Macintosh Restart Tricks

I've recently been having trouble with my Macintosh and I spent a couple of hours today online with Apple support. During the phone call they asked me to do several things when restarting my computer, things like chicken diagnostics, safe booting, Internet recovery, and reinstalling the operating system. A lot of these are covered by keyboard shortcuts you restart your computer.

Vectorworks Tip #166 - Text – Use Text Styles with Dimension Standards

If you create text styles you can connect them to your custom standards. This means that every time you place a dimension it will automatically set the text to the right style, ensuring that all of your dimension text is the way you want it.

The leader in Vectorworks training and manuals: http://learn.archoncad.com

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Vectorworks Tip #165 - Publish Command – Export to Image

The Publish… command is from the File menu. The Publish dialog box allows you to choose any of the sheet layers or saved views from your file and print to a PDF file in the order you require. You select the required sheet and saved views, click on the top arrow where you can reorder the views. Click on the Publish button to create the PDF file.

The leader in Vectorworks training and manuals: http://learn.archoncad.com

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BIM_SIG_055 Architect Special Interest Group October 2014 (am)

In the session the users wanted to look at the clip cube, how to use the clip cube to create section viewports, how to create section viewports with a step in the section line, how to control the graphics on a section viewport, and how to deal with the gable wall in a split gable roof.

podcast 199 Viewing Changes in Vectorworks 2015

Vectorworks 2015 has some nice changes to 3-D viewing. First of all, they have improved the transitions when changing views using the keyboard shortcuts. There is now a user preference that can control the time of the view transition. For example, you can speed up the view transition to a 10th of a second, or that's too fast slow it down to a whole second. The way you do this is with a small script. The other change Vectorworks has made is to wireframe view transitions. In the past, when you would use the flyover tool in wireframe, complex objects would often revert to simple boxes to speed up the transition. This is no longer the case.

Guide to Productivity Upgraded to Vectorworks 2015

The Vector-workout Guide to Productivity has been updated to Vectorworks 2015. This manual now contains 213 movies with the total running time of over six hours and 27 minutes. For Vectorworks 2015 I added or upgraded 25 movies. This guide is the ultimate guide to productivity with Vectorworks. It covers a huge range of topics from productivity techniques right through to referencing. The cost of this guide is $99.50 US. Considering the get 213 movies, this is great value for money.

IT'S ON SALE THIS WEEK ONLY, 15% OFF!

If you are a subscriber to this website, you do not need to buy this new guide, the new movies will be added to the Guide to Productivity page.

If you are not a subscriber to this website then you come by your guide on this store…

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BIM_SIG_054 Architect Special Interest Group September 2014 (pm)

In this session we look at some of the new tools in Vectorworks 2015 and how they relate to site modelling. The project looks simple enough, because it's a gently sloping site that needs a car park, and entry road, and an exit road. There are also several hills that have to be negotiated around. Vectorworks has site modifier objects which will often do what you want, but are commonly requested enhancement to the site modifier is is the ability to make them fall to an outlet.

Vectorworks Tip #164 - Text – Use Text Styles with Classes

One of the new features with Vectorworks 2015 is the ability to link a class to a text style. This gives you a similar control to controlling the graphic style of objects with a class, when you assign your text to a class it will automatically use the text style assigned. This is such an improvement when you have areas of text that have to be on different classes and different sizes.


The leader in Vectorworks training and manuals: http://learn.archoncad.com 

Landmark_SIG_056 Special Interest Group September (am) 2014

In this session we looked at some of the new techniques in Vectorworks 2015, the changes to site modeling, changes to the existing tree tool, but we started out by looking at an important concept in Vectorworks, The concept of classes inside container objects. This is really important, because if you don't understand how the class hierarchy works inside container objects you can easily turn off your objects without realizing it.

Vectorworks Tip #163 - Publish Command – Print to PDF

The Publish… command is from the File menu. The Publish dialog box allows you to choose any of the sheet layers or saved views from your file and print to a PDF file in the order you require. You select the required sheet and saved views, click on the top arrow where you can reorder the views. Click on the Publish button to create the PDF file.

