[Archoncad] Weekly Digest 2 (blogs and movies for Vectorworks)

This week, the following posts were added to the learn.archoncad.com web site:

Dealing With Walls - Part 16
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9538/dealing-with-walls-part-16/

Wall Sculpting - Wall Projection - You can use the wall projection add a 3D
shape into a wall. The wall stays as a wall, so you can still insert doors and
windows into the wall.

Dealing With Walls - Part 15
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9537/dealing-with-walls-part-15/

Wall Sculpting - Wall Recess - You can use the wall recess to cut out a 3D
shape from a wall. The wall stays as a wall, so you can still insert doors and
windows into the wall.

Dealing With Walls - Part 14
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9536/dealing-with-walls-part-14/

Replacing Wall Styles - I often replace the wall style. For example, you might
be drawing an existing building. If you wanted to show the demolished walls,
just need to change the selected walls to the demolished wall style.

Dealing With Walls - Part 13
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9535/dealing-with-walls-part-13/

Wall Style Library - All your wall styles can be stored in a library. This
makes if fast and easy to use your walls on every project.

Dealing With Walls - Part 12
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9534/dealing-with-walls-part-12/

Creating Wall Styles - Wall styles are fast to use and can be used on several
files. They can automate much of your drawing system.

Dealing With Walls - Part 11
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9533/dealing-with-walls-part-11/

Fit Walls to Roof - An easy way to get the walls to follow the roof is to use
the command Fit Walls to Roof (Fit Walls to Objects) from the AEC menu.  This
command will fit all the selected walls to a 3D object like a roof, extrusion,
site model, NURBS curve etc.  You have to create the 3D object before you use
this command.

Dealing With Walls - Part 10
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9511/dealing-with-walls-part-10/

Changing the Overall Height of a Wall - You can change the overall height of a
wall by changing the ∆Z (Layer Wall Height) of the wall on the Object Info
Palette.  Say for example that you want to make the walls at the lower part of
the building into balustrade walls.

Dealing With Walls - Part 9
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9510/dealing-with-walls-part-9/

Changing The Height At The End Of A Wall - Sometimes you want to change the
height at one end of the wall.

Dealing With Walls - Part 8
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9509/dealing-with-walls-part-8/

Reshaping Walls in 3D - Whether you want your wall to be sloped at the top or
have a gable end on it you use the same tool. VectorWorks calls this adding
peaks and VectorWorks uses the 3D Reshape Tool to add peaks or move the heights
of each part of the wall.

Dealing With Walls - Part 7
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9508/dealing-with-walls-part-7/

Using Walls On Multilevel Plans - Often you have a plan that has walls on
several levels.  There are two ways to deal with this, either split your file
up into lots of layers, or move the walls once created.

Dealing With Walls - Part 6
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9507/dealing-with-walls-part-6/

Healing Walls - If you join walls and then later you delete one of the walls
you may be left with a joint.  The joints need to be removed for the walls to
draw correctly.

Dealing With Walls - Part 5
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9506/dealing-with-walls-part-5/

Auto-Join Walls - If you set up your wall styles correctly, Auto-join walls
with join the core (the structureal parts) of the walls automatically, and you
won’t need the component join.

Dealing With Walls - Part 4
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9505/dealing-with-walls-part-4/

Joining Wall Components - If you have walls with components, you might notice
that the walls do not join completely. The answer is to join the wall
components.

Dealing With Walls - Part 3
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9504/dealing-with-walls-part-3/

Joining Walls - Walls look better when they are joined. I often draw a small
portion of the wall and join it later.

Dealing With Walls - Part 2
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9503/dealing-with-walls-part-2/

Existing and Demolished Walls - If you are drawing an existing building, you
will need existing and proposed walls styles.

Dealing With Walls - Part 1
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9502/dealing-with-walls-part-1/

Simple Walls -  you have Vectorworks Architect or Designer, the wall tool
allows you to use wall styles, and to store Wall Styles in a Wall Style Library.
We can start with drawing a simple wall.

