Elevation Benchmark Tool

if you want to use the elevation benchmark tool, DO NOT move the origin on the file, the elevation benchmark will not work with Auto-Reference...

On-Line User Group June Newsletter out

What is WorkGroup Referencing? 

WorkGroup Referencing is the ability to link one VectorWorks file to another. For example, you have two people working on a large project. One person is doing most of the plans and sections, the other is doing all the details. 

So far so good, you could always do this with VectorWorks, just have two files. But when you want to print all the drawings you have to open two files. Wouldn’t it be nice to just have the one file to print all the drawings from? This is what WorkGroup Referencing allows you to do. 

The concept of WorkGroup Referencing sounds simple enough, and it really is easy to set up a WorkGroup Reference. The challenging part of the whole process is deciding what to link. 

If you are using grey layers or grey classes to make stuff go transparent in your viewports, you might find that the printed drawing doesn’t suit you. In VectorWorks you have no control over the grey colour in grey layer and grey classes.

You can switch the classes to grey, but I don’t like the results much.

But there is a better way. In viewports you can edit the class attributes to have the grey colour that you want.

Find the viewport you want to edit.

Click on the classes button to open this dialog box.

Select the classes you want to edit.

Edit the colour, line weight and line style to suit.

Notice how much better the grey lines look now.

By changing the class overrides on the walls, I can make the drawing better still.

On-Line User Group May Newsletter out

the on-line user group newsletter has been out for about 2 weeks now. If you haven’t received yours yet, email me.

jon@archoncad.co.nz

The main topic for May is Textures and Rendering. Rnedering is where you start to enjoy your 3D models, but you need textures to make the rendering come alive. We cover
- rendering modes
- creating simple textures
- assigning textures
- creating textures from an image
- a great trick to judge the texture on the object.


The question and answer session is on creating 3D fillet welds on a 3D bracket.

The two extended podcasts are:
- how to set your units to dimension ini one unit, and have a different usit for worksheets.
- how to quickly edit viewports.

As with all the on-line user group newsletters there are notes, screen shots to show you what to do and links to movies so that you can see me carrying out the exercise.

for more information and to regisiter for the on-line user group please visit:
https://plus36.safe-order.net/archoncad/manuals/usergroup.php

Cheers,
Jonathan
VectorWorks training manuals and support
on-line user group
http://www.archoncad.co.nz

I Don’t Want Existing Plants on My Plant List in Vectorworks

If you are drawing a landscape project that has existing plants in it and you don’t want these to show up in the plant list, it’s easy to do.

Place all the plants that you want. If you create a plant list at this point, all the plants will be there. But let’s say that a few plants are existing and will be left, but you don’t want these on your plant list.


Select one of the existing plants.

On the Object Info Palette, find the option for
On Plant List

Click on this option to turn it off. Now this plant will not appear in the plant list.

If you change your mind, find the plant again, turn on the option for
On Plant List

Then recalculate the worksheet and the plant will appear in the plant list.

VectorWorks Files get Corrupted on the Mac

if you have a problem where your VectorWorks files on the Macintosh get corrupted and lose all their information.
From Julian Carr:
The problem happens when you minimize a VectorWorks document (send it to the Dock) and then immediately save.

In VectorWorks 12 on the Mac when you have more than one VectorWorks document open and you minimize the active one, you will notice that the Data and Mode Bars at the top of the now active document are not displayed properly until you click in the document window. This is when the problem happens. If you do not click on that document to fully activate it, any save you do including Autosave , Apple S or choosing Save from the File menu, will cause the partially activated document to become zero K on disk.

Recommendation to Mac users is to make sure their Autosave is saving to a backup folder (VW Prefs/Session tab) and to NOT minimize VectorWorks documents. You can use the Window menu to switch between open documents or press Apple ~ to toggle between open documents (the ~ key is just below the ESC key).


- good advice, so take notice...

On-Line User Group Topic June 2007

I’m working on my on-line user group topic for June 2007. The workshop topic is Customising VectorWorks. This topic includes;


changing your workspace

adding tools
deleting tools

changing the context menus

making simple tools

how to get started with VectorScript.

Some people might think that VectorScript is too hard to get started with. That’s what I thought too, before I got started, that’s why I wrote this topic. I think that if you understand the basic concepts of VectorScript you can make simple tools that will speed up your use of VectorWorks. I believe that the notes this month will do this for you.

