One of the new techniques in Vectorworks is Detail Viewport. I have been waiting for this technique for a while, and I think this will subsctantially change the way users structure their drawings in Vectorworks.
This is the movie from the BIM Special Interest Group, September 2012, creating a BIM workflow, Part 4, setting up drawings using viewports and sheet layers. (morning session)
This movie uses the Polygon tool to quickly fill in areas for roads and building sites. Often these polygons have too many vertices and need to be simplified, but you need to import a command to do this.
With so many vertices the polygon from inner boundary works very slowly because it has so much to calculate. It would be nice if Vectorworks had a simplify polygon command. There is a simplify 3-D polygon but this does not have an effect on 2-D polys.
Design Layer Section Indicator. If you create the section viewports from a design layer, Vectorworks places the viewport indicators on the design layer. You can change the indicator from the design layer to a key plan viewport.
Eventually, you get to the point where the sheet layer is filled up and you need to create a new sheet layer.
Creating Drawings. You have created a simple model but you do not have to wait for it to be completed before you can set up the drawings.
You may not want to upgrade, you may not be able to afford to upgrade, but I still think you should read about what is new in Vectorworks 2012. There are several important changes to 3D modeling that will change the way you think about 3D modeling. Amongst them are…
When you draw thin lines in Vectorworks, is very difficult to see the difference between the subtle line weights. Using colors on your line weights can help, and is also a Vectorworks preference called Zoom line thickness.
Background Color. You can change the background color to any color you like, it’s now part of the interactive references.