Kevin McAllister

Are you rendering in the Design Layers or on a Sheet Layer? Are you changing the Renderworks background or the editor background (in the Vectorworks Preferences)? It sort of sound like you're changing the editor background, perhaps using the Preferences>Display>Black Background setting. For rendering, you need to actually set the background using View>Set Renderworks Background. Are you able to post a screen shot? Kevin

Can you post a screen shot of what you're trying to do or the result you are getting? There are two ways to create sheet layer viewports from the clip cube. One is to right click on a highlighted face of the clip cube and choose Create Section Viewport. This creates a flat section view. The other is to activate the clip cube and then choose View>Create Viewport. This creates a 3d view with a section cut through it. Kevin

This is good to know. When ungrouping a Simple Stair it decomposes into extrudes, which is what I would expect from a PIO. It section and shows in the clip cube properly too. Great information. Funny that I had to add the Simple Stair to my workspace manually to be able to use it. Kevin

That's an interesting approach. I like that the stair can still be edited in the solid subtraction. In testing this method I found that it exposed the empty geometry of the Stair PIO. Did you model some custom geometry to account for that? Kevin Example stairs cut with a solid subtraction - stringer / solid / concrete - note the open sides and stringer that's hollow when cut. Clearly you would need to more to make them usable in real world situations.

I think this is directly related to my positioning wish here - I added detail about this thread to it. The Data Tag should have similar positioning option to a Callout. Kevin ( @Jim Wilson I leave it to you to decide if these should be combined)

Here's another issue related to this. There needs to be separation of the tags relationship to the object being tagged and the "alignment" of the tag much like you can separately control those two items with a callout. This other thread details the issue - Tags shouldn't mirror/flip. It should be possible to keep a tag's orientation and have it appear on the opposite side of the object its tagging. Here's an image showing what I mean - The callout (top) behaves as it should, the Data Tag does not. Kevin

Just for reference, here's a labelled version of my image. KM

I would contact tech support and/or bug submit the issue (link at the bottom of this page) so it gets documented. @KIvanov may also be able to help. Kevin

Select the model, convert to NURBS (Command Option N), ungroup, and use Model>3d Power Pack>Stitch and Trim Surfaces. You'll get three solids. The problem pieces are actually on the other side of the model. The Push/Pull tool will work fine afterwards. Kevin

Ungrouping any PIO in 3D should yield proper geometry - solids. It should not result in geometry that is unfriendly to VW. Here's an example where a user's problem should have been able to be solved by ungrouping a Stair - Unfortunately Stairs ungroup into meshes, probably the most user unfriendly object possible in VW. (Its also the reason stairs don't appear properly when using the clip cube or clip cube viewports, but that's another story.) Thanks, Kevin

I'm not sure there's an easy way to do this. I was going to suggest making a rectangular version of your stair using the Stair Tool, ungrouping it twice to get the 2d and 3d elements, and then slicing it using the Split Tool but the 3d portion ungroups into a mesh which isn't slice-able. Kevin

Until they fix the beta process there will always be bugs that aren't caught. I suspect the quality is great because they have a much more open development and beta process that many users participate in. This is a great improvement. But it is super buggy so far. I see all sorts of display issues on sheet layers at the moment. Feature development needs much more input from a wide variety of users. There are just too many different Vectorworks workflows to address in development without it. Then the features need to be tested and there needs to be a process for making improvements and bug fixes based on that testing. Essentially VW2019 is actually VW2020 but with an official process to back it up. Kevin

Is the EAP object a solid? I'm not sure that it would be if its formed from a 3d polygon. That might be the issue. As @markdd asked, can you share the object? Kevin

This was recently posted on the Maxon Youtube channel - Its interesting to see some of his techniques visualizing architecture in C4D. Some of his advice may also hold for the Cinerender engine in VW. Definitely worth checking out. Kevin

VW2015 and VW2019 are very different in how they use hardware. 2GB of VRam may not be enough to run an additional monitor with the VGM upgrades. What is the navigation graphics dropdown menu set to in Vectorworks>Preferences>Display? You might have to change it to Best Compatibility. Are you also using Multi View Panes? Kevin