archoncad releases old user group manuals

Each month SHORT SHARP TRAINING uses online training with a concise manual to cover a single task of Vectorworks, allowing you to drill down to the details of the task, along with movies that show you exactly how to complete the task. When you join the subscription service you can access up to a year of back issues. But what happens to the notes after a year?

Several of my subscribers have now asked to be able to access the older back issues, more than a year old. It was suggested by the subscribers that they be able to buy them. Following that suggestion, I have embedded all the movies into the notes. This means that you do not have to subscribe to the Short Sharp Training to see the movies, and it also means you do not have to be online to see the movies. At the end of the year I will convert the old notes and sell them as a downloadable set. You can see a list of the topics covered and when you purchase the notes, you will be sent a link to download the notes.

This was the year the online user group got underway with just a few subscribers.

List of Topics

0701 - Simple Roofs

• Roofs are easy to build and they are very flexible (editable). Using the standard VectorWorks roof you can make most of the roofs that you want. Once the roof is made you can make the roof framing for the roof. I also wanted to show you how you can edit all the framing sizes for the roof framer.

0702 - Introduction to 3D Modeling

• Before you can do any sort of complex 3D modeling you have to understand some of the basic 3D modeling concepts. That’s what this workshop is all about, learning the simple 3D stuff that you need to learn in order to make your 3D stuff.
• Layers for 3D modeling
• Extrusions
• Multiple Extrusions
• Tapered Extrusions
• 3D Primitives
• Solid Modeling

0703 - Building a Library

• There are a few ways to build your office library. This workshop contains valuable information about making your library.

0704 - Intro to Textures and Rendering

• Rendering in VectorWorks is where you start to enjoy your 3D Models, where you make them come to life. This workshop is an introduction to rendering (which is pretty easy), but rendering is nothing without textures which can make your models into something special.

0706 - Customising Vectorworks

• VectorWorks works really well, but if you edit the workspace, and customise the arrangement of the tools and menus you can work faster and happier. We will learn how to edit the workspace and add commands to the right mouse button.
• VectorWorks also has a built in programming language called VectorScript that lets you make your own tools and commands. We will learn how to do some basic programming and learn how to start to make your own tools and commands.

0707 - Annotation

• Annotation is more than just putting text and dimensions on the drawing, although I will be covering this to make sure you are doing it correctly, there are note tools, tools to store a database of notes and tools for labeling.

0708 - Introduction to Worksheets

• Worksheets allow you count and schedule stuff in VectorWorks. For example you can count all the trees in a site, schedule all the doors on a particular floor of a project, even find the weight of a bracket in a 3D model.
• Worksheets are an under used area of VectorWorks and this workshop should open your eyes about what you are able to do with them.

0709 - Making Drawings

• We use classes, layers, viewports and sheet layers. This workshop shows you how to use these concepts to make drawings

0710 - Dealing with Roofs

• Roofs for standard houses are easy, but what if you donÕt want a standard roof. This workshop will cover how to create a standard roof, how to edit a standard roof and what yo do when the standard roof wonÕt do what you want.

0711 - Graphics in 2D and 3D

• This workshop topic will cover 2D graphics such and hatches, gradients and images and 3D graphics such as textures and image props.

0712 - VW2008 - Plants and Wall Styles

• Plants have been substantially improved in VW2008. This workshop shows you how easy they are to use and how easy plants are to edit.
• You could re-use your version 12 wall style library in VW2008, but as I show you in this workshop would be better to update your library to use the new wall style capabilities.
• These two topics are based on VW2008. They will not work on older versions.

you can purchase all these notes here: http://www.archoncad.co.nz/usergroup/previous_topics.php