hollister design Studio Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 Stairs change width halfway up the run - are there settings to do this inside the Stair tool? I just made a set from bottom up to width change, and then another set from there up... isolated view: In situ: Quote Link to comment
Jeff Prince Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 No, the stair tool is pretty limited in what it can accomplish. Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 @hollister design Studio the 'Simple Stair' tool might be a better bet for stairs like these. It is quicker/easier to use + you can use 'subtract solids' on the object afterwards to create the configuration you're after: It then becomes a solid subtraction of course but you can still go in + edit the stair if necessary. Simple stair is found in 'Building Shell' tools in Workspace Editor. 2 Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Tamsin Slatter Posted January 19, 2021 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted January 19, 2021 Remember also that you can use a parametric tool to do most of the modelling for you, then, in a 3D view, ungroup it. This will give you the 3D geometry which you can then manipulate further using the 3D modelling tools. 1 Quote Link to comment
line-weight Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 23 minutes ago, Tamsin Slatter said: Remember also that you can use a parametric tool to do most of the modelling for you, then, in a 3D view, ungroup it. This will give you the 3D geometry which you can then manipulate further using the 3D modelling tools. Not very easily though, because it gives you a bunch of meshes and 3d polygons rather than solid objects. Quote Link to comment
hollister design Studio Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 12 hours ago, jeff prince said: No, the stair tool is pretty limited in what it can accomplish. Have to admit I was pretty happy with the badass spiral stair I output the other day! ...but yes, I'm definitely learning the constraints of the tool set. 7 hours ago, Tamsin Slatter said: ... use a parametric tool to do most of the modelling for you, then, in a 3D view, ungroup it... Will try this next time. I don't like the 'overlap' I have currently and am sure it's going to mess with my section drawings. Quote Link to comment
hollister design Studio Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 7 hours ago, line-weight said: Not very easily though, because it gives you a bunch of meshes and 3d polygons rather than solid objects. Hmm... is there a way to combine meshes and/or 3D polygons into generic solids? I have noticed when architects send me sketchup models they are basically an un-editable mess of meshes... Quote Link to comment
line-weight Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 21 hours ago, hollister design Studio said: Hmm... is there a way to combine meshes and/or 3D polygons into generic solids? I have noticed when architects send me sketchup models they are basically an un-editable mess of meshes... There are ways but my experience of doing it to stairs objects is that it's immensely time consuming because you have to do a lot of ungrouping and then repetitive stuff like you have to do each step independently (as far as I recall). I hardly ever use VW stairs now, for these reasons. Unless you are doing a really bog standard stair, it's quicker to model the whole thing directly from scratch. Why the stair tool outputs something made up of polygons instead of solids I really don't know. I though VW was supposed to be a solids modelling programme. Why design it like that? Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 On 1/19/2021 at 10:18 AM, line-weight said: Not very easily though, because it gives you a bunch of meshes and 3d polygons rather than solid objects. The Simple Stair when ungrouped is an Extrude 1 Quote Link to comment
line-weight Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 17 hours ago, Tom W. said: The Simple Stair when ungrouped is an Extrude Thanks - did not know that! For whatever reason that tool is not in my workspace but I've just added it. Having just had a look at it I can see that yes it does produce extrudes, which is loads more useful than the other stair tool. Looks like it can't do winders... but better than nothing. Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 The Custom Stair (legacy) tool is useful to have in workspace as well. It doesn't generate extrudes (or rather I think it produces a combination of meshes + extrudes depending on the configuration you choose) but it works by dividing your stair into separately editable sections so gives you more control over certain types of stairs than standard stair tool. Winders are easier with custom stair I find Credit to Jon Pickup for pointing out these other tools (and 'Circular Stair'!) Quote Link to comment
line-weight Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 This really, really should not be necessary though. 4 different stair tools, all of which have different problems or limitations. Sort it out, VW! 2 Quote Link to comment
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