Kevin McAllister
-
Posts
5,158 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Articles
Marionette
Store
Posts posted by Kevin McAllister
-
-
Glad to help. This is something that catches me all the time. "Show only black and white" is a great feature, it often saves me from colour overload when I import Autocad files from associates.
But why it affects the annotations associated with the viewport puzzles me.... as does why its buried under Advanced....
Kevin
-
I wish we could redefine what tool the space bar defaults to in boomerang mode.
Currently it is set to the Pan tool but I wish I could reassign it to the Flyover tool. I almost never pan (I use the scrolling feature of my Magic Mouse) but constantly need to reorient the view with the Flyover tool.
Another option would be if it defaulted to the Pan tool in Top/Plan and on Sheet Layers, but to the Flyover tool in 3D views.
Kevin
-
I know what you mean.
I think a possible solution would be an option to automatically generate the 2D portion of a hybrid symbol. It's options would be much like those in the Resource Browser for generating thumbnails of symbols (choose your view and your rendering mode).
Kevin
-
I wish for dynamic clipping planes for working within the modelling environment like this -
I am currently modelling a rosette style scaffolding system that sits diagonally across a set of concrete risers in a stadium. The initial layout was the easy part. Figuring out the shorter uprights as the scaffolding crosses the risers was a little harder but by far the most complicated task is sorting out where diagonal bracing can go. I have set up various design layer sections for important lines of uprights and have a complicated group of classes for removing various scaffolding pieces but the repetitive nature of the scaffold elements makes things pretty hard to discern.
If we had dynamic clipping planes the whole task would be so much simpler. I could dynamically drag across and see all of the interactions so easily.
Kevin
(Note that the software in my example sells for under $500? If I wanted to be greedy, I'd also ask for collision detection :-) )
-
I don't have Vectorworks in front of me at the moment, but if memory serves me correctly many of the detailing tools have a 3D version of the tool nested below the 2D version on the Tool Box. There is definitely a 3D I-beam tool as an example.
Kevin
-
Are other colours showing up in your viewport? It may be set to black and white (accessed by clicking the Advanced radio button in the OIP when the viewport is selected).
KM
-
There was another thread recently where it was pointed out that Unified View is missing from Vectorworks Fundamentals. If this is true (I am running Designer so I don't know) then serious 3D work would be hard if you only added Renderworks.
A few years ago I upgraded from Spotlight to Designer and have never looked back.....
Kevin
-
I like Chris' idea but I also agree that many other improvements are needed. I can't count the number of times I've grouped and ungrouped simple 3D objects just so I can centre them by entering the XY coordinates in the OIP.
Kevin
-
To have the viewports saved as rendered when you save a file go to File>Document Settings>Document Preferences and check the "Save Viewport Cache" checkbox.
KM
-
Definitely. And beyond that, shouldn't numeric values (ie. the offset distance with the offset tool) show up when you tab through the heads up display?
KM
-
Ha. I remember that debate.
Mike, if the oval tool draws an accurate ellipse as you say (and as I've always assumed), its an "Ellipse Tool" and technically doesn't do what the original post asks for :-)
Kevin
-
bcd,
I originally started there, but the pleats of the curtain object taper to a straight line along the top edge of the curtain, so the resulting corrugated material is thinner at the top than at the bottom when viewed from the side. Did you find a way to get around this?
Kevin
-
True enough. In my case I had already done both those things.
KM
-
The end result of my explorations were pretty successful. The original file size was about 37.2 mb. By rebuilding the 3 symbols and purging a few unused ones I brought the file size down to 13.4 mb. That's a huge savings in a file that only has vector based geometry.
The leading culprits were actually generic solids. Some of the geometry had been brought in from a Parasolid file and imported in that form. The geometry was pretty simple and easily rebuilt as extrudes, shrinking the file size.
Kevin
-
I was trying to find a way to improved the efficiency of a 3D corrugated material I modelled for a project. Along the way I discovered some things I though I would share in case they are helpful to others.
The main tip is extruding a NURBS curve using Tapered Extrude from the Modelling Menu and setting the taper angle to zero. I bet many of you have tried using Extrude with a NURBS curve and gotten the illegal objects error message. For whatever reason, Tapered Extrude works. This approach is slightly simpler than using the Loft Surface tool.
The resulting Tapered Extrude is pretty efficient and when converted to NURBS forms a single surface.
Kevin
-
I've been dissecting a file to find out why its so big. The file has no textures, bitmap graphics or viewport caches. Essentially its all 2d and 2d vector based objects yet it is 25mb in size. I started deleting things with a test version of the file to see what objects visibly affected file size. It turned out that the majority of the file size could be attributed to 3 symbols (about 16mb). It was a great learning experience and let for me to wish the following -
- all resources displayed in the Resource Browser should have a size associated with them.
- when high size geometry is created using various functions Vectorworks should give you a warning.
Vectorworks file sizes seem huge at times and mine are only small design projects. I can't imagine how big the file for a 10 story building might be.
Kevin
-
Are your layers set to different scales? If they are, Vectorworks will only let you modify ones in the same scale as the active layer.
I would try posting your file or a screen shot, it might help you to get proper advice.
KM
-
I would love this.
KM
-
I did a little experimenting and was surprised by the results. Is your PDF still a PDF Page in the Object Info Palette? My tests showed that a PDF only shows up as a blank rectangle in OpenGL and Final Renderworks unless I ungroup it. When its ungrouped the bitmap part seems to convert to a low res proxy but then its visible in OpenGL and Final Renderworks.
Kevin
-
I wish for proper support for text lists in Vectorworks, including -
- support for bulleted lists
- support for numbered lists
- the ability to control indent between the bullet and the text
- the ability to control the indent in relation to the bullet on the second (and any additional) line of text when the first line wraps onto more than one line)
- support for Vectorworks Text Styles within the list framework
- support for text lists within Callouts
- the ability to use Markers as bullets
The irony here is that the support forum can easily do lists :-)
Kevin
- support for bulleted lists
-
Tad,
I think this is actually intentional. Vectorworks assumes the elements on the duplicated layer are related and want to be in the associated Viewports. It would be a nice thing to bypass at times (ie. hold down a modifier key to disable the auto linking when creating a duplicate layer) but I'm not sure I would want it to go away....
Kevin
-
Jim, I think there is a problem with non-US versions seeing the updates. As a Canadian user, I've downloaded both service packs for VW2012 myself, since "Check for updates" doesn't see them.
As an observation, Nemetzchek is generally inconsistent as to how the service packs are released. Sometimes they are announced in these forums, other times in a Vectorworks Dispatch, sometimes on Planet Vectorworks and sometimes I hear from my distributor. The announcement never seems to happen consistently across all sources at the same time. It would be great if there was a standardized way of announcing them.
Kevin
-
I've often suspected that certain crashes are caused by the Autosave. Especially when the system hangs while rendering Sheet Layer Viewports. But its not a behaviour I've been able to replicate to file a bug submit.
KM
-
I would tend to avoid moving the origin ever. Files seem to do weird, non-repeatable things after doing it. I always move the objects relative to the origin instead. You will also soon discover that the 3D origin is fixed, it is only the 2D origin you are moving anyway.
Ultimately the only way I've found to clean things up is to cut and paste into a new file. Depending on your file, this may not be a quick process.
Kevin
PDF Batch Export Crash
in General Discussion
Posted
In my experience its likely a corrupt object (often text or viewport). The best way to troubleshoot it is to batch PDF by process of elimination (ie. batch process the first two sheets, then the first three etc.) to find out where the process is stalling. The other thing you might try is turning off Autosave.
Kevin