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panta rhei

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Posts posted by panta rhei

  1. ODBC is another one of those technologies that it's easy to leverage on the Windows platform, like OLE, visual basic and .net.

    Just for your information: ODBC has nothing to do with the operating system.

    In my opinion, data sets and and table sizes for most architectural title blocks are probably appropriate .xml rather than a relational or flat database...provided that a reasonable interface is available to cut out schema management by a typical user.

    If a relational database is not required, then there is no need for a drawing register database at all. In a small firm doing houses and similar small jobs to private clients there are few benefits.

  2. I always feel insecure when I have to deal with cowboys who carry weapons.

    As you should be.

    Why on earth should I give you, of all people, any more free advice?

    I have yet to see any advice from you at all on this board. I am beginning to doubt you know the first thing about what you claim. You act some l33t script kiddie who wasn't loved enough.

    Go troll somewhere else punk

    Such fine folks, these Texans.

  3. It's not quite that simple... But the key point is that FileMaker Pro can send the DO SCRIPT AppleEvent to VectorWorks. This means that one can run a VectorScript that resides in a FMP database.

    Also a folder can, via AppleScript, tell FMP to run a script (which runs a script and so on.)

    I run all my utility, development, auditing and housekeeping scripts from FMP, even some obscure production scripts which I don't want to install in users' systems & workspaces. (Some can do serious damage if tried at home.)

  4. With regard to Classes we're using Uniclass (which is based on ISO 13567). And we've steered clear of BIM so far. Having tried it in house on one project one of the main stumbling blocks was actually the difficulty and workarounds needed when modelling the kinds of constructions we do in 3D. Which are not complex constructions. They're just not houses, which Vectorworks' dynamic tools generally assume you're constructing. Rather they're multi-storey blocks of flats.

    I've had to (or need to) create replacements for practically every NNA tool, in addition to creating the ones entirely missing! Door, window, floor, beam, column, ceiling, space ? even tiling. Precast sandwich elements and stairs are on the to-do list.

  5. I have the same complaints you seem to have about Autocad. To make vectorworks half as useful as AutoCAD it takes twice as many steps. That just isn't very productive.

    I have no complaints about using AutoCAD, only the crappy data I receive from AutoCAD users. However, if I used it, I would not try to use it the same way as VectorWorks. Your statement ?to make vectorworks half as useful as AutoCAD? shows, I'm sorry to say, that you don't know what you're talking about: there ain't no such thing as Usefulness.

    Your problem obviously is that you try to emulate AutoCAD in VW, but that just isn't very productive. Nine times out of ten, the answer to AutoCAD devotees asking ?how? is ?you don't, because you don't need to?. This issue is the one out of ten.

    There are indeed situations where it would be very good to have a specific class that would inherit the attributes of the class of the symbol instance. Note that it should not (as you suggested) apply to the entire symbol, which may have tens or hundreds of components in several classes for both 2D and 3D.

    I'm sure that AutoCAD is a much better AutoCAD than VW; after all, it is the weapon of choice of millions of draughtsmen and probably does a wonderful job in draughting. Wouldn't know and couldn't care less.

  6. Advice sought.

    I have been in contact with a number of former VW users who might be willing to repent in order to have access to my suite of add-ons. At the same time I am, pro bono, helping someone whose last contact with VectorWorks was VW 9. He finds 2009 incomprehensible, dreadful, AutoCAD-like program for propeller-head engineers, with nothing to do with the simple elegance of MiniCAD. (Mind you, he's not the only one I know who thinks the same way.)

    Would any recovered non-upgraders be willing to share their experiences? Give pointers to a seven or twelve step program or self-help guides? A list of things that have changed?

    It seems that I can't tell these people that it'll all be hunky dory.

  7. Apparently I was still thinking the AutoCAD way of doing things where you go to paperspace 1st (VW sheet layer) to draw the viewport rectangle, and then the model space (VW design layer) automatically appears within the rectangle. The advantage of the VW way appears that you can draw the boundaries of your proposed viewport first (in the design layer), and then make minor crop adjustments in the sheet layer if needed.

    That is one of the advantages. The main advantage, however, is that in VW there is not just one ?model space?; rather, each design layer is a separate one.

    Typically layers are stories of a building, but in landscape design eg:

    - cadastral plan

    - detailed survey

    - aerial photo

    - existing buildings on site

    - reference & context

    - existing vegetation

    - existing other things

    - demolition

    - proposed vegetation

    - proposed other things

    - terrain model

    and so on, each on a separate layer. Drawings are put together by selecting which layers & classes are shown in each viewport.

  8. Right. Thanks, bonus & Ray.

    Now, my friend (the design architect of the project) only works in millimetres. Tomorrow she's likely to get the file into VW and in due course & ripeness of time she'll send The Design to this drafting service architect with a bigger CAD-program.

    Is AutoCAD able to register & scale the data? (They're working in ?real world? x/y coordinates, ie. state projection.)

  9. Peter,

    I have tested in VW2009 and the problem is resolved, as follows:

    Vestigia terrent. NNA staff members have lied about IFC-related issues before (on record). There is no reason to believe that this would not be another blatant lie.

  10. A dear, old friend of mine has a problem. She's not willing to participate in this forum, so I'm transmitting & filtering (including reformulating) some of her concerns, in the hope of advice.

    Today we discussed importing AutoCAD files. Technical issues aside:

    ?Why do these AutoCAD users claim that they use real-world coordinates, if they cannot define the unit??

    - Another architect she is supposed to work with sent her a site plan. She imported it and found that in scale 1:200 the site was smaller than a finger nail. I explained that obviously the architect had used metres, not millimetres and that she shoud have told VW to use metres, too. But ?how was I supposed to know that??

    -- How was she?

    -- When the other architect sends her floor plans etc, are they going to be in metres or millimetres and how is she supposed to know?

    --- If an AutoCAD unit can be a millimetre, a metre or a light year, where's the real world in AutoCAD world?

  11. The ability to create arbitrary IFC entities is, in this respect, one of VW's best features and greatest assets in the future (if any.) Having said that, yes, it is quite pointless to require the user to attach the standard property set if and when he or she has nothing specific to say.

    (By arbitrary I mean that one can create the geometry with any means and then at the end decide what it will be. The workarounds users of some competing programs are resorting to are hilarious. However, there are pitfalls...)

  12. Ah well, I guess pianists who accept one insult (the baby grand) are inclined, so to speak, to accept another one just the same. I dare not to think what they are supposed to play... (Sorry, I have a musician in the family.)

    Anyway, with a fixed 2D part such a PIO shouldn't be too hard to write. Hopefully you find someone ? unless you decide to write it yourself.

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