Vectorworks 2013 - D2A - Ep 6A (Importing Plans, DWG/DXF, PDF, and Images)

Vectorworks 2013 - Lesson 5B for Design 2A
with James Russell

Previous Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYE2Vn...

In this video I have a go at importing three different types of plans, a DWG, a PDF and and Image file and see what data I can get back from them.

Stay tuned for more details and the rest of the series.

If at anytime you feel that a clip contained within this video violates or breaches copyright ownership I encourage you to contact me and we can work towards a resolution. All clips are used in good faith to relieve the stress of laboriously long tutorial videos.

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Closed Caption:

welcome back to vector X 2013 this is
the design to a series episode 6 a with
james russell today we're going to be
looking at importing and when I say
importing I mean specifically for plans
we're talking in the theater world right
now we're going to look at three
different types of imports this is also
relevant to many of our other courses
that we've been doing i'm going to be
looking at importing a DWG file commonly
brought in from AutoCAD sometimes
sketchup as well or you might just find
as a general venue plan i'm going to
import a PDF today and try and convert
it out so we can use some of the
snapping data from it and i'm also going
to import an image file and see what
data we can get from eat so let's start
off with the DWG file now DWG is
normally an export as I said you get
from AutoCAD most venues would have a
DWG or fawx of the venue some venues
only have a PDF and that's okay too just
depends on how they've done so from the
file menu I'm going to go down to the
import option and choose import single
dxf / DWG most the time this will cover
all of your drawing bases you can also
do a single DWF if you need to or you
can do a combination of various
different types
this is no way the most common one that
we use the single dxf twg and don't
worry about the letters are they're just
different formatting options whether it
comes as a raw text file whether it
comes as an actual working drawing
you'll see there's a lot of other
options down here as well some which
I'll go through but mainly just going to
stick with this so import single and
accept / DWG clicking on that now I've
already located by folder here I've got
the TR final document this is a document
drawn by architect that's the note so
it's wrong by aki dude i have to say and
he still needs you digital court complex
and I think it's a working drawing
somewhere in it so I'm going to use his
the drawing here click open and see it
does this kind of check through the
document and it gives us this lovely
import of
options menu ya know these are my active
settings you can save default settings
depending on if you've got a particular
client that sets things up in a specific
way we've got determine the settings are
for the unit automatically you can also
set the units so it's going to have a
look at the document and see what's
appropriate decimal formatting as well
inside there and you can take this box
if you want to set the units to match so
that means if you're bringing a document
and safe from the US that uses inches
for example you could take this box and
it would make vectorworks working inches
while you're working with that document
you can also see the model space here it
wants to fit my page 1 to 1,000 or you
can choose this scale one to 10 choose
this guy 121 just because that's how I'm
broke I like to work but if you like to
workout fitting into the page eccentric
cetera you can just do that means that
when you printed later on
you don't have to scale up or scale down
that's a another topic that we're going
to talk about again just to reiterate
that point that we covered in there
listen for about layers converting 2d
and 3d objects sometimes it's quickly
just do all two day sometimes you might
want all the 3d data but not the 2d data
I generally like to cover both bases in
just 22 d and 3d at the same time got
some preference settings in here you can
choose what resolution you'd like to
bring those objects in some rendering
packages might like to do objects such
as fears a really high detail with a
large number of polygons we're just
going to leave it on the vectorworks
preference settings for now also
graphics tab here so you can set the
line colors to line weights if you're
importing something from AutoCAD you'll
notice that the way autocad works it has
colors for different pin thicknesses
that's what that means it means to
choose the bank of colors and certain
lights i'm going to leave it as colors
just so we can see that breakdown and
you can also set colors the black and
white which gets rid of those color
options and make some black-and-white
obviously the best idea he would be
either check neither of these and keep
the colors or to check both of them
which means that you'll be mapping the
colors but then also taking them back to
black and white which is what we're used
to working with you can set dash links
and you can choose whether to import the
layers classes or layers it's just a
breakdown on whatever system you are
using at the moment
sometimes it's good data prefix as well
so in here you've already got some
layers
it up and I then want to import multiple
layers it might be useful for me to name
the prefix of those legs i'm going to do
