CONVERT TO LINES #16

CONVERT TO LINES #16
4/21/06
Serving the Seattle VectorWorks Users Group and Northwest VectorWorks users.

In this issue:
•The When and the Where.
•The Wisdom of Crowds.
•When is a Plug-in Object a Symbol, or is it the other way around?
•Doing the Splits.
•More books.


Greetings VectorWorks Users! Our next meeting is Thursday, April 27th, from 6:30 to 8:30 at the Seattle Central Community College Wood Construction Center lecture hall. The hall is located at 2310 S. Lane St. (intersection of 23rd Avenue South and South Lane Street). Parking is available in the gated lot off South King Street, just one block south of Jackson Street. The lecture hall is the building directly adjacent to the parking lot at its south side. Walk up the wooden side-ramp to the second door.
We will take a look at one of the topics below--making symbols and making plug-in objects into symbols. Once a symbol has been made we will look at assigning product information to that symbol. We’ll endeavor to answer your questions, perhaps some you didn’t even know you had! ......................................................................................................

You may recall a book called The Wisdom of Crowds written by James Surowiecki that hit the best seller list at least a year ago. The book is subtitled “Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economics, Societies and Nations.” It contains, among its many stories, one about a group of 700 people who were asked to give their estimate of the weight of an ox. After all opinions were averaged, the group’s answer was within a pound of the true weight of the animal.
I’ve come to believe that our little user-group fits into this book somehow. When we get together, we reach a mind-mass, if you will, that is remarkably able to solve problems. You might think that I, as the SIG leader, would be handing out answers one by one from behind the lectern. But that would be wrong. The real power is in the collective wisdom of the group. And this is where you come in. Attend and grow wiser. You will go home enabled in ways you would not have imagined. Your contribution, no matter how small, will also shape the knowledge of others.
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When is a plug-in object sometimes converted into a symbol and more vexingly, why is it then often turned back into a plug-in object? And what is the difference between the two anyway? To answer this last question first, a symbol is an object with parameters that can’t be changed by using the Object Info palette. A symbol can be 2D, 3D or a combo of both. Symbols use less memory than a plug-in object and can be assigned database (Worksheet) information. Plug-in objects have many parameters that can be changed via the Object Info palette. A cabinet can have the countertop and splash changed, doors changed for drawers and so on. A symbol can be a simple collection of 2D lines. A plug-in object is constructed by using a script (Tools > Scripts > VectorScript Plug-in Editor). And finally, a plug-in object can be converted to a symbol to gain some of the advantages of a symbol.
If you use a plug-in door for instance--perhaps one of those in Version 12 with the umpteen options for style--at some point you may wish for a way to keep all those selections fixed so that you don’t have to go through a long selection process each time, over and over, whenever you reach for a new door. In the Old Days when the door choices were fewer, you could leave each window or door as a plug-in and set the parameters for the unit at each insertion. You can still operate this way but if you have a lot of windows, doors, cabinets or other plug-in objects that you wish to model, expect to spend much more time in this process of one-by-one customization. But once the door has been set up, why not save it as a symbol and import it into your Resource Browser? That way it will already have been pre configured. To do this you will need to create a set of doors, one for each size you’d typically use and in each form such as solid core door or store door.
Those of you wishing to show a more detailed door or window will be happy with the direction VW has taken. Those wishing for a more simple solution will be “encouraged” to make many more symbol libraries of preset symbols and plug-in objects prior to starting their drawings, then importing these libraries into future drawings or into your templates. The upside is you’ll have much less need to edit your object after insertion. The downside is that time needs to be set aside for creation of these future libraries and individual items.
Let’s run through the drill of how to do this. First, let’s make a new folder within the Resource Browser. With the Browser open, go to Resources > New Resource in (title of your drawing) > Symbol Folder.
Now give the folder its name, such as Solid Core Doors. You’ll see the blue folder (by the way, I’m explaining this in Version 12 of VW). Now, place a plug-in door into your file anywhere. Go to Modify > Create Symbol and name the symbol in the palette presented. A Move palette should come on-screen. Click on the new Doors folder to highlight it. Click Open. You are now in the root or bottom folder for doors. Your door, or doors if you shift-selected, will be moved to this folder where they can be dragged into any new file. Note that they will stay stuck at whatever size they were when turned into a symbol. You can flip them, set their height above Bottom Z (or base line) and your can replace them--all from the Object Info palette.
Perhaps the best of both worlds would be, when converting your door to a symbol, to go to the Options palette and check the box marked Convert to Plug-in Object. Then, when you insert this type of door from the Resource Doors folder, it converts to an editable plug-in object (which you have already pre configured, remember?). Then, if you need to change a bit of trim or the overall width, you’ll have no problems.

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Get to know the Split tool. I wanted to create a shape something similar to a chisel where all four sides of the chisel end tapered inward toward the tip. The Split tool resides on the Basic palette and looks like a-- a--hill with a couple of arrows coming and going. The first mode of the tool works well when splitting a wall as it only takes one click (an alternate would be drawing a line across the wall at the cutting point and using the Trim command). The second mode works nicely when cutting off the sides from my chisel shape although the third cutting mode would save a click by allowing me to chose, via an arrow, which side of the cut I wish to keep and automatically throwing away the trimmed piece. My chisel shape is a 3D polygon but the Split tool also can cut 2D lines and the more complex shapes of Nurbs surfaces and curves.

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Resolve Software, the company that tours the U.S. teaching VW, has some new books out:
www.resolve.ca/products/workbooks.html
Resolve is in partnership with Nemetschek to provide learning resources so I expect the books to be first rate. The covers do resemble the stock manuals until you look carefully look and compare. Then you’ll see that they are not the same. Check ‘em out.
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Come join us next Thursday evening!

Tom Greggs
(206) 524-2808