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Sections, Section Viewports and Details

I would like to re-use some details from project to project. If I create a Building Section in a Design Layer at 1/4" scale, I can create viewports at selected areas, ie. eave, window etc. but cannot turn these viewports into repeatable symbols.

If I create the Building Section using the Section Viewport command, I cannot create another viewport at a selected detail area.

My question is how to create a Detail Symbol Library from Building Sections?

Thanks in advance for help!

Vince

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Permalink Reply by Don Marquardt on June 2, 2010 at 5:21pm

Isolate the portions of the drawing for the details, as you have mentioned, then PDF or JPEG them. Make a symbol from them or just inport them into a new drawing when needed. They will not be editable, since the original is just a viewport, although I suppose you could amass a file of different projects (a nightmare of layers, but possible).

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Permalink Reply by Vincent Oles on June 3, 2010 at 7:25am

Thanks Don! I'll try this out. I'm wondering if another approach to creating an editable detail symbol would be to create details in a dedicated file and import as needed. This would allow details to be modified as needed.
Vince

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Permalink Reply by Frank Brault on June 3, 2010 at 1:36pm

Yes, what you are describing is known as a symbol library, which is an ordinary Vectorworks file containing resources such as the detail variations that you mention and can be available for import to any of your projects. This is very well supported by the Resource Browser.

Frank Brault
Nemetschek North America

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Permalink Reply by Vincent Oles on June 3, 2010 at 3:47pm

Thanks Frank, I was just taking the long way to get there!
Vince

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Permalink Reply by Vincent Cuclair on June 10, 2010 at 12:55am

There is a way to convert viewports into line drawings too......ie. copy the viewport>convert to group>ungroup (I think) then copy and paste from Sheet Layer to Design Layer> Scale up to correct scale and save as Symbol (which is editable).

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Permalink Reply by Vincent Oles on June 10, 2010 at 8:27am

Vince, Thanks for the tip. This is a nice way to convert viewports across the sheet/design layers. I tried a few different variations and found the following to work pretty well:
Copy the viewport and paste off the sheet > Convert the viewport to lines (you will lose any associated text) > Copy and paste in design layer and scale accordingly > save as Symbol.