SST_1210 - What's New in Vectorworks 2013
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/8874/sst_1210-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013/

There are a lot of new things in Vectorworks 2013. Some of these are fixes or
enhancements to the current Vectorworks, and some of them are brand new. The new
features are going to make working in Vectorworks 2013 substantially faster by
improving your workflow.

cadmovie868 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 18
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9481/cadmovie868-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-18/

Plants - Vectorworks plants in 2013 now have two parts to the Plant
preferences. There are the plant settings which controls the current placement
of plants, and then there is the plant definition that controls the overall
definition of the plant in the file.

cadmovie867 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 17
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9478/cadmovie867-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-17/

Door and Window Improvements - I was recently working on a project where I had
to make similar changes to over 40 windows. The challenge is, that if you choose
more than one window, the Settings... button on the Object Info palette is no
longer selectable. This means that you have to make the changes to each window
individually.

cadmovie866 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 16
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9475/cadmovie866-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-16/

Sheet Layer re-ordering - When you creating a large set of drawings,the sheet
layers are always sorted by the numbers first and then alphabetically.
unfortunately, this often means that my drawings are out of order, because my
structural drawings are then placed after my general notes. In reality I want
the general notes to come last.

cadmovie864 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 14
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9459/cadmovie864-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-14/

Space Objects - Space objects have been improved in Vectorworks 2013. In
particular, the way the classes can now be assigned to parts of the space.

cadmovie865 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 15
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9460/cadmovie865-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-15/

Site Modeling - When you create a site modifier, you need to create an object
that limits the extend of the mofidcation. This used to be called the fence or
boundary. It’s now called Grade Limits, but it is the same thing, it limits
the amount of the site affected by the site modifier.

cadmovie862 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 12
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9442/cadmovie862-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-12/

Physical Sky - Heliodon Changes - The physical sky is a new background in
Vectorworks 2013 and it is tied to the heliodon tool. The difference between
previous skies and the new physical sky is that the physical sky changes its
appearance according to the time of day shown in the Heliodon.

cadmovie863 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 13
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9441/cadmovie863-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-13/

Auto-Hybrid  - I think this is going to be a huge benefit when you are
creating your library. I often use imported objects from manufacturers to create
my 3-D parts of symbols. But it has always been a lot of work to trace over the
3-D objects creation the 2-D portion of the symbol.

cadmovie861 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 11
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9451/cadmovie861-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-11/

Surface Array - The surface array command is really powerful for creating
complex 3-D geometry. It creates a repeating array over a NURBS surface.

cadmovie860 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 10
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9439/cadmovie860-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-10/

Non-Blocking Rendering - I have several projects with high quality rendered
viewports. When I want to render these viewports Vectorworks locks up and I
cannot do anything until they are finished. Non-blocking rendering allows me to
carry on working while these viewports are being rendered.

cadmovie859 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 9
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9440/cadmovie859-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-9/

Inset Dormers and Skylights into Roof Faces - From long time has been
recommended that you keep a roof together for as long as possible in case you
need to insert skylights or dormer windows.

cadmovie858 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 8
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9436/cadmovie858-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-8/

Windows Explorer Preview - On the Macintosh you have been able to see a preview
of the contents in the Vectorworks file before you open it.

cadmovie857 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 7
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9433/cadmovie857-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-7/

Images in Worksheet cells - This is a technique I have been waiting a long time
for. This is the ability for the worksheet to display images based on the
selection criteria in the worksheet. For example, a picture of every Plant for
the Plant counting worksheet. Or another example would be an elevation of every
window in the window schedule.

cadmovie856 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 6
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9429/cadmovie856-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-6/

Clip Cube - The Clip Cube is a new navigation feature in Vectorworks 2013. If
you have a large project, for example an urban design project, when you create
an isometric or perspective view, you sometimes have too much information.

cadmovie855 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 5
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9426/cadmovie855-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-5/

New Perspective View and Walkthrough - When you change to a perspective view you
have a crop object around the perspective view. In Vectorworks 2013 there is
now an ability to turn this crop on or off.


