Vectorworks Garden Design: 3D Pergolas

⭐️ Save -10% on 3D connexion products
https://3dconnexion.com/?ref=jonathanreeves-cadLearn how to create stunning 3D garden designs in Vectorworks with this focused tutorial on modeling pergolas. Whether you’re designing for clients or enhancing your portfolio, this step-by-step guide will show you how to use Vectorworks tools to bring outdoor structures to life.

🌿 In this video:
• Creating accurate 3D pergola models
• Using Vectorworks Landmark & landscape tools
• Tips for realistic garden visualization
• Best practices for outdoor structure layout

Perfect for landscape designers, architects, and anyone exploring Vectorworks for outdoor spaces.

👍 Like, 💬 comment, and 🔔 subscribe for more CAD and garden design tutorials!

🎉 Celebrate 40 Years of Innovation – Save 40% on Vectorworks Design Suite!
Enter “STARTFRESH25″ as the promo code to save -40% off Vectorworks Design Suite Annual Subscriptions & select JR Architecture under Reseller Information to get your free £300 worth of Vectorworks CAD Libraries. My Link: https://customers.vectorworks.net/subscriptions?aff=mk-jrarchitecture

⭐️ Find out more about Vectorworks or professional on-line training with Jonathan Reeves-CAD, offered globally, wherever you are. Guaranteed to dramatically improve your Vectorworks, Twinmotion, Enscape, D5 Render & 3D Arch Viz skills.

VECTORWORKS TRAINING

⭐️Join this channel to get access to perks with ad & music free videos + free libraries and goodies: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC56qp6QeXSAayDOOHu3BcCA/join

⭐️ Buy more than 25 CAD Libraries from Jonathan Reeves CAD
https://jonathanreeves-cad.co.uk/product-category/vectorworks-libraries/

⭐️ Buy Twinmotion Now for only £350 from the Rendering Experts: https://real-time-rendering.com/product/twinmotion/

⭐️ Buy 3D GARDEN DESIGN PACK FOR VECTORWORKS

3D GARDEN DESIGN PACK FOR VECTORWORKS (HIGH POLY)

⭐️ Save -10% on 3D connexion products with voucher code REEVES10
https://3dconnexion.com/?ref=jonathanreeves-cad

Find out more about Vectorworks or professional on-line training with Jonathan Reeves-CAD, offered globally, wherever you are. Guaranteed to dramatically improve your Vectorworks, Twinmotion, Enscape, D5 Render & 3D Arch Viz skills.

VECTORWORKS TRAINING

Free 7-day, Vectorworks 2025 Trial Request
www.vectorworks.net/trial/jra-cad

Free Twinmotion Trial

TWINMOTION TRIAL

Buy JRA Vectorworks Libraries & Texture Packs from:
https://jonathanreeves-cad.co.uk/vectorworks-store/

Get your FREE People Pack and 36 Sample Textures from:
https://jonathanreeves-cad.co.uk/product-category/vectorworks-libraries/

Jonathan Reeves is an award winning architect, author and educator of Innovative Vectorworks BIM specialising in professional Vectorworks & Twinmotion Training Sales, 3D, and BIM.

My Other Websites:
Twinmotion: http://www.real-time-rendering.com
Vectorworks: http://www.jonathanreeves-cad.co.uk
Architecture: http://www.jonathanreevesarchitects.co.uk

Credits
Music: https://www.youtube.com/user/NoCopyrightSounds
Music: Vlog No Copyright Music

#Vectorworks #GardenDesign #PergolaDesign #LandscapeArchitecture #3DModeling #VectorworksTutorial

