Landmark_SIG_054 Special Interest Group August (am) 2014

In the session we look at two main topics; creating a solar study and creating a legend key that you could use with landscape or hardscape areas. Solar studies are becoming increasingly important. Local building authorities are starting to demand a solar study to prove your development is not adversely affecting the surrounding properties.
Creating a legend key out of hardscape or landscape areas makes it easy to create areas of hardscape or landscape by using the create similar object command.

Topics Covered:
Solar Studies / Heliodon Tool

• placing the Heliodon Tool and adjusting the various settings to your location and project
• finding your longitude & latitude on Google Earth and using those to edit an existing location to create / add your unique location
• HINT: any newly added location will become part of the default settings
• using a Massing Model and adjusting its Shadow Settings to your requirements
• HINT: these shadow settings are controlled via the Document Preferences > Plan Shadows settings, hence the shadows for plants (Plant Settings / Render) are controlled the same way
• adjusting the shadow settings (of a massing model or a plant) to the shadow settings of the Heliodon
• using the content (Azimuth, Altitude, etc.) of the Show Solar Data
• placing several Heliodons (with different times of the day) to show various shadows for solar studies
• creating a Viewport
• rotating a Viewport
• clipping a Viewport (Clip Tool [Inclusion Mode])
• duplicating a Viewport
• changing the Drawing Title of Viewport
• using the Visualization Palette to individually control the Lighting / Solar options for each Viewport
• HINT: check out my manual SST_1208 Creating a solar study in Vectorworks
• duplicating an entire Sheet Layer including its viewport
• adding more Heliodons (on the Design Layer) to show summer for our solar studies
• HINT: solar studies can be done for any view (3D, iso, plan, custom, etc.)

Creating a key that can be used in any future files and used as a template

• the easiest way is it to create whatever key you like, e.g. squares and text, and then convert them to a symbol
• then saving that symbol to your default library
• editing the symbol (assigning to classes)
• Symbol Options: looking at the difference between ‘Page-based’ and ‘World-based’ as well as the advantages / disadvantages of automatically converting imported symbols into Group
• showing the advantages of accumulating, storing and keeping safe your personal default library that stays with you, even with each new version of Vectorworks
• HINT: always save ‘nice-to-have’ information or regularly used things (symbol, hatches, textures, etc.) from a current file/project into your single default library for quick future retrieval -> huge time saver!
• converting a single key shape (from the imported symbol) into a Landscape Area (Create Objects from Shapes)
• then using the Eyedropper Tool to quickly create additional Landscape Areas (or anything else that has been defined) from the information set in the imported symbol (Group option)
• HINT: this process is a huge time saver!

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