Convert to Lines #23

Serving the Seattle VectorWorks Users Group and Northwest VectorWorks users.

An archive of past news letters can be found at http://.converttolines.blogspot.com/

In this issue:
• Why do you go to work?
• More degree signs and plus/minus signs (in Windows)
• Putting backgrounds into scenes
• Offsetting walls
•Other Industries gallery renderings
•Jon PIckup’s latest tutorial

Greetings VectorWorks users! Our next meeting is Thursday, March 29th, 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.

One our members made a suggestion that we explore, in our next meeting, how to build a house. This topic could easily expand into two or more sessions, depending on the enthusiasm of those who attend. We’ll take it in any direction you want to go.
We’ll be looking at the most efficient, the simple and the practical methods of designing a house. We won’t actually have room to build a real house, given the size of the lecture hall, but we’ll be walking the walls, virtual style! I’ll have a box of fresh fir sawdust on hand that should help set the mood.

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Why do you go to work each day? There has to be, hopefully, some joy in your decision. I sincerely hope that you are, in part, inspired and find a creative thread within your business activities that satisfies and replenishes. The other part, of course, is money. This is the half of the equation I wish to address. In short; time is money. Learning VectorWorks can lead to real creative satisfaction. But wisdom suggests that urges to explore your creative mind be tempered by good business practice and one of those is the general idea that you don’t run ahead of yourself with any new technology or technique until you have a way to make it pay. VectorWorks today, with 3D and viewports, delivers more content, more accurately, than if you were to draw in 2D. Yes, you do spend more time on the front end getting the model right but once the model is up and running, the time saved on all subsequent actions is huge. Sections: done. Elevations: already done. Change orders of any kind: change data on one page and it jumps across to revise multiple pages. If you are drawing in 2D today, you are not getting the full payoff; you are not getting your full paycheck.

I’ve said that I would never criticize another user in how they employ VectorWorks and I do mean that. So much work is still done in 2D (AutoCad is a huge example of that). People do the work, get paid, and move on. But if you want to leverage a tool for time gains, it is in your power to do that. Now.

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In my last newsletter, I talked about the easy way to print a degree symbol or a plus/minus symbol. But I left out Windows users, sorry to say. I went on the VW Listserv and asked for the Windows folks to fill me in and did they ever! My post generated many replies. Here is but one:

This comes from the HELP file for Character Map in Windows XP:
“If you know the Unicode equivalent of the character you want to insert, you can also insert a special character directly into a document without using Character Map. To do so, open the document and position the insertion point where you want the special character to appear. Then, with NUM LOCK on, hold down the ALT key while using the number pad keys to type the Unicode character value."
It should also be known that you MUST use the Number Pad and NOT the numbers above the letter keys. On a laptop, such as my Dell, I have to also hold down the "Fn" key and use the alternate numbers (ie M=0, J=1, K=2, L=3, U=4, I=5, O=6)

Alt + 0176 = °
Alt + 0177 = ±

To find the Character Map, go to Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map
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Want to put a colored background into your drawing? This should be more self evident than it is. To begin, have your 3D model assembled and its Layer displayed. On the Resource Browser, under Resources, click on the triangle at its right and scroll to the bottom of the presented list to New Resource in (name of your file). Scroll the next list to Renderworks Background. I chose One Color and then clicked on the Options button to customize the color. I wanted black and white--the color wheel wouldn’t do--instead I clicked on the vertical b&w bar on the right hand side and adjusted the depth of tone. (If you move the pinpoint marker side to side within the color wheel, you’ll see that you can now generate dark-toned colors) Click to accept your choice of tone. You should then see a swatch of this color displayed in the Resource Browser. Drag the swatch onto your model layer, dropping it anywhere, and render your model. If you want a fast solid black background, simply check the Black background box under VectorWorks Preferences>Display.
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Want to offset a wall from some line of reference? When the wall tool was rewritten such that we didn’t have to build the wall components from the middle out anymore, the offset tool was not vested with the same improvements. One must offset from the center of the wall as before. To begin this process, click on the wall tool; click on the Wall Prefs button in the Mode Bar; click on Insertion Options and finally; fill in the offset amount in the Control Offset box. If your wall’s outer ply is siding that is 7/8” thick and you want this amount offset outside the foundation line for instance, you’ll need to take the total wall thickness, divide by half, and subtract 7/8” from that amount which is 2-13/16”. Don’t forget to click on the offset mode bar button to complete the setup for offsetting.

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I was mucking about in the NNA Galleries the other day and came across two 3D views of the interior of an art gallery done by our old SVUG leader, Jack McKean. They were placed in the Other Industries folder and so far I had missed seeing them. Take a look--they really are well done.
http://www.nemetschek.net/gallery/gallery.php?category=other
Scroll about two thirds down to find Jack’s work.

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Jonathan Pickup’s latest podcast--the short version--is out at
http://web.mac.com/jpickup1/iWeb/Site/Podcast/Podcast.html
and involves showing how to use the Drape Surface function of the 3D Powerpack to soften the sharp triangulated look of groundwork created with the Terrain modeler. His fuller-featured newsletter is by $ subscription.

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That’s it for now. See you on the 29th!