short Sharp Training Monthly – Irrigation tools

Vectorworks has several irrigation tools. There are tools for placing sprinkers, pipes, and drip emitters, and there are worksheets for counting these objects.

[ms-protect-content id=”34491,34492,34493, 34494, 34495, 34496, 344927″]The irrigation tools are only available if you have Vectorworks Landmark. But what if you have Vectorworks Fundamentals, Architect, or one of the other Vectorworks packages? You can’t use the irrigation tools, but you can build symbols that replicate the sprinklers and drip emitters. They will not be as flexible, but it is a workaround. We will cover these later, after looking at the Landmark tools.
Irrigation Heads
The irrigation head tool is used to place your sprinklers. This tool creates a 2D object that shows the head and spray pattern. It does not create a 3D version, although with Vectorworks 2010 you can see the spray patern in 3D, but only if you layer plane.
Because the object is 2D only, you can’t use the Send to Surface command to see the irrigation head on your site model, the planar graphics always have the spray pattern on the bottom of the layer.
In earlier versions of Vectorworks the spray pattern is 2D only, and you can not change it.
Go to the Site Planning Tool set.
Choose the Irrigation Head tool.

Go to the Tool Bar.
Click on the Preferences… button, the last button on the tool bar.

This dialog box controls all the settings for the Irrigation Head.
Fill in the dialog box to suit the Irrigation Head you want to use.
Click on the OK button.

Move your cursor into the drawing area.
You should notice a ghost image on the cursor. This is your Irrigation Head.

Move your cursor to the centre position for your first Irrigation Head (sprinkler).
Click once.

The next click controls rotation.
Move along the edge of the object you want to use. 

Click once.
This has positioned the Irrigation head (sprinkler).

Move to the next location.
Click once.

Move your cursor to set the rotation.
Click once.

Place the other sprinklers you want.