Convert to Lines #28

2/16/08
Serving the Seattle VectorWorks Users Group and Northwest VectorWorks users.

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

In this issue:
• When are we finally meeting???
• Webex info
• New Service Pack for V. 2008 available
• Thoughts on viewports and design layer viewports
• Stack Layers thoughts
• Scaling freak-out
• Converting a steel beam symbol into 3D
• Misc. Misc. Misc.
• Repetitive stress answers from our readers
    
Greetings VectorWorks users!  Join us Thursday, February 21, 6:30 to 8:30 PM as we explore designing in 3D while using the rejuvenative powers of viewports.  We’ll take you through some basics that should provide a means toward advancing your VW skills. Whether your designs fall between avian domiciles or skyscrapers, turn out and empower yourselves. 

Our meeting will take place 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.

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The next Webex presentation is on NURBS surfaces. If you are new to using NURBS, in preparation for this session, Nemetschek recommends you visit 
http://www.nemetschek.net/3dpowerpack/  
  and maybe
http://www.nemetschek.net/3DPowerpack/tutorials.php
  and if you have time
http://www.nemetschek.net/3DPowerpack/qtexamples.php

In march, the movie will cover Design Layer Viewports and in April, 2D to 3D.

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NNA has announced the release of a new Service Pack which fixes several bugs and introduces a few new items. VW 2008 users should first start VW and, assuming you have a live web connection, click on About VectorWorks and click again on “Check for Updates......”. VW will check to see if you need this Service Pack. If a web connection is not available, you can download the updater from the Downloads department on the NNA website. Be sure to read the PDF describing the changes. Of particular interest is a new context/right click command that makes getting in and out of edited viewports easier.

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NNA added, within the last couple of years, a game-changing feature to VectorWorks called viewports. I’ve not been happy about the name since it seems to imply motion, as though you were embarking on a journey to a portal or through a black hole. If I could change VW, I’d wish up another name, perhaps a term less new-agey but more descriptive of something solid, like “snapshot”. I make a snapshot of my design layer and send it to a sheet. I can understand this immediately because it is something like my wife does when she puts pictures of the kids into our family album. 

The problem many users of VW have is that the viewport process puts a big fat hurdle of dialog boxes in the way of their work flow. Not only that, but one is now supposed to put dimensions and text on a special sub-snapshot. Going back and forth gets confusing. (Imagine that to look at the Family Holiday Album, you have to constantly go into the next room.) The reason to stick with it, however, is that you’ll be paid back in spades once you change anything on the original design layers. Pages and pages will update and not only that, updating reduces error substantially since the change you would normally do manually, with all the potential for trouble, is guaranteed to show up in the revised view exactly as drawn. But to get the benefit you must incorporate this tool into your workflow and then wax on, wax off, again and again, until travel between the annotations pane and the crop pane and the design layer pane becomes second nature, becomes painless.

Another other big change in VectorWorks Version 2008 has been the invention of viewports-on-design layers or VPDL’s. This is where a viewport is sent not to a sheet but to another design layer where it is then used as an underlay representing some other part of your or another’s project. But I don’t like this name either. Who’s going to remember what a VPDL is? Change the name to Reference Layer* and I’m waymore happy. These references/VPDL’s are weird in their way. For instance, you can’t copy and paste viewports from a design layer to another design layer. They have to be created anew and sent using the Create Viewport dialog box. But once you get an underlying VPDL, you can reset its attributes--line type for instance--and change its look substantially. 

In my own usage, I create a VPDL of a Main Story and send it to an Upper Story Floor Framing layer where I then can lay in my 2D work. To simplify the underlay, I reset the VPDL using the Object Info palette to show the walls as dashed lines, with windows and doors hidden. You DO have to create classes to help you with this process so I make a class for windows and one for doors called Hide Windows, Hide Doors. Once I make the class invisible, I have a much simpler template over which to embellish. Change the location of a window on the primary design layer and it slips to the correct location on the reference layer giving you an opportunity to move your header symbol and any notes and dimensions. I’m looking for NNA to make this process simpler over time. For instance, walls take a fair amount of massaging to get them into a stripped-down form. And file size can zoom if you use many of these. While I have described a fairly simple use of VPDL’s, there is a world of opportunity in how you or how you and your design team might use them. 

