The basic concepts include understanding design layers and classes and when to use a layer or a class. We will also look at using viewports to create drawings. The basic concepts assume that all the work has been done for us and that all we have to do is to assemble the information into drawings.
Creating drawings for a building project is relatively straightforward when you have your design layers, classes, and building information model. But, that would make for a very short manual. What we also need to look at is how we get our design layers, classes, and building information model ready so that it is then easy to create the drawings.
Once we have these items, we will use viewports and sheet layers to create the drawings. This manual is structured to look at the basic concepts first, then the intermediate concepts, and finally the advanced concepts of creating drawings.
There are some powerful techniques for setting up drawings for a landscape project. Although, these techniques are not unique to landscape projects. Almost all the techniques covered in this manual can be used for creating drawings for any project. Regardless of your profession, you can apply the techniques that you learned in this manual.
You might also have noticed that some of these techniques are too large to cover in this manual and you have been referred to other manuals. Please have a look at these and other manuals to learn more about these techniques.
Vectorworks has a Roof Framing command that is designed to create framing members for a roof (which I covered some time ago). You can also use this to create framing for roof faces. When I create roof faces I tend to be sloppy about the pitch line of the roof face (provided that it looks OK), but this has an affect on the creation of the framing. Watch the movie to find out more.
Nudge is where you move objects a small amount using the shift+arrow keys. It can be useful, but watch out if you need to measure the objects. There are also Vectorworks Preferences that control the nudging. In this extended podcast I explain all the options.
These topics are the advanced topics. In this part of the manual we going to cover the topics that really use the power of the record formats.
In the previous section we looked at the basic concept of the Record Format. In this section will look at using record formats with other objects. Record format is a very powerful when attached to objects, especially symbols.
A record format is a way to record information on an object. The record format can be a simple one that only records one piece of information about an object. However, your record format can also be a complex one that will record several pieces of information about an object.
In the previous section we looked at several objects that will speed up the drawing process, especially when we come to create elevations, sections, and links between drawings.
The previous section was all about beginner topics, which everyone should know. This section is all about the intermediate topics that you will need to know in order to create your drawings from the 3D model.
This section will be about how the 3D parts of the design work.
These are topics that are the foundations of creating drawings. Creating the information is nothing if you cannot organise it into drawings.
To create drawings we use several concepts. These concepts include Design layers, Classes, Viewports, and Sheet Layers. These concepts are used in conjunction with each other to create drawings, but we will be looking at them individually to see how they used.
In this session we looked at trying to create a hatch pattern that would create a random paving pattern and whether this would be achievable using hatches or whether it would be better using tiles. We also looked at creating areas of landscape area for quick planting areas, creating random paving slabs that would be site modifiers, and how we could count areas of planting that were included in a specific area.
In this session we looked at landscape areas, pricing landscape areas, creating our plants, and how to create existing plants (particular focusing on the textures).
In this session we looked at auto hybrid objects which lead us onto looking at creating downpipes (downspouts) for a project.
In this session we looked at the resource manager. An introduction to movie hemi talk about other topics that we were hoping to cover but we did not have time to cover all these topics. In terms of resource manager we looked at using tools, object styles, and textures.
In this session we looked at the concept of a template file and how much we should store and it. It’s tempting to include everything that you think you might use in a template file, but with a layer and class standard and a library file you can keep your template file to a minimum. There are some things that really have to be in the template file such as tool preferences and dimension standards.
In this session we wanted to look at creating an addition to a wall. We looked at different ways of creating a small area of wall that could have a different texture or a projection away from the face of the wall.
When you create objects in Vectorworks they can be 2D, 3D or a combination of both. Many objects also have information attached to them. If you think of a door for example, the door has a plan view, you can view it in 3D, and you can report the information from the door. If you think about the information attached to the door, that’s like the record format we are talking about. The idea of a record format is that it is a way to store information.
In these sessions we looked at why we would want to create Record Formats, what we can use them for, and how to report them once we have used them. We looked at some intermediate topics like linking the record format to a symbol and linking the record format to text inside a symbol. We finished by looking at some advanced topics like using record formats with IFC, modifying objects using the records and Data Visualization on viewports.