The leader in Vectorworks training and manuals: http://learn.archoncad.com

podcast198 Annotation Changes in Vectorworks 2015

Vectorworks 2015 have made some subtle changes to the annotation tools like callouts, drawing labels, elevation benchmarks, and dimensions. Taken individually, each of these changes is minor, but they will remove many of your frustrations when dealing with these objects. The elevation benchmark for example now has an offset mode which is going to be a huge bonus where you have elevation benchmarks that are close together.

Vectorworks Tip #162 - Vectorworks Preferences - Center on Object After View Change

This Vectorworks preference is extremely useful for making sure that when you change your views the selected object is brought to the centre. When you do not choose this option, you will find that when you change from a plan view to an isometric view your objects don't remain in the centre of the drawing window, sometimes they disappear altogether. When you activate this option, your selected object is always brought to the centre of your drawing window when you change views, which means that you don't have to go looking for your objects.


The leader in Vectorworks training and manuals: http://learn.archoncad.com

Vectorworks Tip #161 - Deform Tool - Bulge Mode

The Bulge mode with the Deform tool allows you to bulge your entire 3-D model with just a few clicks. You can also choose whether you going to taper it symmetrically or not (the 2nd to last button on the toolbar). This new mode is a very easy way to create bulging objects.

The leader in Vectorworks training and manuals: http://learn.archoncad.com

Vectorworks Tip #160 - Text – Use Text Styles

If you use the Format Text dialog box, you will find there is a Save button on the dialog box. Saving your text style allows you to reuse the same style anywhere in your document. Also, your text style is a resource which you can then share to other files through the Resource Browser.


The leader in Vectorworks training and manuals: http://learn.archoncad.com

Conversations About Vectorworks 001

This movie is the first in a series of conversations about Vectorworks. These are not training movies these are really just two people coming together to talk about something they found in Vectorworks.

Vectorworks Tip #159 - Printing – Printer Set up…

Setting up your page size is best if you use your Printer Setup a use paper that your printer is designed to use. This dialog box ensures that your paper is the right size for your printer, but you can cheat with this dialog box by changing the scaling setting. In this image I have set the page size to A3 with the scaling set to 50%. Vectorworks will treat this page as an A1 page.

The leader in Vectorworks training and manuals: http://learn.archoncad.com

podcast197 Text Changes in Vectorworks 2015

Vectorworks have worked hard on implementing text improvements for Vectorworks 2015. These improvements include control over text tracking, variable Tab settings, and using classes to control text size. These changes may seem small, but they will improve your productivity.

Vectorworks Tip #158 - Vectorworks Document Preferences – Cropped Perspective

The option for showing a cropped perspective used to be in the view menu, and Vectorworks 2015 this is now been moved to a document preference. The assumption is that you will always want to use a cropped perspective all that you will always want to use and an cropped perspective. Therefore you can set this up as your preference and you won't have to go back and change it again.

 

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Vectorworks Tip #157 - 3D Modeling – Deform Tool - Taper Mode

The Taper mode with the Deform tool allows you to taper the entire object with a few clicks. This is not a replacement for the Taper face tool, use that tool when you only want to taper one face. This mode is designed to taper your entire object. Depending on where you put your control point, you can control which faces taper.

 

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Vectorworks Tip #156 - Text – Format Text

The quickest way to control your text is to use the Format Text… command from the text menu. This command is so much faster because it opens a dialog box allowing you to change the font, size, style, justification, etc, all in one dialogue box. If you try to use the commands from the menu bar to control the size, style, etc you'll find it takes a lot longer to control your text.