*The term "Reference layer" was suggested first by a writer on the VW Tech Forum.

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Messing with the Stack Layers command in V. 2008 can be confusing because it is fundamentally different from the earlier, pre-viewport system of making a model. For instance, when you wanted an old-school, layer linked model, you first had to designate a design layer onto which your 3D model would appear. When you create a model comprised of the newfangled stacked layers, it sits out in space somewhere with no design layer to call its own. Only after you make a viewport of the model is a tangible entity created. But half the fun of using stacked layers is the easy assembly of parts (more on that below) and the quick  and easy generation of isometric views. In short order you can model assemblies and adjust and correct in 3D on the fly. This process is the future of VectorWorks. Using the old system would be much, much slower. 

But the coin gets flipped when it comes to creating sections. The old school Cut 2D and Cut 3D Section is much quicker as the cutting action automatically creates a new layer to accept the cut. You can measure immediately, not having to go to an annotations layer to regain an accurate scale (versus 1:1). You won’t have the bells and whistles of the graphically rich Cut Section Viewport, but sometimes dirty beats pretty. If you don’t know where to find Cut 2D and Cut 3D Section, they can be located in the Legacy folder within the Workspace folder within the VectorWorks folder and imported back into your workspace by using the Workspace Editor. Yes, a hassle, but worth it in my opinion. Note, to make things easier after your cut, select it and go to Modify>Convert to lines>render in Hidden Line, then ungroup.

Note that when you first begin using the Stack Layers command, be patient when you click to assemble. VectorWorks needs time to bring up the layers and it will seem as though something should have happened by now but hasn’t. If something STILL hasn’t happened, it is likely that your view of the layers is set to Active Only. Visit the pull down menu on the Navigation palette, just atop the list of layers, and reset to Show/Snap Others or Gray/Snap Others.

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I had imported some engineering PDF’s into a large VectorWorks file--a wonderful process that eliminates many irritants that used to attend the only other real option, that of Import DXF/DWG. I imported one PDF knowing it was slightly out of scale. At the end of the design process I tried to rescale the PDF to its correct size. Sometime later, it was discovered that in scaling the PDF, the ENTIRE FILE was rescaled with it. Not only that, but any associative dimensions--most of them--reset their numbers to match the now slightly shorter walls, since that’s what associative dimensions do. My whole plan, walls, dimensions, locks, stocks and smoking barrels, had shrunk. The good news was that this error was caught in time. The bad news could have been a finished file sent out for bid. The lesson? For me, I’ll only adjust a PDF BEFORE I import it into a drawing file. That, or ask my source to correct and resend. (Note that the scaling error was entirely my doing and not because of some issue with VectorWorks.)
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If you want to include a 3D I-beam or other steel shape into your drawing, go to the Detailing tear-off palette and select your member. Stamp it onto your drawing and adjust its size via the Object Info palette. Flip your drawing into a Front view or any other assuming you want the member to have a horizontal orientation. Locate the I-beam and Modify>Ungroup. Then Modify>Convert>Convert to Polygon. Then go to Model>Extrude and enter a length. The beam extrudes toward you so duck if necessary. Give it a solid fill and move it into position within your model. Basic idea contributed by Gytis on the Tech Forum.

islandmon of the NNA Tech Forum recommended making the converted polygon into a NURBS using Convert to NURBS. The reasoning is that they demand less space in the file although they render the same. If you have a lot of these shapes in your project, say you design structural steel frames for a living, NURBS may be the way to go.
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Clicking on X will drop you out of any tool you may have been working with and back to the 2D Selection Tool (indicated by an arrow with a little cross next to it). To get out of the Text tool, clicking on X gets you an X. To click of of Text, for Windows or Mac users, left handed or right, use either the Escape key in the upper left hand corner of your keyboard, or the Enter key on the far right side of your keyboard.

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Borrowed from the NNA Tech Forum: If you use Apple’s Mail program, you can send PDF’s of VW to others lightning quick.  While in your drawing, click Command P, on the next dialog box, lower left, click PDF. On the next box click Mail PDF (or FAX PDF). Mail comes up showing the VW image scaled correctly. Hit send. Time elapsed; couple seconds max. Note that you can create PDF’s through the print process from any application.

