Beam Draw 4

Name: Beam Draw 4
SKU: BD4
Availability: InStock

The ultimate tool for visualizing lighting angles and coverage

A lighting designer’s complete solution to previsualize how your light plot will focus. Use Beam Draw to help determine the position, field angle, and focus point for your lighting instruments, and walk into focus knowing you have the angles and coverage you need.

“I can’t ever go back to doing plots without Beam Draw!”

“Beam Draw rocks the house. It’s by far the best $89 I’ve spent in a long time. Thank you so much for writing it!”

“I have been using your Beam Draw plug-in and it changed my life.”

“Thank you for providing this software!!! It’s so great, and it has completely changed the way that I work as an LD!”

For Vectorworks 2018–2020

SKU: BD4 View all: BeamViz, Plug-ins

Version 4.1.11 - October 30, 2018 for Vectorworks 2018–2020

Download Beam Draw 4

Includes a 61-day free trial

Use this installer format with the Vectorworks Plug-In Manager
Full instructions

Professional: $89.00
Student: $14.99
Upgrades from $45.00

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	Interactively draw lighting beams. The beam size and shape adjust as you drag and nudge the beam.
	Adjustable properties include: Position Height, Distance to C-Clamp, Field Angle, Beam Angle, Peak Candela, Face Plane Height, Show/Hide Beam on Floor.
	Completely stand-alone. Beam Draw lets you concentrate on worksheeting your rough plot — save drafting for later. You can use Beam Draw to easily determine ideal instrument placement in AutoPlot, SpotLight, or any blank document.
	Easily convert beam objects into SpotLight lighting devices.
	Use Beam Draw PAR to visualize elliptical beams with any bottle rotation, in both 2D and 3D.
	View the beam’s ellipse in plan view and cone in 3D.
	Focus from any position height to any focus height, even if the light focus up or hits the face plane in an open parabola.
	Visualize shutter cuts. You can drag the shutters right in the drawing!
	View valuable data on how your light focuses.
	Beam Draw Section lets you visualize beam sections in a 2D view. This is also a fully interactive tool. Beam Draw Section will even draw a figure for you, and show you what portion of the section includes the full width of your focus area.
	Beam Draw will let you read photometric data from your symbols, letting you easily try different unit types.
	Beam Draw will detect the Z height of a lighting position below it, but only when you ask!
	Static mode to easily duplicate beams into a system of lights.
	Command to reverse and repeat beams. It even will R&R shutter cuts and bottle rotations.
	If you are working with one system of beams at a time, you can easily channel them, and the data will be transferred when you convert the beams to Spotlight lighting devices.
	Quickly file away beams in a system to their own, hidden layer.
	Includes properties to let you view the beams in a rough plot mode.
	Beam Draw Magic pulls position and channel data from your beams for use on a sheet layer magic sheet. You can even adjust your channel numbers to accommodate similarly focused or reverse-and-repeated systems.

New Features

In addition to 2015 support, Beam Draw 4 includes the following improvements:

Improvements to performance, accuracy, and usability:

Numerous under the hood improvements result in faster and more reliable beams
Redesigned and reorganized Object Info palettes
Improved detection of drags and nudges
Localization improvements

Beam Object improvements:

Discrete Class Control

Discrete class control for each component of the object, including an option to automatically set classes

New Settings for Defaults

New settings preferences for default class and default Move to Layer prefix

Mirror Tool Support

All Beam objects now properly flip when using with the mirror tool and a horizontal or vertical line of reflection

Better Buttons

Get Light Info Data, Pickup Z Height, and Reset Shutters buttons now function on all selected Beam Draw objects

Beam Draw and Beam Draw PAR improvements:

Improved Redraw Modes

“Fixed Focus” for nudging or dragging the instrument location

New Cycle BD Redraw Mode command, which allows you to change redraw modes with a keyboard shortcut

Additional Cut Plane

New Additional Cut Plane parameter, to check coverage at any height. Perfect for checking shots through scenery or under masking

