Easy way to layout an odd shaped house?

[Mark McCay-Moran]

I've got a project coming up that will have an unusual shape with angled "wings" converging on a central mass. Some angles are even numbers (ie 30, 60, 90) while others respond to the property lines. Do I want to set up an alternate grid or snap to angles and how?

In the past I've drawn angle elements in normal horiz/vert mode almost to completion then rotated to correct orientation. This is cumbersome at best but allows me to use familiar tools like Dup in array or move command efficiently.

Also any dimensioning advise? I know the exterior wall dimensioner tool went haywire last time is used it on a much less complicated structure.

Thanks in advance,

Mark

Nevada City Design Studio

Mac OS 10.3.4

VWA 10.5.1

[mike m oz]

You can use a couple of features to make drawing in obscure angles easier:

- Temporarily rotate the grid to the required angle under SET GRID (you can also relocate the origin as necessary - before you do this make sure you can reset the origin back to its exact location - first place a locus at 0,0 and lock it in place)

- Use the alternate cooordinate system under ANGLE SNAPS

- For Duplicate Arrays at angles draw a line to get the exact X and Y coordinates and enter these into the Dialog box fields.

When drawing at angles it is important to have the dimension units set to high levels of accuracy - particularly angles which need to be set at a minimum of 4 decimal points.

Alternatively you may want to check out a VectorBits tool which allows you to rotate a drawing - from memory there are some limitations, but check it out.

The Exterior Wall Dimensioner Tool is problematic at best - better to do all of your dimensioning manually.

NB For the angled dimensioning to be accurate you will probably have to to rotate the grid to get reasonable functionality out of the Dimensioning Tool.

[mike m oz]

POSTSCRIPT

It would be nice if there was an option to do Duplicate Arrays by Radial parameters - ie. angle and distance. Would be useful for drawing things like purlins in sections.

Can be done in a defacto way by selecting an item and then dragging a copy using Option Drag. Supsequent copies will 'remember' the offset distance if you have the Offset Duplicates option ticked in VW Preferences. Sometimes difficult to get real accuracy using this method however - usually easier to do the maths.

[Mark McCay-Moran]

Thanks Mike,

Angle Snaps...thats the one I knew I'd seen, but hadn't used. I'll play around with that. Changing the Grid everytime you work on an angled wall seems awkward, but better than rotating the part of the drawing. Rotating the whole drawing...now we're on to something. Is that what the tool you mention does? How easy to reset (or preset).

I rarely use the auto dimensioner (except when I'm on the way to a client meeting trying to "fluff" a progress set of drawings). The angled dimension tool isn't as easy to work as the standard tool, and I see a lot of critical dimensioning on this plan.

In the past I've used polar coordinates and the "offset" tool to good advantage. Any other suggestions along these lines?

Thanks, mmm

[ 11-02-2004, 07:51 PM: Message edited by: Mark McCay-Moran ]

[Ray Libby]

Start drawing the angled part horizontally or vertically and make it a symbol. Rotate the symbol to the angle you need. When you enter the symbol to edit it will still be horizontal or vertical.

[JHEarcht]

A "Rotate Sheet" command would be more intuitive than all these work-arounds. But, I suppose it would be slow, due to the need to keep track of two or more copies of every pixel. The third-party "Rotate Drawing" tools I've tried are slow and scary. I will again post a Rotate Sheet request in the VW Wish List. A creative approach should find a way to quickly, and accurately rotate every thing on linked layers.

I haven't had an occasion to try it yet, but in VW11, I think you could draw each wing on a separate layer, at the "normal" angle, and then join the pieces at their "final" angle in a Viewport. The "core" and "wings" should have a locus at several points so the parts will snap together, like a Transformer Toy. Drawing things that cross the joints will still be tricky, though.

JHE

[Mark McCay-Moran]

Thanks for the suggestions. Part of the drawing as a symbol: good idea as all editing is done in horiz and vert. Would you dimension within the symbol? One peeve I have about the custom selection tools is the inability to select objects within a wall or group. You can select within a symbol but I have had trouble with this in the past. Does ver. 11 have more ability here?

Sorry for the ignorance, but do changes in the viewport result in changes on the design layer? And can walls be joined, objects snapped to, etc in the viewport regardless of layer and class info of objects.

Thanks again, mmm

[mike m oz]

I tried the JHEarcht suggestion of drawing the separate parts orthoganally on design layers and then assembling them in a sheet layer by rotating the appropriate viewports.

seems to work fine on a simple drawing so can't see why it won't on a more complex one.

A bit of care about information in the lap areas would allow this to work. Nice one JHE.

To my mind the other suggestion of using symbols and varying the insertion angle of them would also work.

[mike m oz]

One problem I have just picked up though.

If you use associative dimensioning the 'red square indicators' don't rotate - they stay where they were relatively.

Its a pity that you can't either:

- visually turn them off. (they tend to clutter the drawing up and in instances like this are a nuisance)

- globally make the associated dimensions non associated (to my mind this is an essential option which must be added)

Better still would be a comprehensive updating of the dimensioning protocol - but that is another story!

[JHEarcht]

MM Oz,

It works the other way around. You make changes on the Design layer and they are immediately shown on the Viewport layer. You can add notes and minor specific changes on the VP, but it's best to make all general revisions to the Design layer.

JHE

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[Jonathan Pickup]

I drew an odd shaped house a little while ago.It had 4 main parts. One part was orthogonal, the other 3 parts were at different angles, none of them the same as each other.

I kept all the walls, foundations, roof framing, electrical, floor finishes etc, on the same later. I did not rotate parts, nor did I break up the building into layers and re-combine the plan with layerlinking. the reason is that it?s too hard to join walls with the parts on different layers. And then what if there is a change to the plan?

I found that that the walls were the hardest bit to get right, notes and dimensioning were easy. To get the walls to the right angle I drew a construction grid and made a symbol of it. That way the grid is not moved accidentally, and you can use it on different layers if you want. Then I drew the walls to the construction grid. I used the construction grid on a drawing of it?s own to show the contractor how to set out the building.

This method worked OK for me...

[eric.rktek]

I like the comment of the construction grid. It seems like a very straightforward work around for the present limitations of VW.

I'm one to throw out comparisons to other CAD programs, usually related to wishlist items. Microstation has a very nice feature that allowed you to dynamically change your view orientation (and snap grid). You would click (on the proper tool) and drag two points. The first would be an origin, the second would act as a point on the positive X axis. This would allow you to always work in an orthoginal view relative to whatever angled part of the building you are on. It made it so easy to deal with the issues listed above. I think there was a simple double click on the tool that would throw you back into the original orientation. I'm not sure how this affects VW setup/software/code, but it would be a very elegant solution to the issue.

[Mark McCay-Moran]

Thanks for all the input. I've played around with the options a bit and I'm going with the construction grid method (thanks jonathan). Unfortunately, a lot of shortcuts and keycommands that I use for layout and drawing elements won't work, so it may take a little longer to develop the model. I'll post back any "revelations" I may have while going through the process.

cheers, mmm