Vectorworks 2015 has combined some of the 3D viewing settings to make them easier to locate. It also introduced an ability to choose your default 3D rendering and projection. When I’m using Vectorworks 2015, I like to set my 3D rendering to OpenGL and my projection to Perspective. I find…
Autosave. It is really important to save your work on a regular basis and it is really important to back up your files. Autosave allows you to automatically save your work or to automatically backup your work. I choose the option to automatically back up my work and to keep…
Taper Face tool. This tool makes it really fast to edit your models when you want to taper the face of an object. In the past you had to change views and use the Split tool to do the same job as this tool. Now, you do not have to…
Create Animation – Move Along a Path in Vectorworks 2015. Vectorworks has substanitally re-written the Move Along Path dialog so that it is much easier to use.
One of the class options I’m not very keen on is Active Only. The reason I don’t like this very much is that always causes trouble with objects that are inside groups or symbols. It goes back to the basic concepts of Vectorworks that groups and symbols are container objects that…
Vectorworks 2015 has made huge improvement to textures. Textures can now have a surface hatch. The surface hatch will only appear when you view your model in hidden line rendering. If you set up your surface hatches correctly on your textures, you will see the normal part of the texture…
Some of your 3D models will look like a series of triangles making a mesh. This occurs with imported objects like cars and it will also occur on site models. the answer is to use Mesh Smoothing, one of the Document Preferences. It will dramatically smooth out the 3D model.
The Fillet Edge tool from the 3D Modelling toolset is used around the corners of 3D objects. It also allows you to change the radius of the edge as it goes along, creating a variable radius edge.
Vectorworks has the ability to show the strings of light coming into the building. This ability is a preference called Lit Fog. You’ll find Lit Fog in the preferences for the environmental lighting and it adds a beautiful quality of light. Use this to improve the quality of your renderings.
Enter Key to mimic mouse click and double enter to mimic double mouse click. I often use this technique with the enter key to mimic the mouse click. For example, if I’m drawing a wall of a specific length, I will use the numeric keypad to type on the length…