Garden Shed: setting up a presentation
Changing between plans, elevations, isometric etc. can become laborious, especially if there are layers that need turning off and on.
To switch quickly and easily between different views, one uses VectorWorks' Saved Views facility.
To make it easier to present these views simultaneously on a sheet, e.g. to a client, one uses Viewports.
Switch to a plan view of the main floor.
This means switching to a Top/Plan view [1], then turning off all layers except Main Floor [2], and deleting the square that we made earlier as the basis for the new roof [3].
Save this view as "Main Floor - Plan"
Switch to Front view, and render
Change to Front view [1] and – since elevations need to be shown not in wireframe – choose a rendering mode, such as OpenGL in the Rendering popdown [1].
By default, OpenGL doesn't show the edges of objects with a drawn line, but you can change that by choosing OpenGL Options… [2] at the bottom of the Rendering list, and turning on those options [3].
Render in Artistic Renderworks
Another option is Artistic Renderworks [1]. This is actually not one, but twelve different modes of rendering in a manner that is "artistic" inasmuch as it is not plain straight lines. The list of options is available at the bottom of the list [2] once you've chosen Artistic Renderworks as your renderer. In the dialog that follows, choose the option you want from the popdown. The default setting is "Cartoon", which is similar to OpenGL with Edges.
NOTE: All Renderworks options are available only if you have the Renderworks module installed.
Render in Hidden Line mode.
Perhaps the most common mode for rendering elevations in particular is Hidden Line: this produces a plain black-and-white rendering with the lines that should be hidden, hidden.
Create a Viewport of the Main Floor Plan
Switching back and forth between the various saved views is fast and convenient, but not good enough for presentation to the client. For that one needs to have the views ready for viewing simultaneously on a single presentation "board", or sheet.
To that end, VectorWorks offers the ability to create viewports: custom "camera views" of specific parts or angles of the design, which are always up-to-date in terms of the state of the design.
Switch to the Main Floor Plan view, then create a viewport of it by choosing View > Create Viewport…
You get a dialog where you're asked to name the viewport (Viewport Name), then the text that you would like its drawing label to state (its Drawing Title – not necessarily the same thing as Viewport Name).
VectorWorks doesn't allow naming any two things by precisely the same name, so it's a good idea to make the Viewport Name and the Drawing Title slightly different [1, 2] (e.g., with Viewport Names, I tend to use lower-case only, and periods instead of spaces; in the Drawing Title I use Title Case with spaces).
The dialog also asks you where do you want to place this viewport – on which layer (it could be an existing design layer, or on a Sheet Layer, which is the kind of layers one uses for presentation.
Choose New Sheet Layer (since we don't have any, as yet), and a new dialog appears, asking you for a Sheet Number (typically A-# if you're an architect or architectural designer, and ID-# if you're an interior designer).
Type in ID-1 or A-1 as appropriate, and in the Sheet Title – since we're going to present the design in plan, elevations, isometric, etc., type PROJECT OVERVIEW [4].
NOTE: I tend to type Sheet names in all caps, to distinguish them from Design Layer names and viewports – but that's entirely up to your discretion.
Move the viewport on the Sheet
You won't notice much difference at first, but the Layers popdown now says you're no longer in the Main Floor design layer but in a Sheet Layer of the name that you provided [1], and you can now click and move the entire design as a single object to any part of the sheet [2]. Drag it up to the upper left.
This is typically done with a drawing label, which you'll find in the Dims/Notes toolset [1].
Drag one in just to left and below the viewport and double-click to position. [2].
When you zoom in on it, however, you'll notice that it's not quite right: it says the Scale is "Actual Size" when in fact it's 1:50 (or whatever the scale was in the Design Layer), and there's no Drawing Name above that (although we had given the viewport a Drawing Title.
This happened because this is the wrong way to annotate a viewport: the correct way is to annotate it from within. To do, we have to "go into" the Viewport – specifically, its Annotations section
Double-click the viewport: an Edit Viewport dialog appears, offering you three editing options:
- Edit the viewport's Annotations
- Edit its Crop
- or return to one of the Design Layers that produced it.
Choose Annotations, and OK.
Reintroduce a drawing label now
You're now "inside" the viewport – specifically, in its Annotations part.
Now if you introduce a drawing label [1], you'll see that it is automatically given its intended name and scale [2].
To return to the Sheet level, you must click Exit Viewport Annotation at the top right [3].
