Kevin McAllister

I experimented a bit with your file. The problem is when you select everything and convert to NURBS, its creating NURBS curves from the 3D polygons not NURBS surfaces (not sure why that is, seems like a bug to me to convert a poly "surface" to a NURBS curve). Try this - - select each individual strip of your object, one at a time, and choose Model>Add Solids. It will work for all of the strips but one which seems to have a hidden geometry issue of some sort. - Select each individual strip and choose Modify>Convert>Convert to NURBS. Each strip will convert to a group of NURBS surfaces which will now unfold. - As for the one strip that won't Add together, you can convert them individually (Modify>Convert>Convert to NURBS as a group, then select each NURBS curve and choose Model>Create Surface from Curves). After that, they can be unfolded like the others. Unfortunately they don't unfold into a beautiful connected pattern, but rather a scattered group of shapes. From experience unwrapping complicated crystal shapes involves a lot of manual alignment to get a foldable flat pattern. You might have better luck with something like Rhino or Touchcad if you need to do a lot of these. Kevin

There's an amazing amount of wasted space in that dialog box (yes, I know the second pane is actually the longer one). Generally there is a lot of wasted space in the Vectorworks interface. When you see what can fit into the Cinema 4D interface as an example, its clear Vectorworks needs an overhaul. Kevin

Matt, This is totally doable. The secret is that you need to set the viewport's background render setting to "hidden line" and the foreground render setting to "none" then update the viewport. When you edit the annotations the paint bucket option in the Polygon tool will create shapes as you expect. Hold down shift if you want to add to a shape. When you're done creating your shapes you can change the render settings for the viewport back to anything you want. Cheers, Kevin

Ha, thanks Jonathan. Much appreciated. Though I'd scanned all the preference tabs I assumed it would be under Display. Cheers, Kevin

Somehow this preference got toggled on so now when I switch sheet layers the zoom position jumps around. I've searched everywhere and can't seem to locate the preference option to change it back. Does anyone know where it is? Thanks, Kevin

Mike, Thanks for the tip. It would be nice if back slash key toggled Screen and Layer plane modes as well as allowing for Automatic. Kevin

In my opinion this is a bug. I often get caught by this. (I also doesn't set textures by class when you choose "Make all attributes by class" from the pull down in the Attributes Palette.) Kevin

Thanks Dave. I had wondered if that were true but the implementation seems inconsistent. The custom texture I was having trouble with had Object Attribute Color, Metallic Reflectivity, Image Based Transparency and no Bump. Essentially I was creating a texture like a grating. It wouldn't allow for translations, rotations and scaling yet it needed to and should have. Honestly these options should always be available since, as you say, it doesn't matter for some textures. Inadvertently blocking the options in situation where they may be necessary is not ideal. Kevin

Perhaps, though I've found the "automatic" mode weak if you're trying to draw some 2D guidelines. Many smart cursor snaps and cues that you would normally have access to don't show up unless you force it into screen mode. Kevin

Christiaan, See the "Fingerprinting" thread a few below this one. I suspect that's what may have happened. Kevin

I posted this question in a thread about a week ago. My distributor posed the question to Nemetzchek and here is my understanding of what it means - - Vectorworks library files are fingerprinted and have been since Vectorworks 2010. - Vectorworks 2012 is the first version to have a warning dialog when you open a fingerprinted file. - On a Mac, the word FINGERPRINTED appears next to the file name in the title bar of the drawing window when you are working with a fingerprinted file. - Any file created from a library file (ie. open a library file and then choose save as, give it a new name and use it as the basis to create your own drawing) carries the same fingerprint. - Fingerprinting identifies which modules are needed to use the file (ie. I don't think Fundamentals can open a file that is fingerprinted for Spotlight, Architect, Designer etc.). - The fingerprint apparently does not propagate when you import a resource from a Library or other fingerprinted file (ie. importing a symbol through the Resource Browser) unlike the Educational Watermark. - You can cut and paste the elements from a fingerprinted file into a new file and save it to remove the fingerprinting. In my case I had somehow "fingerprinted" one of my working files for a project. I've never started anything from a Library file that I know of so its a bit of a mystery to me how it happened. Kevin

