Architectural Technologist – Review of Jonathan Pickup’s new book “3D modeling in Vectorworks”

by scays on 22/08/2009

3D Modeling in Vectorworks 2009: Book Cover Art
Image by Vectorworks via Flickr

I am fairly new to this whole idea of 3D cad, I have played with certain aspects of Vectorworks powerful 3D abilities by attending Jon Pickups monthly online training, but I must admit to being old school and like the way Vectorworks looks and feels like my old board, but with all the advantages of CAD, but have not implemented any 3D drafting in any of my work. A conversation with another Technologist in Scotland, convinced me that I should start to go this route, so when I saw Jon’s book being advertised, by CU the UK distributor, I thought now or never. Jon’s book is written for the likes of me, its starts at a level and explains in simple terms both in a written format and video, the basics of 3D, looking at X, Y, and this new dimension “Z” , and its this dimension that is explained in detail, both in the way Vectorworks deals with it and its role in the whole 3D process. This is not a section to skim over. As you read through the book, a little symbol stands out at you that implies a video, Jon has used this many times in his short sharp training monthly manuals and is always associated with a video,  at the back of the book is a CD, that has a pdf of the book, and its here that the book comes to life, each of the short videos looks at the current topic and expands on the basic principles, I play these over and over to push in the message.

Jon puts aside the first 36 pages to the basic 3D principles, with over 14 videos expanding the knowledge, so its this section I have read and re-read, I have a basic want, to skip on to the more detailed 3D work, I feel that this is far to important to trivialize, and have forced myself to stick with the way the book is formatted and practiced the exercises to get this into my head.

We are now into 3D and the next major section builds on the previous chapters and has 12 more videos and 32 pages of ways to develop the 3D principle, this is the hard part, and again this takes time, don’t rush it, I have read this several times, and played the videos over and over, and finally see the light.

Architectural modeling, finally we are here, and I feel ready, this is a major and final section of the book , with 86 pages and 32 videos, I am taking my time, running the videos and practising the techniques. Without the videos, I think this section would have been hard, but Jon’s short movies are excellent, sticking to the point and clearly showing the basic principle.

This book is not for the complete beginner to CAD, you have to have a good understanding of 2D cad, and in that I think I am reasonably proficient, thanks to Jon Pickups Archoncad training, so I found the early stages a breeze, but as I climbed the hill, I had to spend more time concentrating on the work. Proficient or semi proficient 3D CAD users might find sections of the book very basic, but for the likes of me, I thought it started just at the right level and has helped enormously. At $75 its not cheap, but its a  very professional book, that’s clearly had a lot of time given to its production, by a very competent Vectorworks user, & teacher. My clients, particularly the practices that I support, who use Vectorworks, expect me to have a full understanding of Vectorworks and I now feel more than capable of fulfilling that role of the Vectorworks oriented Architectural Technologist. Now I have 3D under my belt, to me the price was and is not a problem, the quality of the sketch’s and above all the embedded movies on the CD make it a must have addition to my tech library,  I can thoroughly  recommended this book to anyone who has 2D CAD and wants to start using 3D CAD As we all move into BIM, 3D work is going to become more and more important, and  this book has been such an enormouse help in achieving competence in 3D CAD work, nice one Jon

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Tagged as: Architectural Technologist, Architectural Technology, Architecture, BIAT, CIAT, Collaborative Professional Development, construction, Continuing professional development, CPD, MSAAT, Technologist, technology, vectorworks

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