Hi everybody. Welcome back to another Vet Dits video. Today I’m going to carry on and show you a really nice tutorial of how to design some garden perculars. Uh these are something that I’ve incorporated into my new garden pack which I’ve been developing. And you may have seen some of my other videos uh like the Twin Motion one around this. But let’s show you how to model up some pergulars in no time at all. So, basically, I’m just going to click and create a base object and rightclick to turn that into a hardscape. And the really nice thing with the hardscape tool, I can now click replace, go to my J hardscapes library that I’ve developed, and essentially swap this out for a range of other hardscapes. So, let’s just access my hardscape library. You can see there’s a ton of stuff in here. And we can select one maybe with a nice little border. These cobblestones, I think, will be very appropriate. Now, all of the graphics and the thicknesses and the components can be modified if needed. So, that’s very easy to adjust. Okay. So, next up, I’m going to go down and use a tool uh called the column tool. Now, this is available on the Veptus Architect and Landmark BIM pallet, and it’s a really straightforward tool for doing obviously columns. So, you know, you will notice it looks a bit sort of architectural at the moment. Don’t worry too much. We can change this. So the first thing I’m going to do is link it to the layer height. So now that I can actually just type in the elevation or the layer height rather of my layer. Just make the elevation zero. And now I can link that column height to there. So finally I can make some adjustments on things like the width and the depth. Maybe turn the capital off and maybe adjust that base item to be a bit smaller. Wonderful. Okay. So good little starting point. Um, next up I just want to create a couple of classes for the column. So we’ll have one column uh for the oak if you like. And let’s just load in a nice oy texture for that wood. And you know, Vectors of course comes with a huge range of textures. Do check out my texture packs for an amazing 720 very high quality materials with image fills as well. Really, really nice materials. Okay, brilliant. So now let’s do the same thing on the base. So we’ll just create one more class for column item base. And we’ll select maybe a kind of metallic texture for this just so the you know the material doesn’t weather as the wood hits the floor. So you know you very easy to sort of model this up in sort of crude terms as it would be in reality. Okay, fantastic. So I think I just need to adjust the size of those columns. They’re looking a bit small at the moment but I think it probably is because the base is a bit too big. So, what I might do is just adjust the size of the base as well for this design. So, to do that, it’s very straightforward. We’ll just kind of like measure the column. Let’s just make that column uh completely rectalinear. There we go. Snap that into the corner there. And let’s just click uh a measure. So, I like D for distance on my workspace just to measure the base there. Okay. So, when I created that rectangle, it was a bit big. So, I’m going to use the reshape tool to reshape that hardscape to make it 3600 by 3600. So, now I could snap that bang into the middle of the page. And personally, modeling around the center of the page for this kind of thing makes a big difference. You’ll see why in a second. It’s because I can use things like my mirror tool, just snapping onto the internal center there, and basically select both of those again, mirror them across, and before I know it, I’ve got the basis of my structure. Okay. So now we can make some final adjustments to the size of those columns because they’re parametric. We can of course do them all together. Okay. So next up, I’m going to use one of my favorite little tools for timber framing, the framing member tool, which is just a wonderful tool. I really like this tool. It has a lot of flexibility. And do check out my uh tutorial where I modeled an entire timber frame dwelling using nothing but the timber framing tool. It was pretty astounding. Okay. So, I can set the height of that base layer. We can also uh adjust the length of those columns and those beams very dynamically. Um, and I’m just going to finally set up a new class for the beams as well. So, I’m going to try and match that oak material. And that’s pretty straightforward to do. I might want to make some adjustments. So, let’s mirror that across. And basically, I’m going to copy and paste in place. Okay, that’s looking really, really good. Um, my base structure is coming together nicely. So, let’s copy one off and make this a little bit smaller. So, I’m going to add some distance onto the span here. Okay. And move it ever so slightly. Also going to adjust adjust the base so it’s the bottom rather than the top. That’s straightforward to do, the bottom. And then I can click and move it into position and maybe make a couple of final adjustments to its position and its size before we kind of duplicate this along. So I think you’ll agree the framing member tool has a lot of potential for this kind of garden structures and ideal for modeling things like perglas as well. Okay, fantastic. So we’ll just adjust the height 150. Let’s make the uh height 50 mil and height 200. And finally, let’s duplicate and move it across. What we’ll do is we’ll do uh duplicate array. Now, I could make it into a symbol, but actually thinking about it, there’s no need at this stage because this is a parametric object. Now, one of my f favorite things to do is uh do things like align and distribute. And this is a great tool for just creating equalized spacing in your projects when you don’t know exactly what the right gap should be. Okay, I’m very, very happy with the way this