It's not about Resolutions, Its About Plans

At this time of the year many people take the opportunity to reflect on the previous year. Hopefully, it has been successful year for them, and they look at the coming year with an eye to see what they can improve. Many people make New Year's Resolutions with the hope that they will help them to achieve more in the coming year. Some quick research suggests that 80% of New Year's resolutions are broken in the first two weeks.

The reason that most New Year's Resolutions are broken so soon as because the resolutions do not have true goals or plans to achieve those goals. Often a New Year's resolution is a week wish, not a goal. By definition, a goal has to have a measurable result and it has to have a time limit. Without a measurable result or a time limit our goal is nothing more than a resolution. 

For example, you  Resolution might say "I want to lose more weight." So if you lose a quarter of a pound (250 g) you have achieved your resolution, but have you really lost much weight? You could of course lose this weight just by weighing yourself before dinner. A goal on the other hand would say that you want to achieve a specific weight, say 70 kg, by a certain date, say Christmas. The difference with this goal is that it has a measurable result (the desired weight) it also has a date to achieve this by (Christmas). This also allows you to measure your progress towards the goal. Let us say for example that you started out at 80 kg and by working hard through the year you achieve your weight of 71 kg by Christmas. You have not actually achieved your goal, but on the other hand you may have done very well to get so close.

In a recent newsletter I told you that it is time to start making your plans for 2014 and I gave you five steps to help you do this. This month I want to reinforce the idea that you need create goals and you also need to create plans to help you achieve those goals. In the example above, you might help yourself to achieve your weight by giving up sweet food. That might be all you need to do to help achieve your goal.

To get better at Vectorworks one of the plans you could make is to attend regular monthly meetings. The Feedback  from the users who do attend the regular meetings is that they have now learned more about Vectorworks since attending the online sessions than they knew before. One of my subscribers has been using Vectorworks since 2008, that he is learned more about Vectorworks from attending the online sessions since June 2013 than he ever knew before. He thought that he knew Vectorworks pretty well, but now he is absolutely astounded at how powerful Vectorworks has become. He is now committed to attending the monthly sessions.

In 2013 the subscription service produced 12 manuals with 144 movies linked to those manuals. As well as that we recorded 42 movies of the workshop sessions,  23 Landmark Special Interest Group movies, 19 Architect Special Interest Group movies, 13 Education Special Interest Group movies, and three Vectorscript Special Interest Group movies. Making a total of 244 movies in 2013. The annual subscription cost is $249 US, which makes each movie  worth just over a dollar. I think that is pretty good value, especially when you realize that there are now seven years worth of resources on the website.

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SST_1206 Referencing in Vectorworks

Referencing in Vectorworks is the ability to link your current Vectorworks file to an image, PDF, or another Vectorworks file.

What makes this so special is that when you update the original file (image, PDF, or Vectorworks drawing) you can then update the link file. The referencing concept allows you to divide your work with other people to speed up the drawing process. This manual will cover the basic concepts of referencing image files, PDFs, and the techniques for referencing Vectorworks files.

Read more... (you have to be a subscriber to folllow this link).

Become a subscriber here....

Vector-workout Subscription June Sessions

Referencing is where you link your current file to another Vectorworks file, image file, or PDF file. You use referencing to bring in the information you want, allowing you to split the workload with other people. It is also a good way to keep consultants work separate from yours.



Many people do not understand referencing, but it is very useful. The other day I taught a client to use referencing to link a survey file and a shape file from two different sources. Not only did the two files have origins, but for some reason, they had been rotated. Using a reference allows the client to import more shape files and see the information on the survey file accurately.

Other clients need to have more than one person working on a project. Referencing is how you do that.



There are four sessions for subscribers, at different times to suit different time zones, but the sessions all cover the same information, so you only need to attend one session.



You have to be a subscriber to attend these sessions, and you can subscribe here...

SHORT SHARP TRAINING (monthly) 1203 Creating a Landscape Budget Plan in Vectorworks

If you use the correct techniques, it can be very quick to create a landscape budget. One of the nice things about Vectorworks is that if you create a landscape budget in one file you can then save this to your user folder and have it available on every project after that.
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Also available as a Kindle manual.More information...

Extended Podcasts Movies for Vectorworks now on line

Each month we have Special Interest Group meetings for BIM and Landmark,  and each session is recorded. These movies are a great way to catch up on the Vectorworks training. The movies record interactive online sessions. The sessions often have several people interacting to discuss a particular topic.

Read more... (you have to be a subscriber to folllow this link).