How To Fillet The Corners Of A Rectangle With Vectorworks

If you wanted to fillet the corners of a rectangle there are a few of ways to do it. You can use the fillet tool to take off the corners of the rectangle, but I also think that could be faster ways to do it.

Start with a rectangle.

Choose the fillet tool, choose the 3rd mode on the mode bar, then click on the last button on the mode bar. This button is the preferences or settings button and it is where you enter the fillet radius for this tool and it sets the fillet radius for then next two techniques that I want to show you.

If you have Click-Click drawing set as a VectorWorks preference, click on the first line then click on the second line. This places a fillet at the corner.

A quicker way to do this is to use the 2D Reshape Tool. This tool has a mode for changing the vertex type (the second mode on the mode bar). This means that wit one click you can change the vertex type from corner point (pointy corner) to a fillet corner (chose the fillet corner button on the mode bar).

And I know one more way to do this quickly. Make sure the rectangle is selected. We have a command on the menu bar:
Modify > Poly Smoothing > Arc Smoothing.
This will fillet all the corners at the same time, but the object has to be a polygon...

Setting Units for Areas and Dimensions

I saw on the VectorWorks Tech Forum someone that was looking for a solution where they want to have the worksheet count in one type of unit and the dimensions count in different unit.

The answer is to use primary and secondary units. Use primary units for the worksheet counting and use secondary units for the dimensions.

Sketch Symbols for VectorWorks

I saw this web site on the VectorWorks Tech board the other day:

http://en.isymbol.eu/

This web site sells sketch symbols for VectorWorks. I think these are really cool, and a fantastic way to improve the presentation of your VectorWorks drawings.

If you get in touch with iSymbol, tell them you heard it here...

Ever Feel That Critics Are Getting You Down?

Ever feel that you are not doing a good job, even though you are trying your best? Do critics get you down? I’ve got a good quote to make you feel better:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming..."

Theodore Roosevelt
"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

On-Line User Group Newsletter out today

the on-line user group newsletter is a bit late this month due to work commitments ( 2 weeks of training courses in Melbourne and Auckland), but it will be sent out this weekend (April 21st).

The main topic this month is how to build your library. You may think that your library is just a file with standard symbols but that’s not my belief. I believe that your library is really you VectorWorks system of drawing and it includes:
- symbol library
- symbol libraries for tools (drawing border, plants, repetitive unit, etc)
- hatches
- gradients
- layer and class standards
- Wall Styles
and so on. There are notes and exercises on making your office system.

The question and answer session is on dimension standards.

The two extended podcasts are:
- importing a detail from a multi-page PDF file and making a viewport
- using worksheets to count up all the landscaping on each site, for a multi-site development

As with all the on-line user group newsletters there are notes, screen shots to show you what to do and links to movies so that you can see me carrying out the exercise.

for more information and to regisiter for the on-line user group please visit:
http://archoncad.blogspot.com/p/short-sharp-training-monthly.html

Cheers,
Jonathan
VectorWorks training manuals and support
on-line user group
http://www.archoncad.co.nz

What can you do with Worksheets in Vectorworks?

Worksheets are extremely powerful for counting stuff. You can count areas, lengths, symbols and do calculations on the stuff you count. I was recently training a landscape architect who wanted to count all the plants, lawn areas, paving etc for a house development, but he also wanted to count the individual house lots as well as the overall qualtities.
Can this be done.... Sure, pretty easily.
Here you can see that we could have each site counted individually, and you could count all the sites combined.
If you want to find out more about this contact me for training
jon@archoncad.co.nz

The “None” Class in Vectorworks - what’s it for?

what is the None class for? I use the None class for things that I want to be visible all the time. On a detail I would draw everything on the None class, I would do the same thing on sections and elevations, draw nearly everything on the None Class.

I use when you draw in VectorWorks you create objects on the Active Layer and on the Active Class. So, if you make a viewport, what is the active layer? If you create the viewport on the wrong class it might get turned off by accident. So it would be better to set the active class to None.

In reality I find that you can leave your active class on None most of the time. This works fine because you can set up your walls to be automatically assigned to the correct class, you can create symbols that automatically get assigned to the correct class, commands like the roof framer can automatically be assigned to the class you choose in the dialog box.

So, beware the active class...

Constraints - Snap to Object

I was teaching a client today and they asked about the Snap to Object constraint. They had drawn a plan with Snap to Object turned off. It was amazing how much easier it was to draw accurately with this constraint turned on.