it as an example here i'm going to call
these dxf and I might like to put a 1 or
something in there so I know that's my
first import of this dxf you'll see
they'll just have a nice little dash in
front of them with that prefix tagged on
the last year i got the objects and
that's if it's just bringing symbols
it's going to bring points in its local
symbols such as a option handling there
and it hasn't picked up any of these
here but you can have multi lines you
can have some blocks with clipping how
it handles those and also it is
different at report that attributes
attached with records and we'll talk
about records and worksheets coming up
in less than seven or less and less than
eight so i'm going to hit OK and we can
just see it's probably going to bring up
the font mapping sometimes when you're
crossing between systems Flintstone
quite line up it says here the fonti
aerial tff which is quite a standard
font is going to replace it is my
version of area which is fine i'm pretty
sure that's gonna be okay getting I can
you can see just works its way through
this little bar here it's analyzing a
whole heap of objects that are inside
this drawing i really had a quick sneaky
peek at this drawing and seeing that
it's quite complicated but it's just for
bringing this in and having a look at so
that's completing now it will flash up
on a screen and show us a holy God are
finishing and there we go so you can see
we've got a lot of data happening here
my computer just having a little thing
about that i'm going to zoom right and
just show you so it's brought in all of
this data starting from this left-hand
side here you can see this business
journal lovely drawing of this proposed
floor plan here fully dimensioned up and
you can see we've brought in different
line thicknesses here represented by the
different colors in the pin but
Hollywood dimensions laid out and it's
just a nice drawing out all this is
snapper ball or there's a line drawings
here and probably some of those big
parties boxes so you can see I can pull
objects out so you don't think he's
trying to catch up with what I'm doing
here and probably later on I would then
break this down from its current classes
you can see it's broken into our DX f 01
and he's all the different classes here
and i would go through internet of those
on and off and probably select each of
these here and make them an individual
layer as well just so I could get rid of
some of the starter because as i zoom
out even further notice his hips going
on here so the next step that I would
normally do here is just make sure my
dimensions were correct and to do that
just to speed up my document actually
select or with my control a or apple a4
you guys on a Macintosh see it will take
a moment to think about that and
probably up here it's going to be
ludicrous many objects that you go
almost a hundred thousand objects just
to simplify this i'm going to keep one
component of this so I just done a shift
click and drag that portion you'll see
it reduces that number of objects down
and they're going to delete everything
else so just imagine that I'd called
everything down to the appropriate
layers you can see how quick and
responsive my doc document is now now
i'm going to take a guess and say that
these dimensions i'm correct and I think
that's because they've been interpreted
as vectorworks dimensions what I can see
here is about the corridors two meters
wide here we've got some two inches on
this canteen for example so let's have a
look at this kitchen here that's ok this
is a good point to start so this kitchen
here it says is 5.3 meters wide by 7.15
now I'm measuring that as 13 4.62 now
this is the perfect time to use your
scaling options so I just hear my little
bit of paper i'm just going to write
those two dimensions
ok so I've got the first two written
down and now we're gonna do some scaling
so just remembering across that kitchen
away there at the moment we've got it as
a hundred and thirty-four . 60
millimeters and it's meant to be 5300
millimeters what I'm going to do is just
tap ex going to select everything here
who've done control again for me and I'm
going up here to the model
here we go modify sorry to scale objects
this option down now I could have done
it symmetrical and figure it out as a
scale factor but i'm going to use the
easy way my current distance i'm going
to type in 134 . 62 and in my new
distance i'm going to type in 5300 scale
text
sure why not sounds good and the entire
drawing
probably not not this time I go just
check that originally but i'm going to
hit okay and this will blow itself up
hopefully and it's going a little think
about that and possibly crash much as
poss and you know how this one goes
managed to survive that one
can see it's been scaled up so now let's
look at the length of these dimensions
that's looking a bit more realistic look
at that dimension like a right there
5300 as it's meant to be
now we could check this obviously we're
going across this site here and having a
look
it's registered this one here is 7,000
words from the other there which is
pretty close i would i would almost have
to give it that and if I just measure
the internal sizing up this hopefully
should get some wear pretty clothes on
the marker 1299 by 6930 one probably
give or take a little bit there we go
there's that little bit that i'm missing
just down here to this market online