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Simplifying Polygons in Vectorworks

One of the tools I use a lot is the polygon from inner boundary. But when I use imported polygons, they often have thousands of vertices. With so many vertices the polygon from in a boundary works very slowly because it has so much to calculate.

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Viewing PDF files on iPad

I am getting closer to getting movies into my ebooks. I have successfully linked the movies in my monthly user group manuals.

To get the PDF files onto you iPad or iPhone, you use iTunes. Drag the PDF file to iTunes, and it will be added to your iTunes library. When you sync your iPhone or iPad, the pdf file will be uploaded.

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Using Stacked Layers/Unified View

Stacked layers and Unified View allow you see all your layers together, so when you change views, all the layers change. But there are some things to watch for, like the 2D stuff.

Setting up your layers correctly is essential is you want to use Vectorworks for BIM, and if you want to use Stacked Layers or Unified View.


Stacked layers was a new technique introduced in Vectorworks 2008. Before Vectorworks 2008, if you wanted to see a complete view of your project, you would make a new layer for 3D viewing. Then you could layer link all your design layers to the 3D model layer. In order to view your model, you would change to this layer and make all the Layer Options Active Only. This would be the place to set up views for rendering, creating elevations and so on.

With Vectorworks 2008 and 2009, you do not have to set up the 3D model layer. Stacked Layers allow you to see all the visible layers in your file, and when you move the view around, all the layers look like they are joined together. Vectorworks uses the layer Z height to get all the layers to set correctly in 3D.

This is the normal view of a building when you change the view. One layer has the correct view, the other has remained in isometric. When you change views, both layers do not change together.
The answer is to use Stacked Layers.

Go to the View bar. This is one place where you will find the Stack layers .

The other place to find Stack Layers... is on the View menu.

When you turn on Stack Layers, all visible layers change to the same view. If you change the view, all the visible layers show the same view.

Go to the Menu Bar.
Choose View >  Stack Layers Options...

You can set the options you want.

The top option controls the look of all the 2D objects. If you turn this option on, all the 2D objects are shown.Notice all the dimensions, they can get in the way.

Try turning off the Display 2D objects option.

For visualization, this is a better option. The model looks a lot cleaner.

You will find it difficult to work with stacked layered turned on, there are some things that do not work, like you can’t use Show/Snap/Modify others for the layer options, and all of the 2D tools don’t work.
You will find yourself turning stacked layers on, just for visualization. You will have to turn Stacked Layers off to work.

Many users struggle with setting up their layer heights correctly in Vectorworks. This Short Sharp Manual will help.

You can purchase this manual at this web site:
http://www.archoncad.com/electronic-manuals.html

Short Sharp Manual - Intermediate Worksheets

Following the release of the short sharp manuals last month, I have added a new manual to the Short Sharp Manual page.

This manual is about Intermediate Worksheets. Not beginners worksheets, intermediate worksheets. The manual looks at 10 different worksheet examples to will focus on several worksheet issues. We will learn how to solve these issues using worksheets. We will look at several specific worksheet techniques to solve specific problems:
Counting Car Parks
Counting Site Areas (impermeable surface)
Building Occupancy for car park requirements
Building Occupancy for fire design.
Problems with design layer viewports.
Counting Landscape areas with several sites.
Problems counting just one sort of joist.
Bracing worksheet using connected worksheets, IF statements and sorting.
Roof Area calculations for downpipes or roofing materials.
Wall Area scheduling for quantity take-offs.

Find the manual here: http://www.archoncad.com/intermediate-worksheets.html

Training in A Recession

The New Zealand government has just completed a summit to create more jobs and to get out of this recession.  There were 20 main ideas to come out of the job summit (http://www.stuff.co.nz/4862899a6479.html) and a couple of them were of interest to me:

• Keep people in education and add a training clause to government procurement contracts.
• Better matching of training to available job.
• Better support people affected by redundancy.

These ideas suggest training your way out of recession. Then I discovered this article for training your way out of recession (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/article5062390.ece). 

Half the companies discovered that training staff made them more likely to stay. One-third found it increased staff motivation, and almost half actually saved money in the process.

“Organisations must focus on nurturing talent if they are to survive, grow and succeed. The continuous development and growth of people is inextricably linked to business performance.

So, there you are. Training is good for the company and good for the employee. Don’t cut your training budget as the money gets tight. 

Online Training for Vectorworks 2009

I have been working on a way to make my training available to everyone, regardless of where they are living. I have run some trials and Now I think I have a pretty good system worked out. 

