Custom fence panels

[TomKen]

Jeff I'll make one in a 2020 version and post it.  But don't have time till tomorrow morning.

[TomKen]

Jeff had a few minutes so here is a revised drawings for 2020 that should work for you now.

Fence_v2020 r1.vwx

[Jeff Prince]

@TomKen That's a creative trick, moving the post off center 🙂  Nice work.

If you add the invisible post trick I used in my file's picket style, you can get your pickets and post lines to share a common alignment and eliminate the independent picket panels in your example file.

 

I imagine if we combined both tricks, it would be possible to have the "post" fence style and the "picket" fence style to share common vertices  making editing the placement of fences a little easier compared to both of our examples, further refining the workaround.  Something to play with later this week 🙂

Thanks for sharing your technique.

[Tom W.]

This is such a great thread thank you @jeff prince @TomKen @bob cleaver for sharing all your thoughts/ideas on the Railing/Fence Tool, which I've finally got around to tackling in earnest...

 

I followed what you did in your files + came up with the fence below, which I'm pretty happy with, but what I can't understand is why the two Railing/Fence objects I used for the rails + for the boards I have to extend the start + end of their paths beyond the start + end posts in order to get the rails/boards to display. So in 3D it looks fine but if you check the Top/Plan view you can see how much longer I had to draw the Railing/Fence objects in both those cases in order to get it to look like that. I checked both your files @jeff prince + @TomKen + yours are fine + I can't see what is different in my settings... Any ideas? I'll attach the file if anyone has time to look at it... Many thanks. Hope that makes sense

 

Fence.vwx

[Jeff Prince]

@Tom W. Glad you found the discussion useful.  I looked at your file briefly and nothing immediate is coming to mind as to why it's doing that other than something in the post symbol definition may be throwing things off.  I'll try to throw some more time at it this weekend, good mystery 🙂

 

[Tom W.]

cheers @jeff prince that was enough of a prompt to help me on the right track! I've realised I was making things more complex than they needed to be by using a custom symbol for the invisible posts for the 'rails' fence + the 'boards' fence. I just needed to use the built-in rectangular post + set its width to 1mm. I'd already made it invisible in the Railing/Fence attributes settings. So you were right it was something to do with the symbol. With it removed it works fine!

[Matt Panzer]

10 hours ago, Tom W. said:

This is such a great thread thank you @jeff prince @TomKen @bob cleaver for sharing all your thoughts/ideas on the Railing/Fence Tool, which I've finally got around to tackling in earnest...

 

I followed what you did in your files + came up with the fence below, which I'm pretty happy with, but what I can't understand is why the two Railing/Fence objects I used for the rails + for the boards I have to extend the start + end of their paths beyond the start + end posts in order to get the rails/boards to display. So in 3D it looks fine but if you check the Top/Plan view you can see how much longer I had to draw the Railing/Fence objects in both those cases in order to get it to look like that. I checked both your files @jeff prince + @TomKen + yours are fine + I can't see what is different in my settings... Any ideas? I'll attach the file if anyone has time to look at it... Many thanks. Hope that makes sense

 

Fence.vwx

 

Try matching these settings and see if that gets you something closer to what you need:

 

[Tom W.]

Yes it does thank you! I never would have thought to try those settings I assumed they needed to be enabled - clearly not! Now I have two versions of the fence which both work - cool 🙂

 

And now I added a middle rail which I hadn't realised I could do before:

[Tom W.]

Hmm now I have another question... To do with the Top/Plan look of my 4" post Railing/Fence objects...

 

When drawn in a positive direction on the X axis all is fine but when I draw in any other direction the 2D component doesn't match up with the 3D component.

 

Top/Plan view:

Top view:

So when I add the other Railing/Fence objects to build the composite fence I get:

And:

So looks fine in 3D but not in 2D. Unless drawn left to right on the X axis.

 

I'm guessing this is something to do with the 75mm offset the custom post symbol has but I don't understand why it only affects the 2D component + not the 3D component.

 

Here is a file with the saved Railing/Fence symbol plus the hybrid symbol I used for the post if anyone has time to look 100x100 post_Railing:Fence.vwx

 

I notice @TomKen's fence does a similar thing but the offset is smaller so less pronounced

 

[Matt Panzer]

16 hours ago, Tom W. said:

Hmm now I have another question... To do with the Top/Plan look of my 4" post Railing/Fence objects...

 

When drawn in a positive direction on the X axis all is fine but when I draw in any other direction the 2D component doesn't match up with the 3D component.

 

Top/Plan view:

Top view:

So when I add the other Railing/Fence objects to build the composite fence I get:

And:

So looks fine in 3D but not in 2D. Unless drawn left to right on the X axis.

 

I'm guessing this is something to do with the 75mm offset the custom post symbol has but I don't understand why it only affects the 2D component + not the 3D component.

 

Here is a file with the saved Railing/Fence symbol plus the hybrid symbol I used for the post if anyone has time to look 100x100 post_Railing:Fence.vwx

 

I notice @TomKen's fence does a similar thing but the offset is smaller so less pronounced

 

 

I do see the issue in VW 2020 and it appears to be fixed in VW 2021 (tested in SP3).

[Tom W.]

Thanks for checking Matt much appreciated better get on + upgrade to VW2021...!

[The Hamma]