Coverage Map

New Coverage Map feature shows full body or other user-specified coverage in plan view

Cone Edges and Focus Vectors

New Cone Edge Lines option to display lines defining the beam cone in plan view. The cone edge accurately adjusts to shutter cuts and bottle rotations

New Show Focus Vector option to show a line representing the light’s focus

Spotlight Focus Point Integration

New parameter to focus a Beam to an existing Spotlight Focus Point

Adjust Shutters Dialog

New interactive Adjust Shutters dialog uses sliders to control shutter depth and angle, displaying changes right in the drawing, in both 2D and 3D views

Z Height Improvements

Now use the z height to visualize beams above or below the ground plane without adjusting the beam’s position height

Simple 3D Mode

New Simple 3D mode shows only cut planes and cone bounds

NURBS Geometry

3D components drawn with NURBS, resulting in faster and more elegant rendering

Better Visualization of Low Angles

Improved calculations now show accurate shutter cuts and bottle rotations for low angles that create parabolic coverage areas

Improved Render Light

Numerous improvements to the Add Light feature. Adding a rendering light now hides the beam in rendered views

Render lights now appear in the Visualization palette

Overhung Units

New indicator when a light is overhung (negative clamp distance)

When converted to Lighting Devices, overhung units now also affect the 3D component

Improved Rotation Behavior

Beams logically respond to rotate commands, depending on the mode:

- Fixed: Rotates beam (PAR bottles)
- Dynamic: Rotates the focus about the instrument
- Fixed Focus: Rotates instrument about focus

Beam Draw Section improvements:

Improved Utility

Better handling of Focus Area beams that don’t hit the floor
Now works in rotated plan view
Now works with the Reverse and Repeat command — useful for boom shots in plan view or side lights in front elevation

New Options

Both the beam’s origin and hanging location are now drggable
New option to Extend Focus Point to Floor
Added “Flip” figure parameter to the focus area options

Mirror Tool Support

Can now unflip itself if used with mirror tool, including vertical and rotated plan

Menu command improvements:

Move Beams to Layer

Now includes options to select an existing layer, change the layer prefix, and set the visibility for new layers

New option to deselect the Show Beam parameter, converting objects to “rough plot” mode

Convert Beam to Instrument

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Added option to create focus point at the beam’s focus. If a focus point already exists at that location, both the Beam and the Lighting Device will be set to that focus point
Beam Object’s shutters, rotations, and focus points now transfer to Lighting Devices
Overhung lights (Negative clamp distance) translate to the 3D component of Lighting Device
New option to link beams to their corresponding lighting device, which will push beam angles, position height, instrument location, over / underhung status, shutter cuts, bottle rotation, focus point, channel, and purpose, and will pull instrument location, channel, and purpose
Linked beams include buttons to update the beam from the light and to unlink the beam from the light
Now works in 3D views

New Section Beam to Pan

Converts the selected BD Section to a Beam Draw object
Insert at the focus point or instrument position
Specify pan angle

New Update Beams from Focus Pt

Updates beams set to a focus point, when the focus point changes position or height

New Cycle BD Redraw Mode

New command to cycle the Redraw Mode among Fixed, Dynamic, and Fixed Focus

QWho is eligible to use a student license?

In order to use the plug-in at the student rate, you must use the free, watermarked, educational Vectorworks license.

Educators with a standard Vectorworks license must purchase a standard license as well. Please contact us if you would like a time-sensitive demo code for demonstrating a plug-in to your class.

If you have a CAD lab of five or more seats, please contact us to see if you are eligible for a free license.

QWhat happens if I upgrade or switch platforms?

All JBLD plug-ins are platform as well as version independent. You may use your license with any version of Vectorworks from the minimal supported version up.

They are, however, linked to a specific seat of Vectorworks, meaning you may use them with a specific Vectorworks serial number and its subsequent upgrades.

Savvy Series licenses are linked to a specific version of Vectorworks. For example, if you have the 2020 Savvy Subscription Series, it will work in perpetuity with Vectorworks 2020.

