Precision & Organization | Layout Rooms, Equipment Items in ConnectCAD

When it comes to your AV installations, there are two keys: precision and organization.

ConnectCAD, Vectorworks' signal flow add-on, offers powerful tools to help you streamline your AV and system integration workflows. One of these tools is the Layout Rooms feature, which, along with equipment items, enhances the accuracy and efficiency of creating and managing AV systems.

Layout Rooms in ConnectCAD allow you to create specific spaces for placing racks and equipment, making it easy to manage and organize information. This feature addresses the common problem of maintaining clarity and structure in your AV system designs, particularly in complex setups.

Equipment items represent real-life equipment in your model. This aids in making informed decisions about space and placement and effectively meeting client requirements.

Ultimately, both features ensure better design choices and coordinate your systems to meet client requests — in other words, greater precision and organization.

The Layout Room tool can be accessed via the ConnectCAD Layout toolset. This toolset offers two modes: Rectangle and Polygon.

Double-clicking the Layout Room gives you an added level of control, letting you reshape your spaces with handles. Additionally, Room ID in your Object Info Palette (OIP) links schematic devices and your equipment to a specific room, helping all of your collaborators know the locations of all AV equipment.

3D racks and equipment items can be manually placed within a Layout Room. For automatic placement, if the Location field on a schematic device matches a Room ID, using the Create Equipment command will automatically place your equipment in the desired Layout Room.

Lastly, you can also take advantage of Vectorworks’ 2D/3D hybrid drawing environment. Unchecking “2D Only” in your OIP, for example, transforms a Layout Room into a 3D shape that you can adjust by height or layer wall height. Layout Rooms can also be nested within each other in both 2D and 3D, allowing for the creation of larger rooms with sub-categories. Nested rooms are indicated by a “.” in the Location field of racks, equipment items, and associated schematic devices. With 3D height, Layout Rooms can be placed above or below each other, enabling the stacking of rooms and the racks within them.

The Equipment Item tool in your ConnectCAD Layout toolset creates a default item with parameters such as Make, Model, and Physical Descriptions.

You can also use the Use Symbol option in the OIP to wrap your equipment items with a symbol from the Resource Manager, giving the appearance of a real-life piece of equipment while preserving ConnectCAD functionality.

Once selected in your ConnectCAD Layout toolset, the Create Equipment command prompts a dialog box that lets you select layers from which ConnectCAD devices or specific devices can create equipment.

To further organize your equipment, select “Get 3D Symbols for Equipment …” to cross-check the Resource Manager for matching symbols. This then wraps the equipment item with the symbol.

If you double-click an equipment item, the Edit Mode dialog opens, letting you add images to the front and rear faces of your equipment and devices. Symbols can also be inserted to link specific parameters or record formats — giving you the precision to communicate the precise details of your systems with others.

Lastly, if an equipment item was created using the tool, it can link itself to a schematic device by giving it the same Display Name and checking Link Device Name in the OIP.

As you can see, ConnectCAD’s Layout Rooms and equipment items are indispensable for creating detailed, organized, and efficient AV system designs. Using these features allows you to enhance your workflows, meet client standards, and ensure the successful implementation of AV projects.