Vectorworks Interior
Yvone Samiento
CAD & BIM are like learning a foreign language. For most, not easy or fun until you reach a certain tipping point where things begin to make sense. I find it takes the average person at least 6 months of training and usage before they become profitably productive. When I taught CAD at the community college, some would be productive at the end of a semester, most would get there in two semesters, and about 10% would never get there and simply give up.
It depends on what you need to learn. If you are drawing by hand (or some other drawing program) and know what your drawings are supposed to look like, then you only need to learn VW and you can probably start relatively easily.
It also depends on what you are trying to do. Photorealistic 3D models with advanced textures and lighting will take much longer to develop than a simple 2D plan view with some dimensions. Both of those are things that different interior designers offer.
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It would be very helpful if there were some solution to interior elevation viewports dis-associating with their markers when copying to different sheet layers. It would be fine if the move had to be accomplished by going to the elevation marker itself and specifying a new sheet layer, as long as all viewport annotation items are retained.
As it is, if I want to change the sheet layer for an interior elevation VP, I need to create a new marker pointing to the desired sheet, and then copy all annotation layer items and any crops to the new viewport, which is irritating and time consuming.
I am not certain if this will help you or not, but are you aware of the Section Line Instances box at the bottom of the Object Info Palette when you have a Section Viewport Selected? This will let you put a linked Section Line on any Design or Sheet Layer without having to copy/paste.
does that preserve or re-establish links with interior elevation markers though (I don't think it does)? I'll experiment, but a big part of what I'm interested in is preserving links with markers for drawing coordination.
Are you cutting and copying or is the disassociation happen when you select a new sheet layer from the OIP? If you move all the VPs associated with a single tag via the OIP - the link should be maintained and the tag updated.
I have this problem all the time. The tool is not fool proof. When someone in office is told to move some interior elevation viewports to different sheet, and have done it by copy-pasting it, the tag stays in place and gets dissociated with any viewport by become just a lame dummy tag with no way to associate again with any viewport.
I would like to have the tag to be smarter an more flexible. It would be nice that it was something like section/elevation tag, that can be placed in annotation layer, but could be moved out of section line (our office drawing standard place interior tags on the edge of drawing, bellow space tag).
Has anyone found a way to get the interior elevation tag to re-link to the viewports? A coworker rearranged the file and used the copy and paste method instead of the OIP sheet layer method and all the tags show nothing but an incorrect sheet number.
@Jim S. Not that I know of. When the link is broken - it is not fixable. Unlike associated VPs that are just a location link - the actual generated drawings can not be relinked - again - as far as I know.
I'm having a hard time getting any 3d view of my interior spaces. I use the "set 3d view" command but the perspective is waaay off. Its completely distorted. I've tried all the perspective setting : narrow, normal, wide. Its fustrating to me that there isn't a regular camera feature like most 3d programs. Its very difficult to get the shot you want. Is there anyone who has had better luck with this?
Linda. First off, you'll be very happy to hear that in version 12 there is a camera tool, and it seems to work well. Now, as for setting up perspectives with the set 3d view tool... If you're like me, you probably want to see all of your verticals be vertical. In order to achieve this you need to set the veiwer height and the look toward height the same (eg: set both at 5'10, or whatever). The interesting thing is that in real life, our "look toward" height is never the same as the height of our eyes, and geometrically, the verticals we see with our eyes are not actually vertical (they are skewed one way or the other) and our brains make the adjustment. Sometimes I can get an acceptable result if I set the the look toward *slightly* higher or lower than the viewer height (say, 6' / 5'). It takes a little trial and error, but if you're willing to play around with it I'm sure you'll have success.
My company just dished out tons of money for version 11.5 not even 6 months ago and now this new version fixes all the things we are pulling our hair out about but will cost us another $620 bucks...I don't think that is an option right now.
Linda, Did you know that you can set the perspective manually? Maybe what you need to do is start with an isometric view and just tweak it a bit. Again, if you think about it, as you are looking up at a tall building there is vanishing point, right? The vertical lines actually do appear closer to each other the further away they are. Here are a couple links to the VW's Gallery which illustrate the point, as well as the possibilities... From Gallery 1 From Gallery 2 Keep on trying. These things take time and skill to produce (they are not automatic). That's why we get the "big bucks" ;-)
Linda, one other little trick: you might consider removing one (or more) walls from the model, so that you can back up and view it from a greater distance (without the walls in the way). This would be sort of like a "shadow box" or a stage set, and might allow the viewer to comprehend the context better. Hope that helps...
I understand that naturally the lines will not be perfectly vertical...thats the whole idea of a perspective image, but the images I was producing were so distored that it stretched everything completely at an angle and across the whole page. Its wasn't a natural perspective at all. I'm going to try some of your suggestions and see if I make any progress. The gallery images you linked were exactly what I want to achieve...but I feel like I need a magic hat to produce them. I appreciate your help. I'll keep trying.
Linda, one other thing, in case you're not aware: you can change the "bounding box" of a perspective image by dragging the handles at the corners. This might help to make your image long and tall instead of fat and wide...
Go to Views>Standard Views>Front (That settles the height issue for the moment. You can use the Flyover Tool or Translate View Too if you want to change the direction of view or height of the observer. Give it a try.
Shaded render mode helps you create higher levels of realism earlier in your design process. Take advantage of real-time processing to assess your designs more confidently on the fly and quickly determine lighting, camera, and material setup so you can create better visuals to impress your clients.
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timeless I'm afraid your inquiry might be a bit too specific given that our ArchiCAD userbase is not as huge as SketchUp / Revit, and the user would have to come from Belgium as well course. I've still gladly pinned your post for the next few days so that anyone who stumbles into the ArchiCAD subforum should also see your thread.
Hi Timeless, we work with Archicad, and used to work with Vectorworks and Sketchup (and revit for a short period of time, I wouldn't reccomend it for interior stuff; wayyy to slow and tedious). For us Archicad is the way to go and it works great with Enscape. Archicad is way more versitile then Vectorworks when it comes to 3d design. We never looked back; we are happy we made the switch from VW to AC 3 years ago.
We are currently utilizing Enscape with Sketchup for visualization, and AutoCAD/Sketchup for Construction Documents. I would like to move our office to a BIM solution. We are an architecture/interiors US based firm doing primarily custom residential renovations and new construction. I have tried REVIT in the past and not a fan at all. We are currently evaluating Archicad and Vectorworks Architect. I would appreciate any feedback on the workflow for CDS and Enscape integration. Thanks,
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