The walk-through tool has also changed. It used to be very difficult for people
to use the walk-through tool, because the controls of the walk- through tool
were based on the center of the view.

cadmovie854 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 4
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9419/cadmovie854-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-4/

Hyperlinks - Hyperlinks are a new annotation object in Vectorworks 2013, and
they appear in the Dims and Notes toolset. A hyperlink can be used to create a
link from a part of your drawing to a saved view, sheet layer, document, folder,
or website.

cadmovie853 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 3
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9416/cadmovie853-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-3/

Custom Line Types - Some people have complained that Vectorworks does not have
enough choice over line styles. The new custom line styles in Vectorworks 2013
will allow you to create your own line styles with graphics or text as part of
the line.

cadmovie852 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 2
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9412/cadmovie852-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-2/

Collapsible (Hierarchal )Classes - I am a fan of using lots of classes. Layers
are where things are, so you tend to have layers for stories of the building or
for structuring the file. Classes are what things are. This means that you have
classes to differentiate different parts of the design depending on what the
objects are.

cadmovie851 - What’s New in Vectorworks 2013 - Part 1
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9406/cadmovie851-whats-new-in-vectorworks-2013-part-1/

Detail Viewport - I have been waiting for this for a long time. In previous
versions there wasn’t a viewport that you could use for this. What this new
viewport concept will do is to take a portion of your design layout and place it
on a sheet layer.

epodcast163 - Importing old Vectorworks Plant database into Vectorworks 2013
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9377/epodcast163-importing-old-vectorworks-plant-database-into-vectorworks-2013/

Last week, when I was looking at the plant database and Vectorworks 2013, I had
trouble importing plants from my old plant database into the new Vectorworks
2013 plant database. At first I thought this was a serious flaw, but I have
since learned that there is a way to update your old plant database to make it
useful in Vectorworks 2013

Landmark_SIG_012 Special Interest Group October 2012
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9371/landmark_sig_012-special-interest-group-october-2012/

This is the movie from the afternoon session of the landmark special-interest
group. This session was slightly different from the morning session because we
looked at starting a project from a hand drawing. We then created layers on top
of the scanned hand drawings so that we could start our Vectorworks plants.

Landmark_SIG_011 Special Interest Group October 2012
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9370/landmark_sig_011-special-interest-group-october-2012/

This is the movie from the morning session of the landmark special interest
group. We looked at starting a project from the beginning by importing a DXF/DWG
file. We looked at the options for importing this type of file and then we
created the other layers that we needed, and then we created plants.

Site Modeling - Part 13
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9339/site-modeling-part-13/

Texture Bed - You can use this to add colors to part of the site model. This
doesn’t so much edit the site model, as apply areas onto the site model.

Site Modeling - Part 12
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9337/site-modeling-part-12/

Stake Object - You can use the stake object to help create a site model.  You
can use the  stake object on a site model to give the spot height. And you can
use the stake object to edit your site, or modify the site.

Site Modeling - Part 11
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9336/site-modeling-part-11/

Hardscape - Hardscape is a special tool that makes it easy to draw areas of
paving. This hardscape can be 2D only, or it can be 2D and 3D. If you make it
3D, then it can be a site modifier and can affect the site model.

Site Modeling - Part 10
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9335/site-modeling-part-10/

Cut and Fill Calculations - You need 2 things for cut and fill calculations,
you need a site model and you need site modifiers. The first one should be
obvious, with a out a site model Vectorworks has no way or calculating the site.
The second part is, if the site is not modified, there is no cut and no fill.

Site Modeling - Part 9
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9334/site-modeling-part-9/

Pads and Boundaries (Grade Limits) - Pads and boundaries (Grade Limits) are the
main tools for site modifying. The pad creates the 3D site modifier and the
boundary (grade limits) tells Vectorworks how much of the site will be
affected.

Site Modeling - Part 8
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9332/site-modeling-part-8/

Roads - Roads are great for making simple roads and paths. They can be easily
fitted to to the slope of the site. Do not think that Vectorworks is a roading
design package though. There are several road situations you can not make in
Vectorworks easily.

