Making a wall with rectangle wall tool

[richard2020]

Hi there, 

 

After 15 years using sketchup, finally trying out a proper tool - vectorworks. 3 days in to the trial and its kinda good. Landscape, drainage, layout, scaled really happy. And then I tried to build the building. Absolutely fail by me. I committed two hours to watching the BIM tutorial, the second module of which showed a 2 second 'sure if you use the rectangle wall tool just drag it out, tab, put your dims in and hey presto'. In so many words. 

 

Tried it, and sure I could draw the exact rectangle. But I need to change the dims on it now. I can see I can drag the rectangle, but that's nowhere near precise enough and can't be the right approach. I've spent 3 hours on internet, on the vectorworks videos, trying to work out how to resize a wall rectangle! There's nothing in OIB saying about length of object. Vectorworks help says 'grab a handle (which I don't have whatever i try) and drag'. I don't want to drag. 

 

Second but also major problem for me is the components. I went to all the time and trouble of creating an accurate custom components build up for the rectangle walls, in the OIB for that '4 walls'. Vectorworks help is really super unhelpful. It says 'To make a style for a wall 'click on the tool and click preferences'. After an age of hunting turns out the spanner image is 'preferences'. So now I have reconstruct the components again. I can't see a way to copy it. 

 

As you can tell, getting frustrated that after 2 great days on vectorworks I am stymied significantly by it being half a day wasted trying to draw an actual room to the right size and then change it, which as a workflow I would have assumed was the starting point. I am sure you will rightly say that I can't get this because I've been used to using a mickey mouse tool like Sketchup Pro - and you are probably right. But I do think a reasonable help questions is 'how to change the size of a room'. Dragging an edge and tabbing just allows me to enter an offset. I can't find anything that describes the slab workflow (I'd have assumed you start with the slab, but the BIM tutorial says to start by scanning in a floorplan! I need to make a floorplan somewhere else and scan it in - I thought that was what Vectorworks did.

 

So please - if you can help, please do! Either I or the Vectorworks are going out of the window today if I can't work out how to adapt roomsizes. I fully accept it's user error, and me using the incorrect workflow but this building stuff is crazy hard. Site plans all done, drainage plans 90% all done.

 

Apart from this, and disappearing Title Blocks (*!*!*) it seems great. Using 2020 version. Thank you so much if you can help.

 

[Pat Stanford]

Deep breaths. It is going to be OK. We are here to help .  ;-)

 

VW is a very deep program with many ways to do almost everything. The trick is to learn enough of the ways to do what makes sense to you.

 

You do not have to scan in a floor plan from elsewhere. That is in the tutorial so that when done in a classroom setting everyone draws the same thing.

 

You can use the Wall tool to draw whatever walls you want. After the first click each additional click will end one segment and start the next. Double click to end the entire wall assembly.

 

While drawing with the wall tool you can hit the Tab key and open the data bar and type in whatever dimensions you need length, angle, etc. Keep tabbing and you will get absolute position fields. Keep tabbing more and you will come back to the beginning. Type in the value(s) that you want and you will get screen hints showing you where to click to get the values you want. Move the cursor close enough to that point and the Smart Cursor snapping will get you that point without your having to be 100% exact.

 

Select a wall segment and near the bottom of the Object Info Palette (OIP) you will see a section like this:

Edit the angle and length fields there and the wall will adjust. Click the upper cross and it will give you ∆X and ∆Y instead of L (Length) and A (Angle). The line with three dots lets you specify which points on the wall should stay fixed and let the other move when you make changes.

 

Finally as far as not having handles, it  is likely that you either don't have the selection tool selected or that you have the No Interactive Scaling option selected.

Make sure you have the second option (diagonal arrow) above selected instead the first (diagonal arrow with red NO circle).

 

HTH.

[richard2020]

I'm sure this is user error too. In dragging and tab value inserting I seem to lose my nice round numbers and it seems to be adding amounts. Baffled. I can only assume that once you drag the edge of a rectangular room, it resets the control line to centre. I can't find a way to re-reset it to outer edge. Which makes it extraordinarily difficult to line up with the next but separated room. The smart cursor doesn't seem to work. 

 

I've tried all the help I can see and can't find anything on this. Surely you must be able to enter a value for the length of the room? Surely? If I try dragging and entering a value it seems to create an absolute value on the design layer, not a length measurement. I know it can't be like this. I am doing something wrong. If anyone can help I'd really appreciate it. A day and a half to do location plans, site clock plans before and after, drainage plans but I cant draw a room 😞

 

[richard2020]

Hi Pat - thank you so much for responding. Am trying deep breaths now. It's 5.15 pm and been a long long day. Thank you 🙂

 

Ok so firstly - thank you so much on the interactive scaling tool. I've been using it for 3 days as interactive scaling and hadn't noticed it wasn't. 

 

On the drawing phase - 100% with you on that. That worked fine. But I want to change a room size after I've drawn it. And sure I can delete and start again, but I'd rather find the proper way. 

 

In terms of the little energos (?) table I did see that earlier but when I put values in it didn't seem to do anything against a blank background. so my guess it ismoving the whole rectangle on the lank background. But now it isn't there at all. What have I done wrong?

 

Thank you 

 

 

[richard2020]

Ah! Got it. The dimensions energos table only appears when a single wall is selected. I don't understand it though. In the attached screen shot you can see the room I am trying to resize. Its roughly 23000 x 7000 and I want to to be exactly that. But theres no number on the table even vaguely close to '7000'. So I can't see how that table reflects that rectangle, when a) 3 of the 4 numbers are nothing close to 7000 and b) only one wall is selected. If I select the whole room I lose the energos table?

