Not a happy experience

[Anthony Charnley]

User feedback: I am taking the plunge (for a new employer) into learning VW and thought that 3D BIM would be the way to go. I have a Victorian farmhouse project that I am extending, so I am modelling the existing building. Drew the walls no problem. Now how about the windows? Here is the list so far of difficulties

 

- Timber sill . The walls are 500 thick. After hours of research gave up on sill as it has to line up with internal wall face - unless I use the dark arts to turn it into a symbol- or would a group be better?. Meanwhile the diagram showing the myriad of settings clearly shows the sill relating to the outside of the wall. Oh dear - have resigned myself to omitting it and applying external trim separately

- Splayed reveals: The existing building has deep splayed reveals in plan only. The window tool has no option other than reveals in plan and section. Nor can I find an understandable way of extracting a splayed solid from the wall

- Internal sill board. Made a trapezoid shape, extruded it and tried to apply a wood texture. Big mistake - in spite of trying every combination of settings, I can only get the textures to display on the edges and not the top face.

 

So far this one window has taken me hours! On checking on here, these three issues with Vectorworks have been posted  going back to 2013, and could have been solved by updates to the software. I am aware that learning something can't be rushed and am prepared to invest time and energy. But to keep hitting brick walls will kill me.

[Christiaan]

The sill feature in the Window tool is a mess unfortunately. A little bugbear of mine too. Do yourself a favour and model them separately until they fix it.

 

There's an example file here I made. It's an aluminium sill but you can use it as a starting point for any kind of sill set up.

https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/65060-windows-offset-sash-and-jamb-separation/#comment-325071

 

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Christiaan

[Christiaan]

For your splays, check this thread out:

https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/53041-window-opening-floor-level-but-cill-not/

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Christiaan

[Christiaan]

Post a file with the trapezoid shape you were having trouble rendering correctly and we'll have a look at it.

[Anthony Charnley]

Thanks Christiaan

 

I attach the file - the shape is the internal sill board to the first and only window. I have assigned a wood texture to it, but it only renders the edges, not the top. I made the shape by extruding a 2D polygon upwards.
 

For future reference, do you know of a more reliable way of creating sill boards?

 

Thanks again for your assistance.

 

Anthony

156_X_x_xx_Building 3D.vwx

[Anthony Charnley]

I just tried amending the wall by modelling it as two components - an outer leaf of 125mm stone and an inner wall (no cavity). The timber sill (in the window tool) still adhered rigidly to the inner face of the inner wall. So will need to make the sill some other way.

[Anthony Charnley]

I guess the only way of making the sill allign correctly would be to construct the wall as two separate wall objects with a (say) 10mm gap in between ?

[Tom W.]

5 hours ago, Anthony Charnley said:

I have assigned a wood texture to it, but it only renders the edges, not the top. I made the shape by extruding a 2D polygon upwards.

 

Hi @Anthony Charnley I opened your file but there were no objects in it? But without seeing your extrude can you look in the render tab of the O.I.P. + see what it says in the 'Part' field? This is where you control what parts of the object are textured.

 

When you say 'internal sill board' you're talking about what I'd call a window board right? What VW calls the 'stool'? Or are you talking about the external sill?

 

Bit hard to know without seeing the file or some screenshots. The external sill you can get to look half decent. Set the '(4) Depth' parameter to the thickness of the wall plus however much you want it to project beyond the face of the wall. Stool on the other hand (6 + 7) I would avoid

[Anthony Charnley]

Hi Tom - thanks for the post.

 

Here's a screen grab with the 'sill board highlighted. I am going to re-do the splay using Christiaan's tip.

 

I have tried every option in the OIP  Part field to get wood veneer to show on the top surface,  pressing 'Update' each time, but no change.

 

I have given up on the sill. Are you suggesting I retry after subdividing the wall into two separate elements, with a gap between? Whatever I have tried, the sill always appears on the inside of the window - see Preview pane in the attachment below (6 & 7 both set to zero)

[sak1850]

23 hours ago, Christiaan said:

The sill feature in the Window tool is a mess unfortunately. A little bugbear of mine too. Do yourself a favour and model them separately until they fix it.

So! another satisfied new to the software customer, come on Vectorworks, we have been waiting years and years for this to get sorted. It is an important (vital) part of 3d modeling and it needs urgent attention.

[Tom W.]

Can you try posting the file again?

 

Then I can look at the extrude you've created for the sill board/window board + see why that's not taking on the texture.

 

As for the external sill you're trying to make with the window tool, how thick is the wall + how much do you want the sill to project externally? If the wall is 300 thk + you want it to project 50, set the '(4) Depth' parameter to 350. Then the '(2) Keep' value relates to the depth of the flat part of the top rear of the sill (i.e. before it starts sloping to drain water away). So if your jamb is set back 100 from the face of the wall set 'keep' to 200. This should get you something reasonable-looking but don't get me wrong, the window tool is not VW's finest hour + it is quite bizarre the way the sill extends all the way back to the inside of the wall whether you like it or not.

[Anthony Charnley]

Thanks Tom for all your help. I have attached the file again (sorry must have sent an earlier version).

 

The wall is thick - 500mm but then they built these stone buildings to last. Maybe the programmers hadn't come across such a thing? Is subdividing it into two walls the answer? Once I crack this my other 15 windows could be a breeze.

 

I tried a 550 deep sill but the result wasn't pretty internally (exterior was fine). If I can devise a way of creating the trapezoid shape to cut the niche in the wall, can I mask the  sill below so it won't show in 2D / 3D?