looks. So, I’m just going to adjust the mitering. You can see that I’m just playing around with the bevel. So, I can bevel it that way, or if I go minus 45°, that will bevel the other way. So, let’s go to the beginning bevel and do minus 30° on both of those. Now, finally, I can use my eyeropper tool to match the settings from that plugin. So, make sure you check the settings within the eyropper tool. pick up the settings and drop them in a single click uh onto those other objects to modify them. So, I’m just going to copy off one more and mirror that across. And in no time at all, we’ve got a really nice little pergola. So, the final little stage here is I want to basically create this into a symbol so that it’s easily uh stored together as one big kind of group if you like, but most importantly it’s actually accessible in my resource manager. Okay, fantastic. So, we’ll just create that symbol again. I forgot to uh select the base first time. And there we go. There it is. So, the really nice thing is now I can basically have a look at this in 2D or 3D. It’s already of course got 2D graphics in there. And if I go to my resource manager, I can basically preview this in shaded mode, both in the small preview, but also in the much larger preview over there as well, perhaps in hidden line. Okay, wonderful. So now I can go over to my other project which is my garden pack where we started. Uh there’s a few AI images I was playing with. Okay. So here’s my garden pack. It’s honestly as simple as basically dragging and dropping my pergular into my garden pack to apply that symbol. So basically that brings that model in from the other file. Now all I need to do is position this in the correct place. So having a quick look at it. Looks great. Um, let’s just basically put it into position. And what I might do is just use the nudge command, but with a custom distance nudging to nudge by 100 mm each time. We’ve got a bit of a Z clashing on the base there. So, I’m just going to use the reshape tool just to reshape this item here. One of the things again I love with Vetto is the flexibility to just adjust things like those extrusions at any time. Okay, that’s looking good. So now I can go to my garden view and essentially go to my visual and all I need to do is put classes on that weren’t visible at the time and then click update. So now I’ve got that new pergular added and I think you’ll agree that makes all the difference. Let’s just adjust the view using my camera tool and basically let’s kind of do a little bit of a walk through into my lovely garden exploring that new perlar option. So, I think you’ll agree uh these sort of things really add a bit of detail to the Bats model. They don’t take that long to make. And the other benefit of doing it all in Vatworks is not only do we get all the documentation done, most importantly, I could schedule off all of those framing members using a spreadsheet and get some really accurate costings on the volume of material and how much timber is required. Excellent. So, we’re just making a few little adjustments on our project. I decided I wanted a bit more kind of width on the base there. So, I just double click, use my reshape tool, and let’s just stretch that across. You’ll notice that I can just move that by a certain distance. Okay, wonderful. So, for my first option, I’m very, very happy. I would like to maybe explore now what it would look like with a different option. So, this was one that I also modeled up using the circular array function. And basically, same principle. We’ve got some columns there. and I’ve basically circular arrayed a framing member around the great circle. Okay. So, what I’d like to do now is essentially bring those into my model and create a few different layers for each pergular so that I can assign uh them to a specific layer. The other nice thing, of course, with using layers is you have layer control where not only can move them around and change visibilities, but you can easily put one on top of the other to assign them correctly in terms of the ordering as well. So, do remember if you’re new to Vector Works, layers are basically where something is. Classes are what something is. A bit different to AutoCAD where you’ve only got the one model space. In Vector Works, we’ve had unlimited model spaces with the layer control. Classes are much more like AutoCAD layers. By the way, classes also give graphical attributes, materials, line weights, as well as controlling things like visibilities. So, very important to use both effectively. Okay. So, I’m just having a little play around uh setting up my layers. Make sure that all the layers are the same scale, of course, if you want to visualize them together. And essentially, I’m just going to see if I can get a few different pergola options in my project. Okay. So, let’s just kind of finish this off with a final sort of piggler option as well. All I need to do to achieve this is basically click onto my pigular. Let’s just copy this one in one more time. So, here it is. Let’s copy. Let’s go over to paste and let’s just replace. So, basically this is a very cool command that you can do. Clicking replace enables you once that is in the file to swap one symbol for another one very very straightforwardly. I think you’ll agree the replace command is just making swapping out one option for another a bit of a breeze really. Now I need to adjust the position of that just so it doesn’t clash with the furniture. And I think with a couple of clicks we should be there. Okay, great. So we’ve got our two per options now. Per one, per two. I think I’m going to try one more design option and then we’ll wrap this up and show you how we can present to the client these three options. So I’m just going to like try to set up a save view now in this first position. So here’s