Landscape Special Interest Group September 2018 (pm)

In this session, we discussed about moving from AutoCAD to Vectorworks, looking at Vectorworks facilitates moving from 2D objects to 3D constructions. We modified a Landscape Area, a low garden wall, and plant objects to demonstrate this concept.

Topics Covered:

• 00:20    We opened the session with a discussion about moving from AutoCAD to Vectorworks. For me, the biggest difference is going from working with lines in AutoCAD to working with objects in Vectorworks. It doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but it actually is. Not only is a rectangle quicker to draw than four lines, but Vectorworks also knows the perimeter and area of that rectangle and gives it graphic qualities. Vectorworks gives us the ability to quickly take things to the next step. We can extrude the object into a 3D shape or use the Create Object From Shape command to turn it into a Floor object. In Vectorworks, you can also turn a shape directly into, for example, a Landscape Area. From creating a Landscape Area, you can easily progress to assigning it a Unit Price and creating a budget report.
• 12:36    Next, we looked at the challenge of joining up circles by using their tangents. After some experimenting with the Arc and Circle tools, we discovered that the Fillet tool in Trim Mode was the easiest to accomplish this task. Using the Fillet tool in plan view, we could quickly make curvy polygons that filled in the spaces between lengths of rectangular walls. Adjusting the height gave us a low garden wall. Making shapes in Vectorworks easily transitions into constructing 3D models. The Radial Dimension tool and the Center Mark tool gave us the radius and setting out point that we needed for the contractor.
• 25:36    In Vectorworks, we think about drawing with objects. Because we’ve constructed in 3D, we have a model that we can take the client through. We can easily add plants to our Landscape Area. They will even follow the slope of our Site Model. All of this was possible because we’re working with objects.
• 29:50    We finished the session by covering how Vectorworks easily blends the 2D, 3D, and data parts of plants. With your Vectorworks plant library, you can start with a 2D shape that you like from the Vectorworks libraries and build on it, adding the visualization, insertion options, data, and a 3D image by using library shapes, copying a symbol or importing an image. Once you have these plants in your library, you can add them to other favorites or library folders—or drag and drop them into new project files. Learning to use the tools on simple shapes will reap big payoffs when working with more complex objects such as Landscape Areas, because those areas are modified using the same tools!

Landscape September 2018 pm

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