QWhen I enter my registration key, the OK button remains grayed out....

If you enter a registration code but the “OK” button remains grayed, please double check the following:

Make sure you have installed the latest version of the plug-in. You can download the current release any time from the Downloads page.
Make sure you are matching the correct registration code to the correct product.
If you purchased a student version (registration begins with “A”), it will only work with an E series, free educational license of VectorWorks. You can purchase an upgrade to a full version of the plug-in.
If copying and pasting in your registration code, make sure there are no spaces or carriage returns at the beginning or end of the field. If you use the arrow key to move to the ends of the field, you may catch the extra characters.
The code is case sensitive.
All “0” are zeros. (Except for the Savvy Section product code, SO.)
Make sure your Vectorworks seat registration is correct. In your plug-in registration, nnnn-nnnn-XXXXXX-nnnn, XXXXXX should match the last six characters of your Vectorworks serial number.

If you have tried all these steps, and your registration code still produces an error, there will be a 5 digit code next to the registration field. Please follow this link and enter it into the troubleshooting formfollow this link and enter it into the troubleshooting form.

If you do not see the error code, make sure you have updated to the latest version, and have entered your user name.

If there is still no error code, you have entered a registration with too many or too few characters.

QWhere are the plug-ins and help installed?

By default, the plug-ins, libraries, and workspaces all get installed in your Vectorworks user data folder.

On the Mac this is: ~/Library/Application Support/Vectorworks/{version number}

On Windows, this is: /users/{user_name}/Application Data/Nemetschek/Vectorworks/{version number}

You can confirm the location that Vectorworks looks for user data. Open Vectorworks preferences (Tools>Options>Vectorworks Preferences…). Switch to the User Folders tab. You will see the setting for your user data folder.

Note, if you are confirming installation via the Plug-in Manager, compiled plug-ins appear in the Built-in tab, not the Third-party tab

Beam Draw 4

The ultimate tool for visualizing lighting angles and coverage

For Vectorworks 2018–2020

New Features

Improvements to performance, accuracy, and usability:

Beam Object improvements:

Discrete Class Control

New Settings for Defaults

Mirror Tool Support

Better Buttons

Beam Draw and Beam Draw PAR improvements:

Improved Redraw Modes

Additional Cut Plane

Coverage Map

Cone Edges and Focus Vectors

Spotlight Focus Point Integration

Adjust Shutters Dialog

Z Height Improvements

Simple 3D Mode

NURBS Geometry

Better Visualization of Low Angles

Improved Render Light

Overhung Units

Improved Rotation Behavior

Beam Draw Section improvements:

Improved Utility

New Options

Mirror Tool Support

Menu command improvements:

Move Beams to Layer

Convert Beam to Instrument

New Section Beam to Pan

New Update Beams from Focus Pt

New Cycle BD Redraw Mode

Reviews

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Purchase Beam Draw 4

Ask a Question

Beam Draw 4

The ultimate tool for visualizing lighting angles and coverage

For Vectorworks 2018–2020

New Features

Improvements to performance, accuracy, and usability:

Beam Object improvements:

Discrete Class Control

New Settings for Defaults

Mirror Tool Support

Better Buttons

Beam Draw and Beam Draw PAR improvements:

Improved Redraw Modes

Additional Cut Plane

Coverage Map

Cone Edges and Focus Vectors

Spotlight Focus Point Integration

Adjust Shutters Dialog

Z Height Improvements

Simple 3D Mode

NURBS Geometry

Better Visualization of Low Angles

Improved Render Light

Overhung Units

Improved Rotation Behavior

Beam Draw Section improvements:

Improved Utility

New Options

Mirror Tool Support

Menu command improvements:

Move Beams to Layer

Convert Beam to Instrument

New Section Beam to Pan

New Update Beams from Focus Pt

New Cycle BD Redraw Mode

Reviews

Login to Add Question

Purchase Beam Draw 4

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