Option-drag it (Windows: Ctrl-drag it) to the right – adding Shift to constrain it to the same horizontal line.
Change what the duplicate viewport is showing
One of the great things about viewports is that they are entirely independent of each other in terms of how they show the design. We can change the View of this duplicate viewport, for example, to something other than a Top/Plan that it shows initially – to, say, Right Isometric [1] – in which case, that's what it shows [2].
Note that VectorWorks automatically gave it a new Drawing Number [1].
However, its Drawing Title, however, doesn't change automatically: that we need to do manually, ourselves [2].
You'll note that only the main floor walls are showing: that's because this viewport was created from one of the Main Floor Plan, which only showed the Main Floor level objects. Fortunately, we can turn on the other layers in the viewport as we please, by clicking its Layers… button in the Obj Info palette [3].
Turn on other layers in the viewport
In the dialog that appears, turn on the other layers by clicking in their first column to the left, and OK [1].
All the layers are now showing in the isometric [2].
Duplicate the Main Floor Plan directly below it.
Change this viewport to a Front view.
Change the View this time to Front [1], then click Layers…[2] to turn on all the layers again [3] and rename its Drawing Title to Front Elevation [4].
Render this viewport in Hidden Line.
Change its Background Render from Wireframe to Hidden Line [1].
A thick dashed red line will appear around the viewport [2]: this indicates that it is not updated: it is set to render, but won't do so until you tell it to.
NOTE: The reason for this is because rendering may take some time, which you may not want to wait just yet.
Click Update [3] to get it to update, i.e. render as you wished. The result, after a few seconds, is a hidden-line rendition of the front elevation of the structure, foundations and all [4].
Since we don't want to see the foundations below ground level, we need to crop the result.
We do so by double-clicking the viewport again, and this time choosing Crop, and OK.
Cropping is typically done with a rectangle, but any polygon enclosing a surface area will do (including circles and ellipses). Only one object, however, is allowed within the Viewport's Crop environment at any given time.
Use the rectangle tool [1] to create a rectangle that extends to about a foot below the Main Floor level [2].
NOTE: We can tweak it to be precisely at that point at any later date.
Then Exit Viewport Crop [3] to return to the Sheet.
Make crop line invisible.
You may not want a "box" to appear around your design [1].
To retain the crop, but without actually showing the cropping object, double-click the viewport, go back into its Crop, select the line [2] and make its pen style None (or set its lineweight to zero) [3].
The rectangle remains, but its boundary line disappears. Exit Viewport Crop.
Adjust the drawing label to suit.
Return to the viewport's Annotations to adjust the drawing label to be closer to its new, cropped version [1].
Remember to Exit Viewport Annotation to return to the Sheet [2].
Duplicate the front elevation to make a side elevation.
Opt-drag (Windows: Ctrl-drag) with the Shift key down to create a duplicate horizontally aligned with the existing elevation, and change its View from Front to Right [2].
Note that the crop needs adjustment: this is often the case when changing the view of a viewport, since the centre of the "frame" in one viewpoint may not correspond to its centre in another. Fortunately, this is easily fixed.
Move the cropping object.
Go into the Crop part of the viewport and Shift-move the cropping object in alignment with its current position to fit the structure's new position in this view [1].
You can see the result when you Exit Viewport Crop and Update [2].
We'll do this by Opt-dragging (Ctrl-dragging) a duplicate of the Main Floor Plan viewport sideways (pref. in alignment, of course) [1]
and changing its Layers… setup [2] to show the Roof instead of the Main Floor or other layers [3].
Change the drawing numbers to suit the new composition of the sheet.
Because of the order in which we created the viewports, the Roof Plan – which should really be Drawing #2, since it's the first one to the right of the Main Floor Plan – is now #5, while the isometric is #2.
We can resolve this by swapping the two numbers – but VectorWorks monitors which numbers have been used and does not allow the same number to be used twice. So to switch between the two numbers we must temporarily change both numbers to a hitherto unused number.
Change the number of each of the viewports.
This is simple enough: double-click one viewport , go into its Annotations, and change its Drawing Number to one that hasn't yet been used -- e.g., 9 or 11. Then Exit Viewport Annotation, go into the other viewport and change its Drawing Number to something else – say, 10 or 44, or whatever. Now you can go back into the Annotations of the Roof Plan and change its Drawing Number to 2, and that of the isometric can be changed to 5.
