Hi Asuni,
I am having troubles hatching a VA slab in plan view. I can see how to change the hatch patterns for sections within the Slab Styles attributes page. However, there is no option for hatching in projection. We typically need to apply a range of solid fill colours or hatches to our slabs for documentation.
Thanks
Hello,
Unfortunately, it is no possible to define projection hatches automatically in VisualARQ for now. We already have this issue in our wishlist, so I will add your vote to it.
Kind regards,
Alfonso
+1 please!
2 Likes
Thanks Alfonso,
Could you please make this a priority for the next release, as the ability to hatch / fill plans is fundamental to our work as landscape architects, where we often have multiple slabs of different materials next to one another.
Also, I realize this is the VA forum, but it would be great if VA could provide the BIM hard landscape features that Lands Design does not have (i.e. IFC for paving slabs, steps, walls etc…). The planting tools in Lands Design are good, but it really lacks interoperability with other BIM programs, including VA and Revit.
Some dedicated BIM tools for landscape architects would be really appreciated! Thanks again.
Kind regards,
Chris
Hello @chris3,
We already have this issue as a high priority for the new features of VisualARQ 3. We have already added your vote to it, so we will let you know when it is ready.
We also have plans to include IFC options in the next releases of Lands Design. Which other tools for landscape architects do you miss in Lands Design?
Kind regards,
Alfonso
Hi Alfonso,
Ultimately, we would like to see Lands Design and VisualArq merge together to become one BIM / IFC package that we can document our landscapes in. The industry standard is Revit, which as you may know, has very poor functionality for landscape architects. At the moment, VA and LD work as separate packages with some overlap.
Currently the hard landscape tools in LandsDesign (e.g. path, stair, wall) we simply do not use – instead we use the slab, wall or roof command in VisualArq because these tools are much more functional (i.e. true BIM tools, with associated parametric IFC control).
The LandsDesign tools that are very useful and we would like to see further development are the terrain modelling tools and the planting tools (2d and 3d control of the representation, documentation and scheduling of plants). These are the components that Revit is very poor in handling. The LD terrain tools are great and easy to use, but still remain limited, particularly when working on complex grading or terrains. We would like the ability to manually edit the Delaunay TIN model (for example, to flip, add and delete triangles) which is not currently possible in LD unless you explode the terrain and use the mesh tools in Rhino. The introduction of grading rules would also be helpful (similar to Civil 3d).
The ability to show terrain profiles (i.e. mulch, layer, imported soil depth) would be great – we imagine this would work in much the same way as layers in the wall or slab command. These layers would be visible when we cut a section through the terrain. It would be great to be able to schedule this as well (i.e. much quantity, soil volumes etc…). We currently use the slab command to do this for some garden beds where we would like to show depth of different layers.
The ability to cut a true section through the garden bed, showing the root ball of the tree would also be useful for documentation purposes.
Lastly, we would love to see VA, LD and Rhino handle externally referenced files much better. We love these tools, but unfortunately, they are unworkable on large projects, due to all data needing to reside in the one file (via insert and link tool). This creates huge single files that become unworkable / crash regularly. Worksessions in Rhino needs serious upgrading – I know many architect and landscape architect colleagues who would love to document in Rhino, but cannot due to the limitations of working with and handling many large files. If Rhino could implement Xrefs in much the same way that Autocad does (but better of course), I think there will be many happy people.
Thanks very much, I really appreciate the direct contact with Asuni – it is one of the reasons we really support your products.
Kind regards
Chris
Hi Chris,
Thank you so much for your feedback, we really appreciate it as it is really important for us to know how the users would like to use VisualARQ and Lands Design.
It is true that both softwares have some overlap. They are thought to work for its specific purpose, so we work to offer in each software the features for that purpose.
It is interesting to know how you use some VisualARQ objects instead of the ones in Lands Design. We will discuss what we can do about it to improve the use if Lands Design objects. If you have any specific features you would like to be copied from VisualARQ objects to Lands Design objects, please let us know; I will be thinking about it as well.
About the terrain tools, you can add curves and points using the _laTerrainAddContour command, so you can edit the terrain as you prefer. I will study the possibilities about grading rules, althought it would be really useful if you could send us some examples about rules or specific features you would like to have available in Lands.
I think it is a great idea to have the possibility to have layers in the terrain object. I have already added this feature to our wishlist with your vote for future versions. I have added also your suggestion about showing the root ball of trees for documentation purposes.
We are aware of the limitations working with worksessions and we are working to have it available. Anyway, maybe you could use this workflow to work with smaller files. Improving the way Rhino works with referenced files would be awesome, but that is a Rhino issue, so maybe we cannot do much more from VA/Lands.
Thank you again for your feedback. Please, feel free to send as many suggestions as you have; we will take them into account for next versions of the softwares.
Kind regards,
Alfonso Melero
+1 for hatches projection hatches.
Thanks!
1 Like
Is there an update for this feature?
Hi @Sven_Duplić,
This feature is planned for future development for now. You can check it the Roadmap: https://www.visualarq.com/features/roadmap/
@Sven_Duplić, @chris3 , @Eugen, @brentkschmidt, meantime you can play with this GH definition that adds some hatches on walls. You reference a wall in the model, and the hatches are created for the interior and exterior faces of the walls of the same style. I’m going to add soon in food4Rhino a similar definition for slabs.
1 Like
In the meantime, you can also use a DupFaceBorder command, select the wall or slab face you want, Hatch, and then delete the border curves. This workaround does well for items with holes in the boundary (like a window) and is easily adjustable using control points. But it is not locked to the face of the wall, so you would need to adjust it if and when things move around.
@Sven_Duplić, @chris3 , @Eugen, @brentkschmidt, I also added a similar GH file for creating projection hatches on slabs: Slab hatches in projection | Food4Rhino
Al bajarlo no termina de bajarse, lo intentado algunas veces y asa lo mismo
Hola Miguel, debe haber algún problema en food4Rhino. Lo comentaré con los desarrolladores de food4rhino. Adjunto la definición aqui:
Slab Hatches in Projection.gh (25.2 KB)
Can’t install the plugin… 1st it says this:
… allthough i have all these plugins available. And I can’t install it.
P.S. Have the same issue with your other plugin ‘WALL LAYER AREA AND VOLUME’…
Hi @Sven_Duplić,
You need to load VisualARQ in Rhino before opening the Grasshopper file. You can load it by running any VisualARQ command in Rhino.