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Vectorworks Architect
Tutorial Manual by Jonathan Pickup
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Table of Contents

Introduction .....................................................................................iii
Step 1 Layer and Model Setup................................................... 1
Document Setup..................................................................................................1
Layer Setup (Model Setup) .................................................................................7

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Step 2 Property Line ................................................................ 13
Step 3 Creating the Site Model ................................................ 17

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Creating the Site Model .....................................................................................19
Height in Relation to Boundary..........................................................................32
Step 4 Quick Bulk and Location ............................................... 43
Creating the Lower Floor ...................................................................................43
Creating the Upper Floor ...................................................................................46
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Linking Spaces to Site Plan...............................................................................52
Step 5 Creating The Walls ....................................................... 63
Creating Basement Walls ..................................................................................63
Creating Upper Floor Walls ...............................................................................68
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Step 6 Creating The Roof ....................................................... 83

Existing Roof ....................................................................................................83
Step 7 Concept Drawings ...................................................... 103
Plan Viewports.................................................................................................103
Step 8 Doors and Windows.....................................................111
Standard Vectorworks Doors and Windows. ...................................................113
WinDoor Manager ...........................................................................................118
Updating the Concept Plan .............................................................................125
Step 9 Site Modifiers .............................................................. 129
Roads ..............................................................................................................130
Pads and Fences ............................................................................................135
Step 10 Stairs........................................................................... 141
Step 11 Annotation................................................................... 147
Standard Title Blocks (Drawing Border) ..........................................................147
Drawing Labels................................................................................................150
Notes, Keynotes and Callouts .........................................................................153
Step 12 Working Drawings....................................................... 161
Drawing 01 - Site Plan.....................................................................................161
Drawing 02 - Foundation Plan .........................................................................163
Drawing 03 - Framing Plan ..............................................................................167
Other Drawings .....................................................................................................................176
Thank You ........................................................................................................................176
©2008 Jonathan Pickup | Vectorworks Architect Tutorial Manual i
Step 1 Layer and Model Setup

Document Setup

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We will set up the file from the beginning, from a blank document. Vectorworks has set up
commands to make it easier to set up the file. When you have set up the file, it can become a
template file that you can use to start every new job, saving you a lot of setup time.

• Go to the Menu Bar.

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• Choose File > New...
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• This opens a dialog box for you

to choose Blank Document.

• A blank file opens with a layer

scale of 1:1 and a letter-size page.
• We should set up our page first.

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• Go to the Menu Bar.
• Choose File > Page Setup...
• This opens a dialog box for you to set up the page size.

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• This dialog box allows you to set
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up the printer that you are using.
• Click on the Printer Setup... button.
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• This dialog box will vary depending on your printer.

• On a Macintosh the dialog box will look similar to this
picture. Set the printer, page size and page orientation.
• Click on the OK button.

• On a Windows machine the dialog box will look

similar to this picture. Set the printer, page size
and page orientation.
• Click on the OK button.

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• This takes you back to the Page Setup
dialog box.
• Our drawings are going to be set up
using Viewports, so the page boundary
won’t be meaningful on our design layers.

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• Turn off Show Page Boundary.
• Turn off Show Page Breaks.
• Click on the OK button.

• Vectorworks shows the

new drawing area.

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The reference grid may not appear on
the screen due to the density of the grid
at a particular scale and page size.
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• Go to the Menu Bar.

• Choose File > Document Settings > Document
Setup...

Document Setup is a quick way to set up the drawing

when you are starting a new project.

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• On this dialog box we get the opportunity to check the
setup of the project as a whole: the units, layer scale,
drawing area, grid setting and the title block size.
• Click on the Drawing Units: Change... button. This
will open the Units dialog box for us to set up the
drawing units, primary dimensioning, secondary

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dimensioning and area and volume units.

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• Set your General Display units to
the settings that you want.
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• Set the Dimension Objects

(Primary) to the settings that you
want.

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• The settings might start in feet and
inches.

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• Set the Dimension Objects
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(Secondary) to the settings
that you want.
• Click on the OK button.
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• Click on the Layer Scale: Change... button.

This will open the Layer Scale dialog box for
us to set the scale of the current layer.

• Set your Layer Scale to 1:100 for metric

drawings or 1/8 (1:96) for imperial drawings.
• Click on the OK button.

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• Click on the Drawing Grids: Change... button. This
will open the Set Grid dialog box for us to set the snap
and reference grids for our file.

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• Choose Grid on the left hand side.
• For metric drawings set the snap grid
to 100mm and the reference grid to
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1000mm .
• For for imperial drawings set the
snap grid to 4” and the reference
grid to 3’.
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• Click on the OK button.

The reference grid may not appear on the screen due to the density of the grid at a particular
scale and page size.

The Document Setup dialog box now

shows you your setup...

• Click on the OK button.

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Layer Setup (Model Setup)
We need to break up the project into a series of manageable chunks to make it easier to draw
the building. These chunks are called layers, and at the beginning we will have a layer for
each storey of the building, a layer for the site plan, a layer for the site survey data and a layer
for the contour plan.

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If you are not familiar with layers please refer to the Vectorworks Essential Manual, which has
a series of exercises to explain layers.

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We can create a few layers now to draw the existing building, then add more layers later as
we need them. There is a way to have a file set up with most of the design layers and sheet
layers, called Layer and Class standards. This allows you to grab a few layers when you want
them. For more information on creating a Layer and Class Standard, refer to the Vectorworks
Productivity Manual available from www.archoncad.com or www.Vectorworks.net.
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One way of creating the layers is to use the Model Setup Command. This will create some of
our layers for us and input the correct heights. It’s also a graphical way of creating the layers
at the right height, so it will make it easier to understand layers and their heights. Our building
is similar to this sketch, and we will use these dimensions for our model setup.
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• Go to the Menu Bar.
• Choose File > Document Settings > Model Setup...

