I’ve been getting to grips with Vectorworks Landmark for the past couple of weeks. It’s certainly not without issues but does have some very useful tools, features and functionality for landscape architecture.
More to come possibly, but to start with I would highlight the VWL Grade Tool as something I’d love to see an equivalent of in Rhinolands.
In its 2D mode the Grade Tool is a very dynamic annotation tool very useful for working out levels in plan and saves a lot of calculator bashing!
Not the easiest to explain but the tool functions like this:
i) Activate the tool
ii) Click at two points - the top and bottom of the slope you want to define/analyse
The Object Properties tab allows you to create the Grade object in a number of different ways by selecting from drop down fields in the General Section -
Double clicking on the Grade object reopens the Grade Settings menu.
v) This would be useful in itself, but the even more excellent thing is that Grade objects can link up. If I add another grade object intersecting roughly perpendicular with the first, the second grade object picks up the level of the first grade where it intersects -
Hi,
Many thanks for sharing your feedback and experience with us. Some of these functions are already available in RhinoLands 6.3, although the way they operate may differ slightly.
The object shown in your images is called the Slope Tool. It’s a smart object—when you move its points, it adjusts automatically. You also have controls to display the slope in degrees, ratio, and other formats.
However, to achieve the desired slope, you must modify the terrain object itself. Is this step omitted in VWL? Or is a terrain object also required there?
Have you had a chance to try version 6.3, or are you still using version 6? If not, we recommend watching this tutorial, especially from minute 14:00 onward.
Regarding the grade properties, these settings and appearance options are available for the Slope Tool in RhinoLands through the Edit panel.
As for the other features, we’re continuing to work on improvements. Thanks again for all your support and suggestions!
This all looks very good. Great to catch up with how RhinoLands is developing. Unfortunately I don’t have the opportunity to use either RL version 6 or 6.3 at the moment due to time constraints, so to be completely honest I don’t have practical experience with RL current functionality. But I’m happy to share more about my experience with Vectorworks in case it is of use -
The VWL Grade Object has three modes:
i) an annotation with values set by the user
ii) an annotation reading values from the site model
iii) a VW ‘site modifier’ - modifying the site model to the values entered
IMO it’s (i) that is the game changer as this is very useful for analysing and working out levels in plan before moving into 3D modelling. Using the Grade tool to find the elevation of a point along an existing grade - this alone saves a good deal calculator bashing. Being able to create a linked network of grades is also very useful.
The ability to switch the VWL Grade Object between mode (i) and mode (iii) is very attractive in theory, but not always the best option in practice in terms of successfully VWL’s rather tricky site modifier workflow…