I agree that the interface needs improvement, however that doesn't solve my immediate challenges. The enabling / disabling of the Scale, Rotation, Offset H and Offset V seems to be related to how a texture is built. As an example, if I edit and add a Bump Shader to a texture that previously had these options greyed out suddenly they become active. Is there a list of which texture attributes affect whether an applied texture can be scaled, rotated, offset etc.? All this trial and error is time consuming and wasteful. Kevin

After having worked with Vectorworks 2012 for a few days I suspect that you may be unhappy with only 256mb of video ram. My Macbook Pro has 512mb of video ram and seems fine for most things. However a couple of large imported PDFs and some geometry heavy models have caused some strobing with the redraws. Kevin

Hello, I am a long time Vectorworks user who has struggled off and on with the Rendering Tab in the OIP. Frankly the documentation is terrible and the interface doesn't help. There is all this power in the background that is barely accessible. (Spend a little time with C4D and you'll know what I mean.) My most recent challenge is that the Scale, Rotation, Offset H and Offset V are greyed out and not accessible. What causes this? I've tried different objects, different textures, different mappings and it just seems locked. I am also curious if there is documentation somewhere about how Vectorworks determines the origin point for a texture on an object. It often seems very random though I'm sure there is some logic to it. The manual pretty much glosses over this... Thank you for any help you can provide, Kevin

Hi Barbara, Is an empty layer active in Vectorworks when you do your export? Both File>Send to Cinema 4D and File>Export>Export Cinema 4D command only export the current active layer. Kevin

Today when I opened an old file in Vectorworks 2012 a dialog popped up to say "this document is fingerprinted" and listed specific products it was marked for. What does this mean? I've never seen this before. Kevin

Ok, that's a great option to know about. I can't say that I've ever thought to look at the Wireframe Options..... KM

I think this would be awesome. I use the existing 3D Powerpack tools all the time and while powerful, they certainly could use updating. The comparison to Cinema 4D is a good one. Vectorworks has good solids modelling, but the power of a robust polygon modelling system and a deformer (in the case of VW fillet, chamfer, addition, subtraction) system for solids would be such a great leap forward. Kevin (an interim improvement could be a 2-way file exchange system for models between C4D and Vectorworks)

Interestingly Vectorworks 2012 does seem to see it when you ask it to check for updates... even though it shows as being released on October 6th, over a week ago. KM

Layers are set to Grey/Snap Others Classes are set to Show/Snap/Modify Others KM

Hi Bruce, Funny I've never been able to make it work until now after reading the tooltip in your image. Its a bit odd, but here's what you do - Click on the object that you want to select. It won't select (in my case it was on a greyed layer). Now right click and choose force select from the contextual menu. Magically the object was selected..... Odd workflow, but it seemed to work.... Kevin

If you're using Vectorworks 2012 and a sheet layer viewport there is a new solution. Choose Hidden Line Rendering, click on Rendering Settings (either foreground or background) and select "Generate Intersecting Lines" in the options. This should do what you want.... Kevin

Thanks Jonathan. I will. Kevin

A list of known bugs would be a great idea! I often wonder if its operator error on my part or actually a bug.... Kevin

I was very excited about the new feature Hidden Line Intersection Edges in Vectorworks 2012. I've been playing around with the demo and am not getting consistent results for some reason. The first file I was playing around with one instance it didn't render correctly (a cylinder overlapping at a corner, I've indicated it with a dotted red line). When I tried again in a new file it worked fine.... Does anyone know, is this the expected behavior? Is there a limitation to this feature? (In both cases the Generate Intersecting Lines checkbox is selected.) Kevin