This command is for setting up the project as a model,

setting the number of floors, the heights of the floors, etc.

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We had a house with foundations (400mm high), ground
floor slab (100mm thick), a lower floor with a stud height

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of 2464mm, an upper floor with a stud height of 2490mm
and a roof.

The Model Setup dialog box can be used to set up all the model layers for this project, but we
will still need to add other layers to help us make this project. When you use this command on
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a new file, you get the first dialog box to set up the number of floors.

• 2 floors (the basement will be the lower floor).

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• No basements.
• Click on the OK button.

On the next dialog box, set the layer

heights for each layer of the project.

• For this project we will not be using the

correct project levels for the layer heights.
We will use the upper floor as the main floor.
This will be set at Z=0, and all the other
floors will be related to this.
• The foundation should be below the ground
floor slab. The foundations will vary due to
the site conditions, but enter an elevation
value of -2864mm (-9’5”) (so that the
foundations are 400mm (1’4”) below the
lower floor).

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• The lower floor, Mod-Floor-1, has its
Elevation set to -2464mm (-8’1”) (so that it
is below the main floor).
• The walls will go from the top of the slab to
the top of the floor above, so the Ceiling
Height need to be 2464mm (8’1”).

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• The slab thickness for this project is 100mm
(the floor is a concrete slab).

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• Turn off the option to create Slab Layers,
which would give us extra layers that we
don’t need.
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• The upper floor, Mod-Floor-2, is the main

floor, and we want to set its Elevation to 0.
• The walls will go from the top of the floor to
the underside of the roof above, so the walls
need to be 2490mm (8’2”).

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• Finally the roof has its elevation set at Z=0.
This allows us to use the bearing height of
the roof to control the 3D height of the roof.

This is the easiest way to control the roof. You

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can use the bearing height of the individual roof
planes to control the height rather than the
layer height.

• Click on the OK Button.

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• You can see all the new layers in the Navigation palette.
• We can edit the layers in the Navigation palette, but the
Organization dialog box gives us additional information.

• Before you do anything else, make sure that you save your file.
Get into the habit of saving your file on a regular basis.
• From the Menu Bar choose File > Save...

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• Save the file into a job folder where you
store all your other projects.

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• Open the Organization dialog box by
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clicking on the Layer button. The Model
Setup command is not perfect and needs
some help to set up the project we want to draw.
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• Notice that for the floor and roof

layers there is no ability with the
Model Setup to make 2 roofs. If you
had a project that needed an upper
roof layer and a lower roof layer, you
would have to add a new roof layer.

• Select the layer Design Layer-1.

• Click on the Edit button.
• Type in the name of the new layer:
Mod-Site Plan.

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• Click on the Scale button.

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• Change the scale to 1:200.
• Click on the OK button.
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• Now the layers have the

settings that we want.
• Click on the OK button.

The layer scales can be changed at any time.

• Right mouse click on any layer in the Navigation

palette to edit, duplicate or remove layers.

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Step 2 Property Line
When you want to draw a property line (site boundary) you will notice that surveyors usually
use 0º for North while Vectorworks uses horizontally across to the right as 0º.

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You may think that this causes us a problem. It doesn’t because we have a tool that will
translate the surveyors information into native Vectorworks information. This tool is called the
Property Line Tool.

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• Make sure that the Active Layer is Mod-Site Plan.
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• Select the Property Line Tool to draw the site.
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• Go to the Tool Bar.

• Click on the Preferences button.

• Choose the Simple Dialog option.

• Click on the OK button.

In some countries, surveyors always assume that the

bearings are measured from north through east so that
true north is 0º and true east is 90º. The simple dialog box
works very well for this method. In other countries you will
need to use N_E or N_W depending on the bearings from
the surveyor.

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• Click once in the drawing area, near
the bottom, to start.
• The Create Property Line dialog box
will open.
• Type in the surveyors bearings from

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the plan. You can use a decimal point
between the degrees, minutes and
seconds, or you can use DMS for the
degrees, minutes and seconds.

• Type in the bearing, 19.01.10 (19d01m10s).

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• Type in the bearing length 41.855m (137.32’).
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• Click on the Enter button or hit

the Enter key and you should
notice a line on the screen.

Vectorworks draws the first

boundary line.

• Type in the second distance and bearing.

• Type in the bearing, 285.57.50 (285d57m50s).
• Type in the bearing length 16.278m (53.41’).
• Click on the Enter button or hit the Enter key.

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• Vectorworks draws the next boundary
line and connects it to the first
boundary.

Sooner or later though, you will find that

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the surveyor has measured the boundary
in the opposite direction to the way you
are drawing it. Don’t worry about this.

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Type in the bearing normally but type in
the distance as a negative distance. You
will find that it works out OK.
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• Type in the bearing, 24.08.34 (24d08m34s).
• Type in the bearing length -39.269m (128.84’).
• Click on the Enter button or hit the Enter key.
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• The site is complete if you click on

the Close Shape tick box.

• Click on the Done Button.

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• The Object Properties dialog box appears asking for information
about the Site Name and Number.

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• Use this as an example of what to enter.
• Click on the OK button.
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• Your site boundary is completed.

This is an easy way to create the

property line. For information on other
ways to create a property line refer, to
the Vectorworks Productivity manual
available from www.archoncad.com.

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