7150 so I wouldn't walk that off and say
that's probably the right scaling i'm
not sure what scale that was that we
just scaled up by but i'm going to now
mark that drawing off and say that's the
right dimensions so it's always
important to check the the drawing that
you bring in is scaled up to the right
size and sometimes you might have to get
your scale ruler out hold against the
PDF or check it out find out the venue
and drawing and figure out what needs to
be scaled up or what needs to be scaled
down so just gonna start a new document
straight out here new blank document and
we're gonna have a look at importing a
PDF so i've also got another PDF store
up here i'm going to go down to my
import options and down to PDF just here
import PDF so here I got the Empire
theater seating plan that I've taken
from the website this is a local theater
into warmer queensland so I've got that
here and i'm going to choose open i only
want the first i'm going to choose the
first page you could do all pages
springs mean but probably have a quick
chat about referencing which is this
checkbox here so the difference between
importing this PDF straight into my
document and referencing the original
PDF is that when you reference a PDF on
file from in this case an absolute pass
which means that a path on your computer
located somewhere on your computer
doesn't bring the PDF into your victory
xdocument as such it doesn't save all
the PDF data into the document it
references that PDF to the outside
location the advantage in doing this is
if you are working with someone else
another
contractor another designer and they
keep updating their plans it if they
send you the new plants it and you
update it to that exact file path that
they might be working on you for an
interview email if you update that PDF
when you open this vectorworks document
up it will have that updated PDF inside
it already there ready to go so that's
the advantage in referencing it
the disadvantage i guess to keeping it
in your document obtained it to yourself
is you'll have a larger file size so two
things to keep in mind there if you
bring the PDF in and don't reference it
your files might be a bit larger but you
will have to let that ready to go with
you have inside the vector X file if you
reference it can be updated constantly
but if you take the file the vector X
file away and leave the PDF on your
computer it's just not going to be there
so keep that in mind I'm going to just
use these 11 pages click import really
quickly they're just didn't even think
about it compared to our dxf import
before and here we go we've got this
lovely PDF important now at the moment
you can see as I have my mouse over i'm
actually automatically got snapping
points in here and the great thing about
pdfs windowpane import-export sorry from
AutoCAD or vectorworks is they contain
vector data vector daughter is what
you're seeing here all these chairs and
all this wall here it's made of vectors
and that means that this point here as i
zoom in this corner here to this corner
here in this corner here
ideally has infinite resolution because
all of these lines here to turn by
points and a mathematical formula
joining . so any curves here or pieces
of text if you keep zooming in and
zooming in and zooming in this should
remain crystal clear as far as you go
perhaps not in that text but certainly
on any of these vector-based lines i'll
see if i can find this curve here for
example hopefully if this is based on a
line which it looks like it is because
it seems to have curvature points in it
if I kept zooming in and zooming in this
line should remain in theory always
crystal clear that might because the DPI
of this PDF moment but it certainly will
we convert across in a moment the
easiest way to get the data out of a PDF
obviously i could use this PDF its
current form but if i want the real line
data
is simply to go on group which I'm going
to do control you for those of you on a
Mac will be your Apple k plus you and it
says you want ungroup high-level objects
high-level objects basically main group
components that might have a slight risk
or large amount of processing data to
them in this case this object has
probably got a couple hundred thousand
lines inside it
that's just a guess so i'm going to
click yes and see what happens
and probably spit out a couple objects
that we go seven objects up in the top
right-hand corner now we have to guess
the smart cookie who has drawn this is
broken up into some walls probably some
seats and a few doors and some
background images so the first thing
you'll be left with who I just drag
these components are individually is the
original PDF it sits on top you can see
it's here's a bitmap image that's if you
want to use that as an actual reference
but what you'll notice is that no longer
has that snapping daughter included to
it so i'm going to hit it straight on
top of that the next one normally is the
page background just represent by a
rectangle so that's the actual page
border that was originally back there is
another layer to lead on that as well
now what you'll see we're left with some
components in here i'm just going to see
go to group there how many groups we
have left
probably five yet got a rectangle up
here or polygon in this case that's
probably where a border or Hannah was
just going to separate these components
here we go on there goes another group
