videos on just this topic. Here's a rough edit covering exactly this. I'll be posting the series soon.

 

hth, Scott

 

Scott,

Thanks for the detailed walk-through.  Very helpful.  I've never really used the seating tool so I decided I should at least figure it out after watching your video.  I do have a question and a comment.  

 

• It appears the "nudging" a seating section causes it to lose its numbering.  All seats become number 1.  That does not happen if you move a section by a prescribed distance.  Does that seem to be the case for you?  

 

• It is a bit of a drag that you cannot modify multiple sections at once.  For instance, if one forgets to use classes, and wants to go back and add that functionality, you have to do it one section at a time.  

 

Regardless, thank you very much for the time and effort you put into that.  

[SCParker]

2 hours ago, scottmoore said:

All seats become number 1.  That does not happen if you move a section by a prescribed distance.  Does that seem to be the case for you?  

Yes, it does happen on occasion. I think my fix was to uncheck and check almost any box in the OIP and the section would do a recount/renumber.

 

Agreed on the editing of multiple sections at once. Still trying to figure out a workaround for that.

 

Thanks for watching.

Best, Scott

[TomWhiteLight]

15 hours ago, Ryan Seybert said:

@SCParker Thanks for the great walk-through.  It really clarified some things for me.  For the most part, I was doing everything that you guided us to do.  I guess I was getting caught up on the boundary and trying to get too specific with it and letting it determine the number of chairs.

 

Side question: I have some custom chair symbols that I've tried to use with the seating tool but every time I select one in the settings pane, it crashes VW.  Have you noticed this as well?  If the symbol is in the drawing already it works but if its from my resources then it crashes.

 

Thanks again for the walk through!

Hi Ryan, Your new chair symbols should have the event planning record attached.

 

Best wishes

 

Tom W

[Matt Hall]

I was unable to create this with seating tool.  I got close then converted it to a group

 

I needed 12 seats 

(it keeps bouncing from 11 t0 13 or

if i force 12 seats it justifies to the left or right not center)

 

needed to omit a seat at a column

when i omitted this seat the seat count was off

(maybe could have a aisle tool but cant find in any workspace ( my VW arch is up to date)

 

need 100 seats

want the left over seats centered on back row but seating is left justified so had to reshape the polygon to move them to the right

 

[Matt Hall]

 

Was able to do it and keep seating tool likve

 

left justify the seating

reshape the the seating boundary

clip boundary at omitted seat

(not sure why I can't center the seating and omit a seat and have the  count work out?)

 

 

[TomWhiteLight]

Hi Matt.

 

I needed 12 seats 

(it keeps bouncing from 11 t0 13 or

if i force 12 seats it justifies to the left or right not center)

 

You can choose fill direction in the settings (Primary and Secondary)

 

needed to omit a seat at a column

when i omitted this seat the seat count was off

(maybe could have a aisle tool but cant find in any workspace ( my VW arch is up to date)

 

This Seating section tool and corresponding Aisle tool can be found within Spotlight only.

 

need 100 seats

want the left over seats centered on back row but seating is left justified so had to reshape the polygon to move them to the right.

 

The primary and secondary fill direction will give you some control over where to put seats. However finer control can always be achieved by editing the boundary or converting to group.

 

[Peter Telleman]

@TomWhiteLight

 

Hi Tom,

 

While looking to get an answer to a question I have, I stumbled on this thread. I wonder, when you set the primary fill to center out, it puts the center of a chair in the center, therefor not filling the space to the max. Isn't there a standard setting where VW can fill to maximum capacity, but deciding on width of the box whether to center one chair, or center between two chairs?

In the added example center out gives you 170 chairs, when left to right gives you 180 chairs. I know you can shift the field of chairs to the desired position, but if it could be a standard setting, it would really help, given the huge amount of chairs we put in drawings.

 

Thanks,

 

Peter

[Scott C. Parker]

51 minutes ago, Peter Telleman said:

In the added example

Did you intend to add an example file? It didn't attach. 

[Peter Telleman]

@Scott C. Parker

 

It did everything right, unfortunately, I didn't 🙂

VW 2025 seat section test.vwx

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

I like the seating tool, but there are times when there are caveats. 

 

I noticed your file does not have seating numbers?  If this is not an issue, have you tried doing it the old fashion way.  It would take less than sixty seconds using the file you posted.

 

 

[Peter Telleman]

@VIRTUALENVIRONS

 

That's what we're doing now, we just make a row of seats and then copy that across the seating area (I'm assuming that's what you mean by the old fashion way). It's very doable, but was just wondering if the seating tool could do the job quicker.

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

@Peter Telleman

Hi Peter,

There is probably a setting in the seating tool that works, I am not familiar enough.  I did look at it fairly extensively and like the Stair Tool was very impressed with its functionality, but like the Stair tool it does not work for all applications.

In a case like below, the only option was Duplicate Along Path which works very well.

 

 

 

[Scott C. Parker]

@Peter Telleman I'm still exploring. I've found something interesting that I need to research. For some reason, the tool likes dealing with odd numbers of seats when using from center. It just might be the way it is.

 

On 11/22/2024 at 10:04 AM, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

In a case like below, the only option was Duplicate Along Path

Are you able to share some sections of your curved support structure? I want to try a few things.

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

@SCParker  Support Structure, see below.  This piece is a small part of the images below.

 

Explanation.  Modelling in Vectorworks, Rendering in CINEMA 4D.  The centre seats I added in CINEMA 4D for effect (Mograph), they were not required. 

 

This came to me from Australia as millions of unconnected 3D polygons.  The hard part of this project was not the seating, but getting something that could be worked with like the section I have enclosed.  The seats are not random, but about 98 % correct.  I had to overlay and correctly register the 2D seating plan and the physical model.  That was very tricky also.  Then turn those millions of polygons into about 27 objects that extractions could be exacted on.

 

In retrospect, the seats were the easy part.  The seats are a symbol whose height is controlled by a 3D Loci.  

 

SECTION.vwx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Scott C. Parker]

 I played for a bit, and these examples all use the seating tool to place seats on the risers. They're not perfect, but they're really close. 

The most versatile section is the one I split into three separate sections.

For me, once I have my curvature, seat row spacing, rise value, etc., all figured out, placing seats around the stadium could be efficient and require tweaks when needed. 
I am working on a list of enhancements for the seating tool's future development. While playing with this, I found a new one. Restarting seat numbering when an aisle is inserted would be a time saver. 
Please share other improvement ideas, and I'll add them to my list.



SECTION.vwx

[Scott C. Parker]

On 8/1/2022 at 2:07 PM, Matt Hall said:

if i force 12 seats it justifies to the left or right not center)

 

On 11/21/2024 at 8:42 AM, Peter Telleman said:

I wonder, when you set the primary fill to center out, it puts the center of a chair in the center, therefor not filling the space to the max. Isn't there a standard setting where VW can fill to maximum capacity, but deciding on width of the box whether to center one chair, or center between two chairs

 

Centering seems to only work with odd numbers of chairs in rows. I'm submitting a bug about this, but it'll be a while before it's looked at.

 

 

[Peter Telleman]

@Scott C. Parker

Thanks for submitting a bug, nothing good ever came quickly, gives me something to look forward to 🙂

Edited December 3, 2024 by Peter Telleman