All posts by Pablo

3DS Max – Vray Camera Manager

Hello everyone,

I was recently really busy working on some visuals for Hilton Hotels and because I was using 3DS Max and VRay hence I have a new idea for the post to share with you.

I would like to encourage you to install a VRay Camera Manager. Similarly as a Light Lister it will give you an icon/button which opens an easy to manage list with all VRay cameras.

To install that script vcm.mcr just drop and drop it to the 3DS Max window or Run it from the MAXScript menu. Apparently nothing will happen but a new position named VRay Camera Manager will be added to a list of available commands in the Customize User Interface window on the Toolbar tab. You can drag and drop this command to any of your open toolbars.Vray camera manager

Version Requirement: 

Tested in in Max 2012, 2013, 2014 but should work in earlier versions

Other Software Required:

VRay 2.0 or higher

AutoCAD – Area Room Tags

This is quick “how to” create a block with an area field which value adjust automatically when the polyline attached to that field is amended.

  1. Create a polyline.
  2. Open Attribute Definition window and set up typical attribute parameters.
    (command: ATTDEF)
  3. Click Insert Field button.
  4. From a list with field names choose Object.
  5. Click the button on the left of the Object type field and choose your polyline.
  6. Choose property Area (if it’s not chosen automatically) and choose desired precision.
  7. Click on the button called Additional Format… A new window will pop up.
  8. Enter desired conversion factor. E.g. If your drawing is in mm and you want area to be expressed in meters enter 0.0001
  9. Enter desired suffix if you wish. E.g. For square meters you can enter m\U+00B2. \U+00B2 will be replaced with ². You can also copy that symbol from Windows Character Map.
  10. Confirm hitting OK to close all windows.
  11. Choose a position for your new field.
  12. Create a block with any additional elements you wish for.

Attribute definition

Now a field in your block is connected with a polyline.
After you amended a polyline you need to regenerate to see the changes in the area field.

To create another block connected to another polyline you need to:

  1. Copy the block.
  2. Create or copy a polyline.
  3. Double clicking on the block. Enhanced Attribute Editor window will pop up.
  4. Choose area field.
  5. Double click the value (it should have gray background) A Field window will open.
  6. Click the button on the left of the Object type field and choose your NEW polyline.
  7. Set up fields in the Additional Format again (it’s a little irritating)
  8. Accept the changes by pressing OK.

or

  1.  Select a block and a connected to it polyline.
  2. Amend the shape of the copied polyline.
  3. Regenerate to see the change in the area field.

select polyline

Tell me if you know the faster way.


Note:

Data from attributes in blocks can be extracted and use in Excel.

A Table inside AutoCAD (2013) can be created with data extracted from attributes from blocks. Data in the Table can be updated after any amendments to polylines.

Sketchup – Move on specific axis

There are times when you want to move a selection in a specific direction – and there are ways to do that with:

1. Shift key –  Press and hold the Shift key, while the move you are performing is the specific color of an axis, to lock move operation to that axis (the inference line will bold).

2. Arrow keys – You can force SketchUp to infer parallel to a specific axis by pressing one of the following keys while using the Line tool, Move tool, or Tape Measure tool:

  • → Right arrow key = red axis
  • ← Left arrow key = green axis
  •  ↑  Up or down arrow keys = blue axis

3. Alt key – use it to force a free movement of an element constrain by the geometry it is a part of. You can combine it with a Shift key.

Additional info on Sketchup Sage

4. Entering a 3D CoordinateSketchUp can move your entities to exact (using [x, y, z ]) or relative (using <x, y, z >) coordinates in 3D space. Type it in and you will see it in The Measurements Toolbar at the bottom right corner of the SketchUp window.

Revit – Cut Line Styles override

Short lesson for everyone learning Revit about how to change graphical appearance of walls, floor and roofs in plan and section.

Imagine that for structural engineer you want to emphasize the structural core of your building. What you need to do?

Go to Properties panel of your view and open Visibility/Graphics Override window. It should look like on the image below. Walls by default have thick outline.
Lines - no override
Notice that there is a tick box called Cut Line Styles in an area named Override Host layers. Check that box and hit Edit… button. New window will appear where you can adjust line styles individually for all functional elements of your wall, floors and roof.

For purpose of our task we need to make thicker only the structure [1] – the core elements.

Images below will explain you differences between options for Core layer clean-up.
By default there is no line between core elements of the same kind.
Lines - no edge

Change to Use Function to see thick line between all structural elements.
Lines - Use Function

Change to Use Common Edge style to see connection and be able to adjust it by changing Common Edges style.
Lines - USe common edge style

You can change Common Edges style in Object Styles window on Manage tab
Lines - common lines style
or override it in your view in Visibility/Graphics Override window.
Lines - common lines override

Thank you for learning with PabLab 🙂

Photoshop: Vanishing Point Tutorials

Hello everyone,

Today I want to encourage you to deepen your knowledge of Photoshop.