here and we've got some side doors
ok so that's the separate groups are
remaining underneath they're probably in
some sort of layer format the great
thing about this though is that whoever
is drawn this is left out walls intact
as a group here as you can see and i'm
just going to rotate on the plane you
can see there they are my 2d 3d plane
just so I can have a little flour and
automatically can already see that this
is quite a nice little theatre plan what
i am going to do though I'm going to
ungroup these objects here got ten
objects now what are they
they probably going to yes they are i'm
just gonna grab those together and group
against I got all those selected and
immediately i'm going to extrude those
objects presuming that they're all
polygons which they seem to be and I'm
going to have to guess here because i
couldn't find the actual height here but
i'm just going to say I don't know eight
meters
let's try that out for starters it's
probably going to be more like 12 that
are you okay there doesn't look like a
great change but as we've learned from
extruding
you do it from your top layer doesn't
have much of an effect now that's
obviously far too high because i haven't
scared this PDF let's go back a step and
try that out now so back here to we've
got these objects out
yeah across the process here it's from
here to here where I know that stages
just going to measure that out from here
across here and you can see we only got
302 meal which means this was probably a
150 scour and I brought in that's why
you gotta scale it up first so let's say
that we've got 302 across here going to
select all of these objects once more
from the modify menu choose scale
objects i'm going to do 302 lat once
again don't have a dimension here so I'm
just going to guess i'm going to say
that the distance across this process
about 1,200 sorry 12 meters i should say
scaling text as well even though there's
none left on this drawing heating ok you
can see that's boosted that right up
so now if we have a look at this and we
grab all those objects again which
should be all the way down this side and
all the way down this side as well try
not to catch that door I'm going to try
extrude now and I made it and we'll see
if that's a little bit more realistic
you can instantly see got the form of my
theater starting to pop out here if I go
into an even render mode you can
instantly see this is just give me an
exact representation of what that
theater could be i could raise each of
those seats and do some seat mapping in
there i could put that little stage
piece on in fact I might even do that i
might just jump straight into here and
just using my even my polygon trace to
all right here i can trace the edge of
this out we'll just do it really roughly
i'm going to come along here straight
across up cross over here at the front
over here Trey across to here and find
the midpoint of this line i'm gonna go
all the way back here into my stage
let's say that these stages also 12
meters deep straight across to their
just get a nice little snap on the back
corner they're backwards into here i
think im just click this i'm going to
take a back one . this is once again
just me quickly sketching this out for
you guys so you get a nice little
example of
the potential capabilities of what you
guys are dealing with and back to the
original starting point somewhere here
accidentally miss that but it's going to
work anyway I'm going to mirror that
across straight across to their i'm
going to add these two components
together
oh that's lovely and then i'm going to
screw that straight up and let's say
that we've got a raise of 1200 on there
and hopefully when I rotate that around
once again this is just a guess on my
behalf that we've got a nice little
stage popping out the front there so
instantly you could sit there anywhere
inside that audience and have a look up
on that stage figure out some bits and
piece put a nice little process across
the top and you'll be set and you can
see that took me what no longer than two
or three minutes just to pop that out of
the page for a PDF so that's the great
advantage in being able to tear these
pdfs apart steal their vector data and
if they've been drawn properly or
exported properly you can do exactly
this with it obviously are composed all
those lines as well and brought it
through that way speaking of composition
we're going to look at doing that to up
to a bitmap far now i think or maybe
even a good file that we've used before
so what I'm going to do i just deleted
that now might start a new document is
for the sake of starting new documents
here we go back into a new document i'm
going to go from the farm n you import
and i'm going to choose import image far
we've seen this button before you might
remember this geometric art piece that I
think I used in episode 2 perhaps maybe
if so what I can't remember i'm gonna
hit open on that import that 4.png why
not
it seems to prefer that so here i have
an image file this one doesn't require
scaling because I don't actually know
what scale it is but what I do want to
show you is the capability of
vectorworks to figure things out
it's pretty crafty in the way it does
this i'm going to go up here to the
modify menu and down to an option called
trace bitmap basically what trace bitmap
does is it traces outline objects of
Atherton certain thickness and then
recreate them as line objects for