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Vectorworks Tip #155 - Printing – Set the Page Size

Printing is so fundamental it is easy to overlook this basic concept. Before you print your document you really must set the page size, otherwise your information may not fit onto the page. There are two areas to edit your page size – design layers and sheet layers. Your sheet layers will be created in a consistent way if you set the page size first. Use the command from the file menu Page Set up…

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SST_1410 - What's New in Vectorworks 2015

Every year Vectorworks updates and there are always lots of new features. But we need to have more the new features what we really need to have are benefits. Features are nice, but benefits have a reward, they make it easier to use, faster to use, more powerful.
As I did last year I have included a table with Needs/Features/Benefits. This table should assist you in finding your need, the feature associated with that need, and what the benefit to you should be. Following on from that table is a detailed explanation of all the main features that are included in Vectorworks 2015.

You can read more here...

podcast 196 Story Changes in Vectorworks 2015

Vectorworks 2015 has made some powerful yet subtle changes to the stories. These changes are going to have a huge impact on the way you create and manage your stories. They going to make stories much more powerful than they have been. This is a short movie just showing a little bit about how this change can be used to automatically control wall heights.

Vectorworks Tip #154 - Document Preferences - Save Viewport Cache

When you open a file that has viewports in it, you will have to update those viewports if you do not turn on Save Viewport Cache. This can save you a lot of time waiting for viewports to regenerate, especially if you have a lot of rendered or section viewports. However, the downside for this is that your file sizes will be huge compared to the files that do not save viewport cache.

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Vectorworks Tip #153 - 3D Modeling – Deform Tool

The Twist tool that was introduced with Vectorworks 2014 has been replaced by a new Deform tool. This tool has a lot more ability than the tool it is replacing, allowing you to bend, bulge, taper, and twist objects.

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3D Modelling Special Interest Group - September 2014

In the special interest group we had a couple of users who like using SketchUp for 3-D modelling rather than Vectorworks, so we looked at how to use Vectorworks for 3-D modelling in the same ways that SketchUp does it. I don't use SketchUp for 3-D modelling because I like Vectorworks and I find it very powerful, but I wanted to help people who don't use Vectorworks for 3-D modelling understand how quickly you could create a garden setting.

Vectorworks Tip #152 - Visualisation - Classes on Area Lights

When you create an area light, make sure that the original object is on the None Class, otherwise it's easy to accidently turn off the area light. This relates to the issue I talked about last week with the objects inside container objects.

The leader in Vectorworks training and manuals: http://learn.archoncad.com

Interactive Workshops September 2014 (1409) - Introduction to Textures

If you are going to present your work in a rendered way, textures are fundamental. Putting textures on your models helps your clients to understand what materials you are planning. Textures have a lot of power, but if you haven't created textures before you might find this power confusing. These sessions focus on understanding the basics of textures rather than focusing on some really cool or powerful tricks. There are four basic parts to textures (color, reflectivity, transparency, and bump), so in the sessions we try to look at these parts individually, and at the end of the session bringing all of them together to create a texture.

There were four sessions, which you can find here...

Join archoncad and Novedge for a Free Webinar

Join me online for a free webinar hosted by my friends at novedge. I often present webinars for novedge because they are keen supporters of Vectorworks.

They asked me what I'd like to present in October and my answer was to cover in detail the changes to walls and stories. Vectorworks 2015 has got some incredible changes to walls and stories that is going to make Vectorworks very powerful. But, in order to use this power you going to have to understand what the changes are to story levels and how the story levels will connect with your walls and wall components. That's what this webinar is going to be all about.

I have just finished my practice session and the image today is what I finished up with at the end of the practice session.

Go to this website and register now to join me and my friends from novedge

 

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Vectorworks Tip #151 - Basic Tools - Fillet Tool

The fillet tool is used to join two linear objects. It has three ways of joining the linear objects together: placing the fillet without affecting the other objects, placing the fillet and splitting the other objects, and placing the fillet and trimming the other objects.
Click on the first linear object then move your cursor and click on the second linear object. Vectorworks will then place the fillet between the two objects.
This also works with walls.

The leader in Vectorworks training and manuals: http://learn.archoncad.com

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