 

I tried creating the 'Clip surface' technique to form the 'niche' but it was rejected. I could make the niche run all the way down to the floor and then fill it with a extruded trapezoid??

156_X_x_xx_Building 3D.vwx

[Tom W.]

1st off the extrude: double click on it to enter the edit mode + get back to the original polygon + you'll see it's not a closed shape. Enable 'closed' in the O.I.P. then exit the edit mode + you'll see that the extrude is now a solid 3D shape. Before you'd just extruded the outline of the polygon

[Anthony Charnley]

Thanks Tom for letting me know- I knew I was doing something wrong!

 

I have discovered solutions to two other problems (total time expended so far = days!) by some trial and error.

 

Sill: I managed to get this to work by entering a MINUS value for the depth. Go figure! (I am sure I tried this before on Sunday).

 

Window splays (flat top and sill). I cracked this by Subtract Solids - but note that it is no longer a wall.But at least I have an accurate model of what is there (something I won't need to change)

[Tom W.]

That's the spirit! 

 

This is the external sill I made:

With these settings:

Not sure how your minus-value for the depth worked but I won't argue with it if it did!

 

Then internally I disabled the internal splay in the window settings + a bit like you did, created a 3D shape + subtracted it from the wall but using the 'Create Wall Recess' command (AEC menu) rather than Subtract Solids:

Looks fine in 3D but not so good in Top/Plan but I think this is discussed in the thread @Christiaan put us on to...

 

I'd be tempted to try making the window, the external sill + the internal sill as a hybrid symbol + use a wall hole component to cut the splays in the wall... Are there several windows the same size/arrangement in the building or are they all different?

 

 

[Tom W.]

Actually I've remembered: try using clip surface in top/plan + offset the top 344 + enter a height of 520 in the O.I.P. Instead of creating the wall recess the 3D way I just did it. Then the end result will I think look correct in 2D as well as 3D

[Anthony Charnley]

Hi Tom

 

Thanks for the tip on Clip Surface.

 

What's your set up to get the walls nice and white in the 3D view ?

 

All my windows are different so I would like to keep using the window tool (now I am up to speed) Presume the Clip Surface sorts out the 2D issues.

 

 

 

[Tom W.]

I turned all the layers off apart from 'G-Floor Layout'. You had another one called 'Ground Floor' that had a surface hatch on it: was this imported or something?

 

Yes doing the wall feature the clip surface way means you get this in 2D:

 

 

Much better than using the Create Wall Surface command with a 3D shape.

 

The window board extrude will display 'hollow' in 2D so I turned it into an auto hybrid (AEC menu) to give it solidity

[Anthony Charnley]

One last query - I'm replacing the Solid Substraction wall with a new one so I can create the new surface - how do re-install the existing window into the new wall?

[Tom W.]

If you have 'Wall Insertion Mode' in Selection Tool enabled you should be able to drag the existing window into a wall

[Anthony Charnley]

Well I tried this - and the window is now stuck inside the wall and doesn't show! Before I did this I gave it a name in OIP. Have can I re-use it in a new wall made from scratch?

[Tom W.]

Can you post the file again?

[Anthony Charnley]

Thanks Tom. I've managed to slide the window out of the wall but however hard I try I can't insert it into the wall.

 

Also how do I save the window 'definition' for re-use? Do I need to 'Create as symbol'. I was able to give it an object 'Name' but can't find it saved anywhere/ how to re-use it

156_X_x_xx_Building 3D2.vwx

[Tom W.]

When I open your file + select the window in the O.I.P. it says 'Window' which means it's not inserted in the wall.

 

If I go to Top/Plan, drag it out then drag it back in again the wall highlights red + the window inserts + then it says 'Window In Wall' in the O.I.P. as it should do.

 

So not sure why it's not working at your end...?

 

As a separate issue, in the window settings the 2D attributes are set to 'By Object' which means it takes its attributes from the Attributes Palette which is currently set to white pen so you might want to change this to by class? So it displays properly in Top/Plan

 

To save the window for reuse click on the Style drop down in the O.I.P. or right-click on the window in the drawing + select 'New Plug-In Style From Unstyled Plug-In...', choose the file you want to save it in (probably just the current file) then in the 'Window Style' dialog give it a name + choose which parameters you want to set by style (arrow icon) + which you want to set by instance (sliders icon). So 'lock' the parameters you want to remain the same every time you insert it + leave the ones you want to be able edit 'unlocked'

 

Lastly the 'Name' field at the bottom of the O.I.P. is a way of giving each + every object in the drawing its own unique name which can be useful for reporting purposes. But not to be confused with the style name or symbol name. It's very much a unique name for that particular object should it be necessary to give it one

 

 

[Pat Stanford]

One trick about inserting objects into walls is that the tip of the mouse pointer must be over the wall. If you grab a part of the window that is outside of the wall and place it where you want it will not insert into the wall. Likewise, if you try to move an object or door and grab a part of the object that is outside of the wall, it will "un-insert" when you stop moving it.

[Anthony Charnley]

Tom

 

Many thanks for all your help. That's really clear. I have got things to work at long last. Not perfectly, but OK for my needs.

 

Can you advise how to set up the 3D views so the walls are nice and white / clear like in your screen grabs? I have set the lighting optionn to brighter, ambient occlusion on etc. 

 

Thanks Pat - the method that Tom gave me worked first time - I dragged the window away, dragged it back, wall went red and - hey presto!

 

Feeling a bit better now (though very behind!)