Site Modeling - Part 7
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9331/site-modeling-part-7/

Site Modifiers - There are several options for site modifying. You can use
roads (good for roads and paths), pads (good for flat or uniformly sloping
areas), hardscapes, landscape walls and stake objects.

Site Modeling - Part 6
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9330/site-modeling-part-6/

Edit the Extent of the Site Model - You can edit the extent of the site model,
so you can change how much of the site model you see.

Site Modeling - Part 5
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9329/site-modeling-part-5/

Edit the Original Source Data of the Site Model - You can edit the original
source data to edit the site model.

Site Modeling - Part 4
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9328/site-modeling-part-4/

Site Model From a Survey and 3D Points - You can use a combination of tracing
over the contours and placing spot levels.

Site Modeling - Part 3
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9327/site-modeling-part-3/

From Text File - You can import a data set from a surveyor.

Site Modeling - Part 2
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9326/site-modeling-part-2/

Using 3D Points - 3D Loci - When you create a Site Model the 3D heights must be
shown by 3D loci or  some other form of 3D data.  The 3D information that you
put in must have the correct height for the Site Model to be any use (and it
will avoid later confusion).

Site Modeling - Part 1
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9321/site-modeling-part-1/

What is a Site Model? - A site model is a way of looking at 3D data (spot
levels or contours) in a way that allows you to see complex 3D models and 2D
representations. VectorWorks uses the 3D information to create the models based
on the data to help you understand the 2D and 3D nature of your site.

Importing and Exporting Files - Part 6
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9317/importing-and-exporting-files-part-6/

Importing Sketchup  Files - There web sites where you can find 1000’s of
Sketchup files for furniture, cars, people and so on. You can import these into
Vectorworks.

Importing and Exporting Files - Part 5
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9313/importing-and-exporting-files-part-5/

Importing Shape Files - Shape files are geo-referenced (referenced to the
earth) so they know where they are in the world. You can import these into
Vectorworks.  

Importing and Exporting Files - Part 4
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9311/importing-and-exporting-files-part-4/

Exporting DXF File From a Sheet Layer - Exporting a DXF file from a sheet layer
will preserve the drawing.

Importing and Exporting Files - Part 3
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9306/importing-and-exporting-files-part-3/

Exporting DXF File From a Design Layer - There are often times when you need to
export your work to a consultant so they can work on it. You will have to decide
what you want to export, as there are several options.

Importing and Exporting Files - Part 2
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9303/importing-and-exporting-files-part-2/

Importing DXF Files - There are often times when you need to import a file from
a consultant. Your consultants may be using a program other than VectorWorks, so
you may have to share information in  a form that both your CAD program and
your consultant’s program understands.

Importing and Exporting Files - Part 1
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9238/importing-and-exporting-files-part-1/

Importing PDF Files - Vectorworks can import single or multi-page PDF files.
Depending how the PDF files are made, you can span to them and extrude directly
from the PDF.

Property Line Tool - Part 3
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9239/property-line-tool-part-3/

Property Line to Draw One Line - You can draw one edge of a property line.

Property Line Tool - Part 2
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9237/property-line-tool-part-2/

Creating a Site Plan From a Polygon - If you can draw a polygon of the site,
you can make it into a Property Line.

Property Line Tool - Part 1
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9234/property_line_tool_part_1/

Drawing Simple Site Plans - The Property Line toll makes quick work of simple
site plans. If the Sites do not have curves use this method.

Layers and Classes - Part 3
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9230/layers-and-classes-part-3/

Storing a Layer and Class Standard - When you create a Layer and Class
Standard, it is important to store it in the correct location so that
Vectorworks can use it.

Layers and Classes - Part 2
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9226/layers-and-classes-part-2/

Creating a Layer and Class Standard - When you create a lot of drawings it’s
essential that your drawings are similar to each other in the way they are set
up, a standard will do that for you.

Layers and Classes - Part 1
http://learn.archoncad.com/2012/10/9224/layers-and-classes-part-1/

Use More Classes, Use Fewer Layers - Layers should be where you have drawing
the information, classes should be what the information is. For example, the
walls are drawn on Floor 1, the class tells you that the walls are existing,
proposed, or demolished.