In Windows + Outlook, select Alt-Print Screen and copy to your clipboard which you can then paste into an email window. But it’s not a PDF. Faststone Capture is a $20 screen capture tool that will make your image into a PDF. 
http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm
Office 2007 has a downloadable add-in, Save as PDF or XPS.

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VectorWiki is a new site you should visit for anything having to do with VectorWorks. This is a community that wants to be helpful. Take advantage of it.
www.vectorwiki.org/

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You’ve likely seen this one by now but if you haven’t, here’s a link to a very positive review of VectorWorks.
http://aec.cadalyst.com/aec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=482165
Cadalyst says VW “highly recommended”. 

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How-to movies are proliferating at the location listed below. As seems typical, they are designed to show off the talents of VW2008 but but in this case, teach at the same time.
http://www.nemetschek.net/training/library.php?movie=2008movies

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For a discussion on roof creation, follow these Tech Board links:
http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=9&Number=93005&Searchpage=1&Main=19894&Words=+panthony&topic=0&Search=true#Post93005

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I’d mentioned in my last post that I was suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. My issue seems small, being confined to overuse of a thumb. Still, with a heavy workload, I could see problems on the horizon if I didn’t take some kind of action. I was delighted to receive several suggestions from readers. 

Forrest German wrote to tell me about a great mouse he’s used now for years. You hold it vertically and not in the typical palm-down position. Try this: hold a CD or a paperback book between your thumb and fingers with palm down. Now rotate the object to vertical. Quite a little change in stress through the elbow. The Vertical Mouse 3 includes a Windows driver--not a Mac--but there is a link to several third party Mac drivers. The Evoluent Corp. also offers a palm rest and an interesting keyboard which, for right handers (or lefties like me who keep the mouse on their right), places the numeric keypad on the left side of the keyboard thus allowing one to keep their mouse-hand more directly to the front rather than angled out. 

Check out their URL and accompanying testimonials.
http:/www.evoluent.com/
For Mac users, see Steermouse:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/drivers/steermouse.html

Anna Nissen likes vitamin B-6 or the more expensive coenzyme (predigested) variety as a means to buttress connective tissue. I’m finding that adjusting my diet these days is having a big impact on how I feel day to day. This sounds worth trying.
Here’s a link on B-6 that is short but informative:
http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/2355.html

Lack of general conditioning plays a role. Dalton Gittens said he’d regained strength in his hands by simply doing a kind of reverse-pullup, snugging his briefcase handle into his palm as he walked from home to office, office to home. I visited Zenith Supply and bought a handball made from a rubber that feels like a big gummy bear candy. It is impossible to have it in your hand and not squeeze it repeatedly. It’s no coincidence that I barely kayaked at all last year, a favorite pastime of mine that is really good for the hands and shoulders.

Mark Pickerell said poor posture caused big problems. According to Mark, people roll their heads toward the computer and this stress will lead to the upper back and neck tightening and thus pinch nerves running down the arms. Simply put; keep your ears over your shoulders and shoulders back. After reading Mark’s suggestions, I found that I did have my head slung forward while viewing the monitor. 

Also good; use different types of mice and use them in both hands to halve the stresses in any one hand. Even if you are not having a problem yet, use both hands. Lastly, he recommends this book; Pain Free by Peter Egoscue.

I have a tip too. If you wear glasses, get a fixed focal length for computer use only. This keeps you, from having to hold your head/neck in one position to read the screen; a rigidity that graduated lenses or bifocals encourage. A fixed-focus lens allows one to shift their head to any position and still read text and see line work in focus. I can look down and read text on the desktop perfectly well with my fixed-focus glasses but you may have a different result. As for an eyeglass provider, I had good luck with eyeglassesdirect.com. Frames and prescription lenses can be had for about $75 provided you don’t pile on the options. Base your lens design on a relatively recent prescription and ask your optometrist to give you his notation, then transfer it to the online form.

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That’s all for now! See you this coming Thursday.

Tom Greggs
Greggs Building Design
(206) 524-2808