 

Or is there just no way to adjust a room size the way you can a rectangle? What is the best way to adjust a room size?

 

Thank you!

[Pat Stanford]

You don't want the Energos portion (that is for energy calculations), but rather scroll down farther and you will get the shape information that I showed.

 

You might also want to consider using either the Move command or the Move by Points tool to resize your room.

 

You can also start to drag using the selection tool and then Tab to get the data bar to define how far to move.

 

If you have the connected Walls Mode turned on (last icon in the Mode bar of the Selection tool), then the other walls will automatically adjust also.

[Pat Stanford]

OK. The issue is a misunderstanding of terminology. Vectorworks does not understand "rooms". Vectorworks understands Walls. While in your mind rooms are made up of walls, VW only sees that there are walls.

 

I don't know what you do and what your eventual output needs to be, but you might want to take a look at Spaces. Spaces are generic objects that are closer to what you are thinking of as Rooms. And you can use the Create Walls from Spaces command in the AEC:Space Planning menu to create walls around your spaces. 

 

You have a vertical wall selected. the length is 23054mm. This is probably to the midpoint of each mitered end.

 

Perhaps the easiest way for you to get what you want is to attach dimension objects to the walls. You can snap the dimensions to either the outside or inside corners (depending on what you want to be 23000 mm. If you snap them correctly you should get small green squares around the snap points. This indicates the these are Associative Dimensions. If you then double click in the dimension text you can type in the dimension you want and the dimension and the associated object will resize to that dimension.

 

HTH.

[richard2020]

Hi Pat,

Thanks for coming back to me, but there truly isn't anything below the energos bit if I select more than one wall. If I could screen scrape a video I would show you. What do the 4 items show in the table? Because that wall highlighted is 23054 long so I can see that correlates to the delta y value. But the width is 494. There's no 494 number in delta x or x. So what would the -137 be?

 

In my second post I referred to the drag and tab, but if I drag and tab enter a value as I mentioned above, say it was 6127. If I click once and scroll away nothing happens. If I click and hold / drag as soon as I lift off the mouse button it places the dragged wall wherever I release the mouse. If I hit tab then it does bring up the values box, but they are not the offset values any more. And if I put a value in it ignores it. I suspect it is shifting the background around because when I release the mouse in the drag it places the wall right there and focus goes off it in some way although it is still orange. So I can't work out how to actually use this despite having used the exact same mechanism when doing site plans including the exact same buildings. There must be a setting I've changed accidentally like the scale on the marquee. 

 

Dragging also seems to break the control line setting from outer to center. But that could be because it actually is just placing when I release mouse nearly there but not quite.

 

It is in connected walls mode. 

 

So let me try this another way. Rather than try to work out what I am doing wrong (which I know I am) what method is the easiest way to resize a room from 23075mm x 7034mm to 23000 x 7000?

 

I'm also finding that unlike with rectangle, if I select all and make it all orange, I can't drag the room. Yet if I draw a rectangle next to it I can select all and drag it easy as anything. Is this just normal behaviour that you can't drag a freestanding room?

 

Thank you 

 

 

 

 

[richard2020]

Hi Pat,

 

Intended output is just to draw a building to create a floorplan, elevations and sections and specifications. Same as everyone wanting to use an architects package. I followed the guide on how to build a BIM, so I'd have thought that would reflect the right way to build a bim building? The first section is import a plan which you say isn;t the right way, the next thing it says to do is build walls the way I am trying to do. If that isn't the best approach to build a building design, then the tutorials need urgent revision.

 

[richard2020]

So I read comment as Vectorworks can't change the dims of a room by entering values, even though its a shape like a rectangle and you can change the dims of a rectangle by entering values.

 

Ok. That seems inconsistent. But if it can't be done I'll stop trying to. Not all rooms are rectangles and so I guess that's the rationale to create a consistency there. 

 

I can only change a wall at a time. And if I change the left wall first because of the direction of drawing even tho the marquee tool is selected, a gap opens up at the top show it isn't connected. Then a change the right hand wall and the gap opens up at the bottom as it shrunk the length upwards. I tried doing the wall join tool first. So somehow I have to close those new gaps. 

 

I tried the spaces, and create a space, AEC create walls from spaces, and happily walls did appear, but still no ability to enter dims into the OIB.Exactly the same problem on dragging and entering dims as the wall rectangle so in essence has the same issues as wall rectangle. And you still can't select all and drag the converted spaces. 

 

I'm not sure where to go from here. I followed the tutorial and have tried a whole host of tactics and still can't find a reasonable solution to building a building in vectorworks. It's expensive for just doing site plans. I'd assumed that vectorworks being a significant architect tool would have workfow nailed on this. If I was designing a block of flats and needed to change a room in the middle and couldn't snap to dims by entering them i'd be having kittens. So it's the end of the day, and I think it's vectorworks going out the window, not me. What a shame. It was looking so promising for two days. 

[Pat Stanford]

At this point I recommend that you get some 1:1 tutoring. You are thinking differently than VW. Until you understand how VW works you will continue to be unhappy. Either contact VW tech support and schedule a virtual tutor session, contact Jonathan Pickup at Archoncad.com or find someone local who can help you out.

 

Again. VW does not do room. You have to drop that idea or you will continue to be unhappy.

 

As I said in my earlier post, make sure you have connected walls mode turned on (and that the walls are actually connected to begin with) then when you move one wall the others will automatically adjust.

 

Good luck.