my pergular option. I might need to just call this view. That’s per 2. Let’s duplicate that view. Let’s edit it. And just watch this. So all I need to do now is go to my visibilities, swap out those pegglers. back to my save view and rightclick and redefine essentially. So, make sure you get the right one. Just redefine. And now I’ve got those two options. Okay. So, very very quick to do save views. I’ll also be making a really nice tutorial. Uh, make sure you check this out on Twin Motion how you can use the configurations to also very interactively demonstrate to your client a number of different design options. Twin Motion obviously takes the rendering to a whole another level. Um, but you know, it’s really cool that you can do this both in Vetworks and Twin Motion. Obviously, Veto Works has the ability to do all the documentation and lay out my sheets with images and viewports and things like PDFs. So, I really love both bits of software and the combination of those two I think is pretty unbeatable. You let me know what you think in the comments. Uh, do you use V dosits and Twin Motion together? If you are a garden designer and you’re not using these two, I would seriously recommend taking a look. They are just a killer combination of software to allow you to visualize in all the beauty with natural plants, lovely shadows, and Twin Motion has the added benefit of being able to kind of make things move around in the wind and do things like change seasonality. Excellent. So, we’re just checking out the garden pack here. Um, as say this is a great little library. If you want to download it from the website, just check out. It’s pretty low cost and I think you’ll agree this will be something that is very very nice for you to use. I’ll probably put this on my members site and include this as one of my free items for members only. So check out the members site of the YouTube channel. It’d be a wonderful to see more of you joining up there as well. Okay, so very very quickly, let’s just finish off this final option. We need a new layer for per 3. And all I need to do now, just make sure the layer heights are correct there, is basically swap out one more time so that I can essentially drag and drop that new pergular into position. So once again, let’s just see how this works with a single page there. And all I need to do is click click replace and then swap out. So apart from some adjustments on position and possibly size. So, I’m going to go for scaling, symmetrical scaling, and just scale that symbol up a bit. So, you know, that’s a really cool thing that you can just scale it up, and it will fit much more nicely to your requirements. Okay, wonderful. So, I should have the ability now to uh change that opacity just so we can see through in the plan view. But, we’ve got that per assigned. Let’s go to our view. Let’s duplicate our perspective view one more time. And I’m just going to adjust the scale one more time there to get that view back. There we go. And now I’ve got three different options all available in Vet Works that I can easily present to my client. Just renaming those save views and just adjusting the visibility uh in the save view or redefining it after I’ve adjusted it normally. So wonderful. So here we go. Let’s just make sure that’s in the right class. Number one. Number two. Number three. I think something’s gone wrong there. So just make sure that you’ve got the right visibility on. There we go. right click and redefine the view just to kind of bring it back as well. Just make sure that you’ve edit those layers, change the scale of them all together and essentially that should work rather nicely. We’ve got three different perglars and we can present those together. So, I really hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. It’s been great fun to make. Do check out my garden pack and as I say, if you are a member, you will get this as a complimentary library. I’ll include this as part of the link for members as well. Okay. So, if you are a garden designer, do reach out to me if you would like to know more about Vet’s teaching and training and also that combination with Twin Motion software. It’s an unbeatable way to design and present your ideas to your clients. It’s also a lot of fun in terms of actually developing the designs as well. You know, drawing these days is such a wonderful thing to do, but it’s very time consuming. And I think, you know, combining this with the best of your CAD skills has got to be a really good skill for you to develop. Okay, so I think we’re nearly there. Had a bit of confusion with the various order of the layers there. I’ve now got my three different save views. There we go. Each one updated nicely. And really just to go show you if you do make mistakes, don’t worry about it too much. You can just update these later on. It’s non-critical and you can easily update those. The main thing was get the right perlet in the right layer. Then it’s easy to turn those on and off. Well, thanks so much for watching everybody. I look forward to seeing you in the next video. Bye-bye. I just wanted to reach out to you and offer my teaching and training services that I offer all over the world via Zoom. I’m an experienced architect with over 20 years experience, but I’ve been a vectorz user my entire career and I really love teaching people from small practices to individuals, whatever level you currently are. I can help you on 2D, 3D, BIM or various visualization workflows. I also really love teaching vectors in combination with things like Twin Motion, Endscape and D5 render for 3D visualization. So, wherever you are in the world, if you’d like to reach out and improve your veter skills, please book a call or drop me an email and I’ll be very, very pleased to help. I look forward to hearing from you soon. [Music]