Vectorworks Training

ION are proud to be the reseller of the worlds leading 3D CAD and BIM software - Vectorworks
FREE with each licence until 31th Dec 2017 - any video training course from Vectorworks guru Jonathan Pickup.

Vectorworks Foundation 2018

The purpose of this course is to teach you the basic concepts of Vectorworks. It is always tempting to try to avoid these basic concepts, but these are the ones that make you truly effective at Vectorworks. It is tempting to try and avoid this course and go to a more advanced one, but that is a mistake. This is the course you need if you really want to use Vectorworks effectively. It is important therefore to work through all the movies and exercises. You may not understand why you are learning a specific technique – but trust me – to use Vectorworks effectively you will need to learn that technique. I know that you want to make progress as soon as possible – I want that too! I have taught thousands of people to use Vectorworks effectively using the manual that this course is based upon. They have become very effective at using Vectorworks because they worked through all the exercises.

Course outline:

Module 1 – Introduction to Vectorworks

Module 2 – Introduction to 3D Modeling

Module 3 – Creating Drawings

Module 4 – Drawing Buildings

Module 5 – Scheduling and Reporting

Course Learning Objectives:

• Learn how navigate the Vectorworks interface .
• Learn fundamental Vectorworks concepts.
• Learn how basic 3D modeling concepts.
• Learn how to Vectorworks creates drawings.
• Learn how to create drawings from a 3D model.
• Learn how to annotate drawings.
• Learn how to create a simple building.
• Learn how to count and report objects in a project.

Vectorworks Architect 2017

In this course we will be working through a domestic project for a client. Even though we are using a domestic project, Vectorworks is designed to be used for commercial and industrial work as well. The concepts we cover in this manual are useful in domestic and commercial work.

One of the main concepts in using Vectorworks Architect is called Building Information Modeling (BIM). This means is that as you draw a wall in Vectorworks, it is more than a plan representation of a wall. The wall has texture, knows when a window is inserted, and can have information attached to it. Many parts of the Vectorworks drawing are much more than they seem. A door, for example, is more than the plan representation of the door. It has a model part, and you can attach information about the door, door hardware, or even the supplier and cost of the door. This information can be generated as a report whenever you want it.

Live sections and elevations are a development of the Building Information Model that allow you to keep the sections and elevations up to date as you change the form of the building.

In this course we will start with an empty drawing file and work through the steps needed to create a concept design, developed design, and contract documents. Most times, you will start with a blank file, so that’s how we will start. This will give us the opportunity to look at document setups: the page setup, the units setup, the dimension settings, and text styles.

Our first task is to draw the existing site. We start with the property line. The property line is the site plan, which you can draw from information like the certificate of title, Google Earth, and so on. We will start using the information from the surveyor.

Then we will create a site model, which is a model representation of the spot levels on the survey drawings. This allows us to see the constraints on the site as models in order to turn the model around and look at the constraints from many different views.

We will create our concept model using spaces. Spaces are great. They allow you to make a model of your concept in a very short time. We can link this to our site to see how the concept relates to the site constraints. This is an important step because we can easily make changes to the concept model and see how the changes relate to the site constraints. We could check the recession planes, solar studies, the effects of the neighbors, and so on. We can use this to make better design decisions.

You could show the client the concept drawing at this point with the form of the building. Showing the clients a model of the concept will help them to understand your visions, and it will help to develop trust with your clients. Using BIM, we can then use the model to create the drawings.

We will assume that the clients approve the design, so we can look at design development. This means taking the concept and turning the spaces into walls, doors, windows, slabs, roofs, and so on. We can copy the concept drawings and edit them to show the developed design with very little extra work.

We will finish off the manual with a section that discusses ways of creating the contract documents. There is more than one way to create the drawings, so we will look at the concepts around creating the drawings, which will allow you to make your own choices.

When you finish this course, you will have a file with most of the layers, classes, viewports, and so on that you need for most two-story projects. This file can then be saved as a template file, or you can use the file to start your next project by using the Save As… command from the File menu.

Let get started!

Vectorworks 3D Modeling 2017

This course covers one of the best parts of Vectorworks, creating 3D models. It is really fun and rewarding to create the forms you want and be able to move around them to view your work from different angles.

This course starts with an introduction to modeling in Vectorworks. This section explainsthe basic concepts you need to create complex models effectively. There are a series of modeling exercises designed to show you how individual tools and commands work. Some of these exercises will use a few tools or commands together to show you the flow of work from a simple block to the final model.

Following the Introduction, there is an architectural modeling exercise to bring several modeling tools, commands, and concepts together to develop a model and create drawings from it.

The next part of the course is an introduction to Subdivision Modeling. Subdivision modelling is a very powerful and flexible way of creating complex forms. It is also a new way of creating objects and Vectorworks. This chapter will introduce you to the concepts behind subdivision modelling and show you how to use this to create specific objects.

The final part of the course is a bus stop exercise. The aim of this project is to work through a long series of exercises to create a final project. You will learn how to break the project down into small parts and model each of these. You will learn how to do more advanced modeling by making street furniture, how to use some of the advanced tools for creating curved 3D models, and how to move through a series of tools and commands to get the model that you want.

When you are drawing in Vectorworks, draw the objects to the correct real-world sizes regardless of the scale of the layer that you are working on.

It is much easier to maximize the potential of Vectorworks by using objects to draw with, as they can be easily edited (for example, doors, windows, rectangles, etc.). You could say that Vectorworks is designed to draw with objects.

When you want to draw shapes, you may be tempted to use lines and arcs to draw the shape. Always try to draw with solid shapes, rectangles, and polygons. I have created a series of exercises that show you how to make complex shapes out of simple shapes by adding the shapes together or by clipping a portion of a simple shape away to make a complex shape.

It’s very important that you use these new drawing methods to draw your buildings, landscapes, or models.