Architects sometimes need to correct or amend visuals of their design. Visuals are in perspective (usually) and there is special tool called Vanishing Point which allows many kinds of modifications in perspective. You can easily put 2D images in perspective, copy and even clone in perspective and between different perspective grids!

First watch this video tutorial by Howard Pinsky (~8 min.)

and if you still need more information maybe try that one by tutvid (~18 min.)

The tool is present in Photoshop since version SC2.

Sketchup – Soap Skin & Bubble plugin

Hello everyone,

Today something exiting and extraordinary for all fanatic of Sketchup and especially for those who love to build organic and non-linear structures.

This plugin will throw you from your seat !!! 😉

Soap Skin & Bubble

You can download it here: Software download page

It allows you to span membrane-like surfaces between any kind of edges* in closed loop and then…
BLOW THEM UP !!!

Soap-buble-tool-anim1

*some restrictions apply: Lines can not overlap!

There are 6 buttons in a toolbar:

  1. Skin – allow you to create a surface (look below how).
  2. X/Y – allows you to stress the surface between X or Y direction.
  3. Bub – allows you to blow up a surface in both directions.
  4. Play – allow you to resume modification process after Stop.
  5. Stop – allow you to stop  live modification process.
  6. Help – it’s a link to a developer website.

I created small tutorial explaining how to create a surface:SOAP-BOUBLE-SKIN

 and an explanation what impact have X/Y Ratio on the membrane:SOAP-BOUBLE-SKIN-TENSION-X-Y

It’s definitely an inexhaustible source of ideas for creative people. Moreover after you create a structure, after you play with it, you can modify it with other Sketchup tools and plugins and still be able again to blow it or tense it up!

Here you can see how behaves a previous surface after inflating it, moving half of it and deleting some faces:VOULT1


TIP: You can blow up a surface using ether positive (+) or negative (-) values. Positive values will blow up a surface from a back side of faces. Negative from it front side.
What will happened when reverse normals only on a part of a created surface?

EXPERIMENT!!! 🙂

AutoCAD – Separate Existing Hatches

Still in AutoCAD subject. Did you ever had many areas hatched with the same hatch any you want to get rid off some of them?

Another useful button is present in AutoCAD since version 2011. It’s accessible only from Options Panel on the Hatch Editor contextual ribbon tab. When you expand it you will find a Separate Hatch button. It’s active only when a hatch composed from more the one hatched areas is selected. (I couldn’t find any information about if there is a keyboard command triggering that function.)Hatches

Attached image illustrates also functions accessible at the origin point of the hatch and on its boundary points.

When you select a point press Ctrl to cycle between those functions. It works similar as for polylines.

AutoCAD – Wipeout command

WIPEOUT – This by many forgotten command can save you a lot of time and effort.

A Wipeout is an image type object. Most commonly it is used to “mask” part of a drawing for clarity.

I’ve rediscovered it recently and found it useful when creating louvers. With hundreds of them I didn’t need to cut and trim additional few hundreds lines of windows behind them. And reposition of them was so easy. I also used it for window tags and handles in elevation view.

The Wipeout command can be used for 3 different operations.

It can be used to draw a Wipeout object, as you might expect (only without arcs), but it can also be used to convert an existing closed Polyline (only without arcs) into a Wipeout. Additionaly it can be used to control the visibility of Wipeout frames.

Wipeout

You can also change Wipeout frames directly from WIPEOUTFRAME system variable. The result of available value is below.

Value Result
0 Frames are not displayed or plotted. Frames are temporarily displayed for object selection and selection preview.
1 Frames are displayed and plotted
2 Frames are displayed, but not plotted

Value no.2 exist since AutoCAD 2013.

wipeoutframe

Personally I use value.1 to not duplicate the lines and when I need to make a particular frame unvisitable I change it line type to thin doted line with a big scale (like 1000). Only corners then are visible as dots. I use this method to create hollow objects like window frame.

Revit – elevator plug-in

Check that guys – ElevatorArchitect free plug-in for Revit.

“DigiPara Elevatorarchitect provides free optimized Revit families to easily create elevator models inside Autodesk Revit software. Start the plug-in directly inside Revit and find the correct size and number of required elevators within seconds.”

It helps a lot. Watch the tutorial on Digipara website.
You can choose manufacturer real existing lift and easily implement into the model.

ElevatorArchitectElevators3D

ElevatorArchitectElevators3D window