vectorworks so here when i click the
button and I've got this object selected
we get a dialog box called trace bitmap
and asked us two main questions what is
the maximum
within pixels and what is the co-linear
sensitivity the maximum with these
pixels basically says how wide is the
average line or how wide is my maximum
line so for example here you can see
that there's some variation in these
line thicknesses this line thickness
just a guess might be I don't know maybe
1.5 to 2 pixels in width and this one
here could be for let's say just just
guessing around there so i'm going to
set the maximum is for it seems to have
chosen that is the default anyway the
Comenius sensitivity is just the
accuracy on these curves sections here
solo basically join the dots in a rough
kind of pattern medium in a higher and
then
hi is obviously the best that it can do
so i'm going to leave it on for medium
for this test and just have a play
around with it if you're doing this at
home to see what different variations
you can get on the quality of your
outputs i'm going to hit okay and it's
probably going to have a big thing you
can see down there in the right hand
bottom corner and then telling a nice
little think about that on the lovely
green bar that's represented and that
green bar is helpful it's one of the few
times that actually go and have a look
at it to see Victor works is working
away it's giving us a group from that
i'm going to presume that group sitting
on top yet is so in the background there
we should still have the bitmap if I
pull this out to the side
maybe probably over here what you see is
my original bitmap on this left-hand
side and vectorworks attempted tracing
that bitmap on the right-hand side it's
had a fairly good go at it's actually
actually quite a nice job and those you
who did the exercise i think it was a 22
a or to be exercised you're probably
kicking yourself now there are your
efforts were more accurate than this
will be but this is great for
representation
now this at the moment if I ungroup it
is probably going to be a hectic chaotic
mess of lines let's see how many it
comes out to his own group is thirty-one
thousand lines that's all selected
inside that lovely perimeter right there
that's lines at the moment
what if we want to take it a step
further than lines well there is one
more option that I normally can do from
this stage and my computer is going to
struggle with this as well from the
modify menu there's an option called
compose and
and composes basically add lines
together to make polygons and you better
underneath here there's decomposed which
is take polygons break them back down
two lines i'm going to click compose I
might have to pause the video and see
what happens
yet i'll be back in a sick
anyway
what was I going to say oh yeah we're
finished now we've finished composing
out lines and polygons and this is a
result you can see it slightly more
cleanup them before if i select over all
of this we should end up with objects
now as opposed to lines and it's been
called down a lot but you can see if i
can actually grab each of these look up
the background border here by accident
going to get rid of that you can see I
can grab each of these another
background border
Can I grab this one you're gonna can I
have at least one is that going to be
fit okay if it will just have one you
can see that some of these components
here and back towards tried it's very
hard to get this out but it's actually
made some of these components out
correctly this one is a good example you
can see this piece here it's a whole
piece that's managed to make its in fact
made two of them because it felt so good
about making the first one
ok maybe if you wanted to one two three
of them
that's probably just do that trace
parameter and it's tried to make the
best of what it can do
vectorworks had a fairly good crack at
this you can see it's one on some of
these examples here and it's lost on a
few of the other ones but that's just an
example of how you can try and have a
girl this and vectorworks it's done a
really good job of interpreting this
drawing here which had no idea about and
it's turned into lines and polygons for
us that can be handy to you sometimes
you might bring an object in a really
simple bitmap normally works very well
for this just a simple one line drawing
if you've managed to do that you might
have sketched on your tablets candid in
anything along those lines
give it a go inside vectorworks and
maybe you don't have to trace it out
like all of us did doing this exercise
when we do it back into B or whatever it
was
so that's another example of how
bringing things in as an image file
bringing another source material can be
really useful for doing you know quick
and easy tasks in vectorworks so that's
what I'm going to cover for this listen
I think we'll cut off their as I said
there are going to be some more episodes
coming up hopefully our release of seven
and eight and nine
I really want to couple worksheets and I
really want to have a detailed look at
some more tasks that we can do together
so if you have suggestions make sure you
leave them in the comments below if
you've got feedback to go along with
this series i'd really appreciate it as
well so don't hesitate to get in contact
by email
leave a comment send me a personal
message via Skype anything you like
really
i'm james russell and i will see you
next time cheers