Rossford

NCA, are you just suggesting the old school drafting of key contour lines, 2D poly to 3D poly (guess you can skip a step now and go to contour)? I am so old school, most of my grading is done that way, with the advantage that you don't really need to put in every foot or two contours for bulk areas, but can do it for the detail you need.

Yes, ask away. Every so often I have a brain freeze or something, and when I ask a question, it is amazing how often someone here answers within an hour. I think you will find the VW user base as passionate for VW as any software program out there, and always willing to help.

For me, having the design layers show up first in the drop down menus would be a big improvement to having the sheet layers on top. Or, have separate drop downs for each, maybe. I have developed a template with perhaps a dozen design layers, and as a golf designer, 18 sheet layers, which always show up on top, requiring a scroll. Granted, I could add the sheet layers as I go, but even so, the sheet layers do get populated as you go through the drawing. I also have 200 or more classes with pre-set attributes. My template drawing has exceeded 5MB, which I rectified by NOT downloading loads and loads of pre-loaded resources that I hardly ever use when updating to 2017. Trimming the resource browser to the essentials holds template file size to under 1MB.

Tara replied to me quite quickly, and I am now signed up. Only problem is, after looking at classes I signed up for, I got a bit mixed up and have a few overlaps. I hope that is just to get a general idea of what room size needs to be?

Phil, Understand where you are coming from. However, every year, when my annual revenue is still unknown, but presumed to be at least something, I look at general insurance, e and o insurance, and other costs of doing biz, and paying less than $1000 for three new VW licenses per year is one of my smaller investments/cost of doing business items that I pay for "on the come" as it were. As to transparency and what will we get, I guess we know what we will get for the most part - same GUI, same features, and hopefully, a few new specific upgrades that help us in our field. Sometimes, we get a product that looks the same, but has some "under the hood" improvements, like the graphics package a few years back.....it seems to me that VW likes the Steve Jobs style reveals for drama, though. And, lets face it, around here, come August/September, we seem to like the anticipation too!

If they don't introduce a drainage tool in Landmark this year, I might adapt the irrigation tool to drainage design.

It probably sounds a bit snotty, but the renewal prices are pretty low, even for small businesses, aren't they? My business has slowed way down, as most have, and it is more affordable than most packages. In addition, nearly every software package seems to be going that way to get a constant revenue stream, so VW is not an outlier here. That they even have discounts for re-upping every 2-3 years is amazing, and if it went away in favor or forcing us (more or less) to upgrade every year, they still would be in the mainstream, I think. I also consider the VW community here.....I figure by paying the upgrade fee each year, I may be keeping the cost of improvements down. I realize some have become frustrated at the sometimes slow pace of fixes and features, but come on folks, the Wright Brothers didn't come out of the gate with a 777....It took over 200 years to get there. It is hard to visualize, but how much would reduced constant revenue affect developments that we all crave? If a small firm is struggling to pay a few hundred per license each year, it may have too much of a cost driven mentality, IMHO. Or, perhaps needs to rethink the entire business model. It's only money, not that expensive, etc. Affordability is given as a reason by VW that their base has grown from 500K to over 2M users) so many others seem to find value. Short version, I renew each year without thinking too much about it. And, yes, right after paying that fee, it reminds me I should use the VSS services more often.......

Okay, spent the last hour comparing the differences of 2D poly-Convert to 3D poly-Simplify to 2D poly-Convert to Nurbs - Convert to 3D poly. In the end, same number of steps and using VW suggested values for simplify 3D polys, similar, but not exact number of vertices. Don't think it would have any benefit in reducing vertices, but keeping enough to not have VW skip over some valleys when converting to site model. Will try smoothing angle after lunch and report back if on one else has any answers....good use of a Friday afternoon, no?

Can someone give their experiences with the setting called "smoothing interval" or "3D Grid spacing" on the right side of the site model settings box on the 2D view/Top Plan view of generated contours? Can't say I recall ever setting those other than what was standard, but maybe they have an effect? Also, I haven't tried it yet, but someone recently mentioned converting the 2D polys to nurbs rather than 3D polys, which creates fewer vertices. Does that method affect final results. And, the help manual actually suggests trying Draped Surfaces to smooth site models, but I haven't tried that either....stick with the tried and somewhat true 2D to 3D then simplify 3D poly.

I think the resolution was to: 1. add spot elevations and/or small contour segments halfway between other contours in valleys, etc. where the truncations tend to occur, and 2. Pray for a service pack or upgrade in 2018 that helps with this problem.

I am old enough I just dusted off my old transit to do a little surveying and manual data entry for a project (about 2 AC) earlier this year. You can rent those, too and low tech enough that they really aren't hard to run. That said, it reminds me of the partner I had waaaaay back in college surveying course. The instructor had told us the old levels has a practical distance limit, due to old glass (these were so old they may have been used by Lewis and Clark.....) She went first and kept telling me to move closer, the glass wasn't good enough to shoot that far, over and over, until I was only 100 feet away. So I ask if the focus is working and she replies, "Focus?" LOL she didn't realize the level could be focused.