This is one constraint that I always turn on, and I leave it on nearly all the time, so I had forgotten how bad it was to draw with Snap to Object turned off... When I  turned the constraint on it was much, much easier to draw for the client , they could not believe what an improvement I had made to the way they draw.

Creating Plant Graphics in Vectorworks

I’ve been helping some landscape clients recently. It reminded me again that you have to make the plant graphics simple if you want your plans to re-draw on the screen quickly. I know that you want to make the plants look like your hand-drawn plans, but you have to be careful.

My first attempt at making complex plants was terrible. The plant was so complex that if you put several of them on the drawing, it took ages to re-draw. A simple outline looked just as good and re-drew so much more quickly...
Keep It Simple...

Missing Smart Cursor in Vectorworks

Even though I made a list of mant of the hot keys, I still get phone calls and emails saying that the smart cursor cues (Point, Object etc) are missing. 

First of all, make sure that the constraints are turned on, then hit key Y to make the smart cursor cues show up. 

VectorWorks Keyboard Hot Keys

Here is an incomplete list of the VectorWorks hot keys (keys on the keyboard that will do something if you hit them). You can find the complete list in the VectorWorks help. Search for keyboard...

2D Locus tool                                                              0 (zero)

2D Polygon tool                                                           8

2D Reshape tool                                                          - (minus)

2D Selection tool                                                         X

Angular Dimension tool                                               . (period)

Arc tool                                                                        3

Ellipse tool                                                                   6

Fillet tool                                                                      7

Line tool                                                                       2

Mirror tool                                                                    = (equal)

Pan tool                                                                       Z

Polyline tool                                                                 5

Rectangle tool                                                              4

Split tool (2D)                                                                L

Text tool                                                                       1

Wall tool                                                                       9

Zoom tool                                                                     C

Top/Plan view                                                            Command+5 and0 on numerical keypad

Front view                                                                  2 on numerical keyboard

Left Isometric view                                                     1 on numerical keyboard

Left Rear Isometric view                                            7 on numerical keyboard

Left view                                                                     4 on numerical keyboard

Rear view                                                                   8 on numerical keypad

Right Isometric view                                                   3 on numerical keypad

Right Rear Isometric view                                          9 on numerical keypad

Right view                                                                   6 on numerical keypad 

Top view                                                                     5 on numerical keypad

Mode modifiers/buttons-1st group                              U

Mode modifiers/buttons-2nd group                              I

Mode modifiers/buttons-3rd group                               O (letter)

Mode modifiers/buttons-4th group                               P

Unconstrained Line Dimensioning tool                        M 

Constrained Line Dimensioning tool                            N

Radial Dimension tool                                                 , (comma)

Constrain Angle constraint                                          S

Constrain Perpendicular constraint                             R

Smart Points constraint                                               D

Smart Edge constraint                                                 F

Snap to Distance constraint                                         E

Snap to Grid constraint                                                A

Snap to Intersection constraint                                    W

Snap to Object constraint                                            Q

Use Floating Datum (in Smart Points constraint)        G

Use Floating Edge (in Smart Edge constraint)            T

Toggle SmartCursor Cues  (screen hints)                   Y

VectorWorks Crashes On Opening

This hasn’t happened to me on my Macintosh but on my Windows machine it has, where you start VectorWorks and as it loads up the program it crashes. This is caused by a corrupt workspace.

If you can remember what your active workspace was:

•    in Windows find the VectorWorks folder
•    find the Workspaces folder
•    delete the active worksace
•    replace it with the worksace from the backup folder. 

now your VectorWorks should start up without crashing

Large Projects in Vectorworks

If you have a large project how should you set up the drawings? Should you have each drawing as a separate file, or not? Should you use Workgroup Referencing to join files together?
The first step is to put as many drawings as you can in the same file. There was a discussion on the Nemetschek North America Tech board (http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?Cat=0) about batch printing 100 drawings in separate files. VectorWorks will not batch print 100 drawings that are in separate files.

Another reason to have all the drawings in one file is so that with 100 separate files, editing and updating the title blocks and issuing the drawings is a nightmare. If you have all the drawings in one file you can batch print the drawings, you can update and manage the title block information.

Having all the drawings in the same file does not mean that you only have one file for the complete project. With Workgroup Referencing you can have several people on the project adding to the design layers and this information will update on the drawings.