In this session, we discussed creating trusses, using the class visibility options, getting an object that spans two floors to show up on both floor plans, using the new Tag tool, and using the Reference Marker and Section-Elevation Marker tools instead of the Tag tool in some situations.

Topics Covered:

• 00:07    We opened up a cross-section viewport for a 3D house, went into the Viewport Annotation window, and demonstrated drawing a 2D truss. We quickly laid down some rectangles, mirrored them, used the Add Surface command, and trimmed the excess vertices—very fast! It looked like a mess at the beginning but cleaned up well. Next, we wanted to turn the 2D truss into a 3D truss. We extruded the shape—we were surprised that Vectorworks let us do that in the Annotation window!—but then pasted it into our design layer so that we could place it. We finished the truss by turning it into a symbol. We also found a Truss tool plug-in on the Vector Depot site. We added it to Vectorworks through the Plug-in Manager. Afterward, we had to customize our workspace to get the tool to show up as part of a tool set. We tried it out. It had a lot of settings: flotation, elevation, span, roof pitch, overhang, timber thickness, and the chord and web gauges. Another Truss tool from the same developer automatically made a truss with outriggers.
• 20:58    We discussed class visibility: Active Only, Gray Others, Gray/Snap Others, Show Others, Show/Snap Others, and Show/Snap/Modify Others. I tend to use Gray Others or Show/Snap/Modify Others. The options with Snap Others don’t make much sense to me because, when you can click on anything, you can easily get confused about which class is active.
• 27:35    Someone had a question about working with a building object that spans two floors, such as a window in a stairwell. There are two challenges: you don’t want to split the wall at the floor elevation because of the window (half is above and half is below), but if you use one wall that spans both floors, you still need the wall to show up on both floor plans, not just one. We created a design layer that we called “Common,” and put the wall with the stairwell window on this layer. That way, the layer could be turned on to appear in either floor plan. This is a really old but useful workaround!
• 36:48    Next, we checked out the new Tag tool. It somehow reads the object and knows from its Object Info palette how to name it. You just have to be careful because the tool doesn’t recognize the difference, for example, between the windows that appear in an elevation and the windows on the opposite side of the building. We wondered if we could trick a tag into recognizing both doors and windows—but there seemed to be something working in the background that makes it only recognize one type of object.
• 50:39    We finished by looking at the Bubble Detail tag, as well as the Reference Marker tool and the Section-Elevation Marker tool. In Vectorworks 2019, the Section-Elevation Marker tool has a bug. This tool has both a Constrained Mode and an Unconstrained Mode. The bug is that when you place the marker using the Constrained Mode, there’s no option on the Object Info palette to link it to a viewport, but the other mode offers that option. The problem has been reported, so a fix will probably be available soon!

Architect October 2018

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