Loved the Chicago one, both for what the conference was, and also a chance to visit my childhood home town. I love Baltimore, and will probably attend for the combo gathering and setting as well. That said, I understand both the September logic, and, perhaps once every 18 months or bi-annual would make it more likely for regulars to attend anyway.

Thanks VW. This is really useful and I have been wanting it for years. What was it they said at the Summit? Something like a lot of user requests are more like this one, and less for wild new features. This fits the bill.

Art, Thanks and helpful. Will experiment and use. However, it does appear those offset polys are all still the same distance apart, no? If the others were 15 feet apart, I would like to be able to stretch that section to 20 or 25 feet apart to vary the slope of the contours. Is that possible?

Art, "+1 It is already possible by using the reshape tool for 2D polylines but I can imagine that a bit finer control may be welcome." What I need is to be able to stretch multiple parallel 2D polys. Unless I am missing something, I have to stretch one at a time. Say I want one side of a mound I am drawing to be 5 to 1 but another to be 6:1. When I offset an existing poly, I need to adjust the one side, copy, and then adjust that one too. I would prefer to grab nodes on the side I want to stretch and pull them all out to 6 to 1, if that makes sense.

1. - WYSIWYG, true type font in the Text menu. If I want to select, say "Toledo" font, why can't the list of fonts show what it might look like when I scroll through? 2. Import Mr. SID files, so often used by GIS dept. in cities. 3. General GUI graphic upgrade. Without changing tools or functions, why can't the area look a little more up to date, similar to Windows 10, etc., with different background colors than 1990's grey, tiles instead of floating tool icons, and other 2017 look? How can VW be the hippest design program around without a hipper GUI, to match it's logos, etc.? 4. - Not forgotten at meeting, but Landmark needs a drainage tool not unlike the new irrigation tool. It almost seems like the calculation functionality is there with just a few tweaks. 5. - Would like a "handle" to be able to stretch only portions of group of 2D polyline in Bezier mode. My work flow often starts with offsetting several of these for landforms and grading (Eric Gilbey demonstrated this basic technique in a VW video last year) However, the "magic" of grading is wobbling slopes, with some areas stretched to soften slopes, some steeper. Using only off set tool, all slopes are 5 to 1 (or whatever) and it's a pain to stretch each one individually to drag out a slope. Seems this type of functionality is available in NURBS maybe? Could be used in 2D, no? Thanks for listening.....

Went on an extended road trip after the sessions, but wanted to come back and say, nice job and it was totally worth going. I enjoyed meeting old and new VW friends and getting my questions answered. Recommend you get energized next year, if it is at all possible. Many rumors about next year's site, but seems like somewhere west (makes sense to rotate from East, to Midwest to West to make it easier to attend) I was lucky enough to sit next to J Wilson at the opening keynote. He helped with some laptop issues, as well. Was watching the complaints on this board come in and had to comment "I couldn't do your job." Just as they were explaining how 70% of upgrades and improvements come from users, some complaints came in that they don't listen to us.....etc.

Just got an email to sign up for the Monday training sessions. Still not a lot of detail, but Landmark is Landmark and I am sure I will learn a lot......

Yeah, I would love a technical explanation of why that happens. A 3D DTM point is a point, no? Why would some be harder for the computer to recognize than others? BTW, my chops usually come in the valleys, too.

Jim, Service pack or VW 2017?

Jim, Sorry, should have clarified, but I always export to pdf and place in my project file, then print from that file, either at the office or Kinko's, etc. I haven't used Print as pdf as a direct print from VW to my HP T120 or 8610 printers. It may be a font issue. I recently decided to get a bit funky with a new font to update the look of my drawings, but there are probably many styles imported from 2015 I hadn't changed. I am aware of the dpi setting and usually change it to 150 or 200, and have seen the difference. Maybe we forgot to do that. Will check. Thanks.

My staff and I have recently noticed that when we convert drawings to pdf for printing in VW 2016, file size is huge, but if we back save to VW 2015 and then convert it is much smaller. A recent 11 x 17 drawing was 17MB in 16, and 1.5MB in 2015, for example. My printer couldn't handle the file size, and even down at the printer, this seemingly simple drawing took 20 minutes to load on their bigger computers. We haven't knowingly changed our work flow. Has anyone else noticed this and have knowledge of why, and/or slightly easier work arounds? Thanks in advance.

I have been told that VW works faster if the origin of the drawing is 0-0, not thousands/millions of miles away. So, even when I have geo reference, I don't use it, at the moment. Will use the next project I get with GIS to experiment a bit.

Have used the technique of inserting small segments as described by Benson and the video capture. Would note that it seems just as important in the proposed design as well. If we just draw contours in 2D polylines, convert, simplify, etc., we never get the results we want where there is a ridge or a valley. We always need to add a spot, or small line with an "XX.50" or similar elevation between 2 contours to get the proposed contours to read the way we are used to seeing them.

Benson, Don't know that I have ever gotten a NURBS drawing in ACAD. Is that common? Most of mine come in as 2D polygons or 3D polygons. Whether polygons or nurbs, can you select all and compose, or do you have to select each individual contour? No one above mentioned the "Simplify 3D polygon" tool which is great for reducing the number of vertices.