Generating AI images

Command	Path
AI Visualizer	Model Window > Palettes > Web Palettes

Artificial intelligence can be a valuable tool when you want to quickly explore a variety of styles, colors, shapes, backgrounds, and obtain general inspiration during the design process. You can base the generated images on an existing Vectorworks drawing, trying out new looks more quickly than you could by changing the model's textures, lighting, and rendering settings. Alternatively, you can provide only a text prompt to generate a unique image that's not based on any existing drawing, allowing you to explore concepts quickly. With the AI visualizer, you can generate multiple images in minutes.

Once you have obtained an image, you could consider using it not just for design inspiration or client presentations, but also as the basis of a texture, image prop, plant image, image background, or to populate designs with people or items to add realistic touches. 

The AI visualizer quickly produces an image based on a Vectorworks file and/or text prompts, but it is not a substitute for creating a detailed rendering of a drawing. This feature does not generate any actual Vectorworks objects that can be used in a 3D model, and cannot be used to apply render modes, textures, lights, or other effects to a drawing.

The AI visualizer is processed on Vectorworks Cloud Services, and is available only with a subscription or as a benefit of Vectorworks Service Select. 

To generate AI images:

Select the command to open the web palette. The web palette can remain open while you work in Vectorworks, which allows you to change the Vectorworks images used as the source for image generation. 

Click to show/hide the parameters.Click to show/hide the parameters.

Tips for writing a good prompt

Use clear and precise language, and include specific details for the best results. In addition to the tips below, visit the AI Visualizer topic on the Vectorworks Forum for a dynamic discussion of this evolving technology.

The prompt may include information such as:

Image style: watercolor, pencil sketch, realistic, crayon, photographic

Style of the objects in the image: modern, Mayan, brutalist, art deco, or even the name of a well-known designer whose style you want to explore

Type of project: interior, exterior, art gallery, coffee shop, park, apartment tower

Colors and materials: red metal, vertical wood siding, glass, sandstone pavers, brick

Setting or location: meadow, urban, beach, forest, the moon

Season, weather, time of day: autumn, summer, sunny, fog, night, golden hour

Lighting conditions: indirect amber lighting, dappled, light coming through a window

Style of furniture, plants, and other things that populate the scene: contemporary curved sofa, palm trees, Mission style dining room table

And many more; this list is not exhaustive. Try it and see what works for your own images.

Start with a simple prompt, and test it with a few generations of the image, to get an understanding of how the AI interprets the prompt.

Once you understand what kinds of results the current prompt generates, add more details or change some of the existing text to steer AI in the direction needed. Test multiple times each time you revise the prompt, to understand how the updated prompt has changed the outcome.

While the prompt should be clear and specific, avoid naming specific brands or other items the AI engine may not know; instead describe the object in detail.

Word order matters; by default, the AI engine gives more weight to text earlier in the prompt.

Add parentheses to emphasize a part of the prompt. Multiple parentheses deepen the emphasis. Example: "Watercolor, French country house, ((garden)), (pond)" provides greater emphasis on the garden, and then on the pond, than a prompt without the parentheses.

Usage examples

Using a Vectorworks image

You can use a Vectorworks design layer view, or a selected bitmap object or sheet layer viewport within the Vectorworks file as the source when you generate using a Vectorworks image. Changing the prompt and other settings yields a wide range of results, all based on the original design. In each of the image sets below, the original Vectorworks image in the top left was used to generate additional looks just by changing the text prompt.

By changing the text prompt, you can turn abstracts shapes in a Vectorworks file into completely different objects.

These abstract twisted shapes can be the inspiration for glass vases or for buildings, depending on the text prompt you provide

Combine settings to control the variation among images.

To preserve the geometry of this image created from a text prompt only, while creating a new look, a bitmap object was created from the generated image on the left and then selected as the Vectorworks image source. Creativity was set to 0, and Generate similar was selected. The prompt was changed from "pencil sketch" to "watercolor."

Text prompt only

Generating images from a text prompt only can provide general design inspiration at the beginning of a project. A simple prompt generates basic images to start the process. 

The prompt was "realistic, modern, gallery interior"

The prompt was "watercolor, kitchen, white cabinets"

More detailed prompts and a higher Creativity setting can lead to more elaborate results. Adjust the prompt between generations to help shape the output. 

The detailed prompts that generated these images were more than 30 words each. The description of the ceiling was changed between images, from "in the shape of a cave" for the first image to "in the shape of a cave, stepped with indirect lights" for the others

These graphics were all generated using the same detailed 35-word prompt and 100% Creativity

Notice

To use the AI Visualizer you must agree not to use the Model or Derivatives of the Model:

In any way that violates any applicable national, federal, state, local or international law or regulation;

For the purpose of exploiting, harming or attempting to exploit or harm minors in any way;

To generate or disseminate verifiably false information and/or content with the purpose of harming others;

To generate or disseminate personal identifiable information that can be used to harm an individual;

To defame, disparage or otherwise harass others;

For fully automated decision making that adversely impacts an individual’s legal rights or otherwise creates or modifies a binding, enforceable obligation;

For any use intended to or which has the effect of discriminating against or harming individuals or groups based on online or offline social behavior or known or predicted personal or personality characteristics;

To exploit any of the vulnerabilities of a specific group of persons based on their age, social, physical or mental characteristics, in order to materially distort the behavior of a person pertaining to that group in a manner that causes or is likely to cause that person or another person physical or psychological harm;

For any use intended to or which has the effect of discriminating against individuals or groups based on legally protected characteristics or categories;

To provide medical advice and medical results interpretation;

To generate or disseminate information for the purpose to be used for administration of justice, law enforcement, immigration or asylum processes, such as predicting an individual will commit fraud/crime commitment (e.g. by text profiling, drawing causal relationships between assertions made in documents, indiscriminate and arbitrarily-targeted use).

Additional license information for stable diffusion can be found here:https://github.com/easydiffusion/stable-diffusion/blob/main/LICENSE-MODEL