In the past I used to run my courses in a classroom over one or two days, depending on the course. This meant a lot of traveling for me and often for the clients as well, as most of the courses were in Auckland. The challenge is how to get to a lot of people that are spread out in many locations.

At the end of 2008, I tried a system using online training. One course had 2 people from Auckland and one from Connecticut. It worked really well. then I tried a Landmark course with people from Auckland and Christchurch. It worked really well :

“I just wanted to say thanks for the online training. The fact that I could take the training from my office was a huge help. Jonathan showed me just how easy Vectorworks is and allowed us the time to put the task to practice during class time. Being able to ask questions along the way also made a difference, it helps to understand what you are doing at the time rather than being confused all the way to the end.

"I hadn't really given Vectorworks much thought. We had the package for 2 years collecting dust so to speak before we found out about the online classes. I'm still not up to speed on the whole package but there is some comfort in knowing the I can request a class on a particular skill and should enough other participants want the class that Jonathan can make it happen.”

That has given me the confidence to add more course and set them up on my calendar. There are courses for landscapers, architects and users that want to get more out of 3D modeling. To see all the courses and the schedule, click on this link.

The Camera Match Tool for Vectorworks

Matt Panzer has updated his fabulous Camera Match tool. 

This tool allows Vectorworks users to quickly and accurately align a 3D view to an existing photograph.

Other features in Camera Match 2009 include anti-aliasing for mask objects, which blend the edges of the mask with the rendered model, as well as a more streamlined workflow that automates the creation of render backgrounds as needed.

Camera Match 2009 is free to all Camera Match 2008 users, and it can be downloaded from www.panzercad.com. It will also be released soon in the localized Italian and German versions. The Camera Match plug-in can be purchased from the website for $100.

I have used this tool on projects where you need to match a view to a photo. This tool really works and it will save you heaps of time. 

Run Your Business Like a Farm

A couple of weeks before Christmas my son went up to his Granddad's farm to help get the hay in. Of course, these days it’s all tractors and large bails of hay that you move around with ease. 

A couple of weeks later my son was helping to spread fertilizer on the land used for hay-making. When I asked my father in law why they were spreading fertilizer he told me it so he would get a good crop of hay next year. 

That got me thinking. Why don’t we add fertilizer (learning new skills) to our careers or businesses now to make them stronger next year. This is the best time to start to get better at the CAD program that you use. 

Think like a farmer, start adding new skills right now. Learn how you use your email better, learn to use your calendar program better. Update your web site. attend regular training for your CAD program. 

I was listening to my audio book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R Covey, and he also uses this example of the farm. Your business, and your life, is not like an exam at college where you can cram in the last week. Your business and you life is much more like farm. You have to add fertilizer before you plant, and you have to plants months before the harvest. 

For my clients and myself, the fertilizer is training (courses and books). Get Vectorworks training here:

http://www.archoncad.co.nz

VectorWorks movies on youtube

I've started to place my podcasts on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/archoncad

What Does the online Use Group cover

I had an interesting chat the other day with one of my old clients. They were unsure about  some of the recent topics that we have covered in the online user group.  They had a phone call recently from a large client the other day that wanted to know if they planned a new development, where would it be seen from. We covered a technique for this a couple of months ago.

The interesting part of me was that when my client originally saw this topic they weren’t sure that it was a useful technique. Now they have a need for this and they can respond to their client positively and show a skill level far above the competition. This is what I want the user group to do for everyone. 

Check out the user group at:

http://www.archoncad.co.nz/usergroup/join_int.php

Drawing by hand, or drawing with the computer?

I’m working on a quick concept drawing for a client and they had some minor comments. Move this, add windows here, move this over there... you know how it goes. It took me about 15 minutes to make the changes, update the plans, elevations and 3D views, then email it to the client. This is not a lot of time.

Over breakfast I got to thinking, it was a lot of changes in a short amount of time. I used to have clients complain as they were learning VectorWorks that they were quicker when they were drawing by hand. But the changes I made to the concept plan could not have been made in such a short time by hand, and you could not have scanned the plant and emailed it... 

When you think you are quicker drawing by hand you have to remember that drawing on the computer lets you generate 2 or 3 alternatives with very little extra work, and any changes can be made quickly, much more quickly than a hand drawing. 

If you are using VectorWorks yet, and you are still drawing by hand, change now! Start the new year with a new purpose, with a new business tool, start using VectorWorks effectively. 

I can help:

www.archoncad.com

jon@archoncad.com