Kevin McAllister

Drawing co-ordination is great but - viewport names are now really annoying. I wish that the following were true when drawing co-ordination is turned on - - Drawing Title and Viewport Name were always the same (ie. if you updated the Drawing Title, the Viewport Name would change to match). Clearly there is no reason for both, except unfortunately you need to update the Viewport Name (see below). - When exporting to PDF, there was an option to turn off PDF bookmarks or use Drawings Titles instead of Viewport Names for PDF bookmarks. This is the only reason to update Viewport Names. Frankly its just annoying. Right now I often open the PDF in Acrobat Pro and delete the bookmarks Vectorworks creates. This would make the drawing co-ordination workflow to PDF so much better. Thank you, Kevin PS. Please also make Drawing Numbers editable in the OIP when a viewport is selected, much like you can edit the Drawing Title.

Please make Vectorworks recognize and automatically change a 2D layer plane object to a 2D screen plane object when pasting into Viewport Annotations. I just spent way too much time trying to problem solve why I couldn't reposition an object, finally discovering it was a layer plane / screen plane problem. If layer plane objects aren't allowed, why even let me paste it. KM

A few things to look for when making a surface from Nurbs curves - - I believe all the Nurbs curves need to go in the same direction. Click on the Show Direction checkbox in the Object Info Palette to see the direction arrows. Use the Reverse Direction radio button, also in the Object Info Palette to make your curves consistent. - I have had more success using Modify>Combine to combine various curves first. This is also a good way to discover which curves don't quite touch. If you are able to combine all the curves into a single curv, the Create Surface from Curves command will still work. - I have found that it can be finicky if the curves are different degrees. Look in the Object Info Palette and see how each of your curves compare. Often you can increase the degree, not alter the curve, and get them to combine successfully. Hope this helps. Kevin

Bruce, You can cut and paste a custom dimension from one one document to another and then delete it. When you paste, the custom dimension style associated with the pasted dimension is imported into the destination file. Unfortunately you still need to go into the document preferences and select it as the default for the file. Kevin

Kaare, That's an awesome wish! Direct access to a tools preferences.... which aren't really preferences anyway, but instead are drawing values. Kevin

I have had a lot of weirdness with VW2011 as well. Often with files imported from older versions, but also with clean files originating in VW2011. So far I am soldiering on because there are some great features. The weirdness has included: - random disappearing objects. I've often had to cut/paste objects back in after retrieving them from an archived version of a file. - trouble editing extrudes. Often the objects in the edit extrude mode won't select directly with the selection tool, but need to be selected using select all or by dragging a marquee around them. - broken 2D views while using the custom stair tool, where the stairs look discontinuous in 2D. - extrude along path objects randomly breaking in symbols brought forward from earlier versions. These objects suddenly jump to a new orientation, disconnecting from the rest of the symbol geometry. - trouble in many editing modes because of the new planar objects. I notice VW now often jumps into rotated plan mode. I have avoided this mode in the past because it has caused some problems and I wonder if its causing many of the problems now. There are lots of positives too, but the more I use it, the more oddness I seem to experience in comparison to VW2010, which seemed very stable. Kevin

I'm not entirely sure how to interpret your response.... Kevin

Is anyone else having problems mirroring callouts in Sheet Layer Viewport annotations? The duplicates created by mirroring don't seem to mirror correctly. The callout itself is a mirror image but its placement is not symmetrical about the mirror line. Other objects (even if part of the same selection to mirror) seem to mirror fine. Kevin

Blind Expert, I had to do something similar with a tensile object using BCD's approach. The one piece of advice I can offer is how you look at the curves. My understanding is that in most cases, the tensioned cables will take on a catenary curve (disclaimer - I am purely looking at it from a visual perspective and in no way qualified beyond that). It turned out to give a fairly accurate results in my case. Below is a screen capture of my drawing (? David Atkins Enterprises). And the result (not my photo, just from a web search) - http://sarahandtim.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/vancouver-olympics-opening-ceremonies-snowboard-in-the-air.jpg We were all surprised by the accuracy of the end result. Kevin

Hi Lindsey, Because you are importing a PDF, that last link will probably not help you. The first thing you need to be clear on is that when you import a PDF, it comes in as the size of the PDF sheet relative to the current layer scale, so it will be a different size depending on what your layer scale is set to. In order to scale up the PDF to an accurate and useable size, do the following steps: -select the PDF -choose the Modify>Scale Objects menu command -use the Symmetric by Distance option -select the dimension icon and click on two points on the drawing that you know the distance between -enter the known distance in the New Distance box. -make sure the Entire Drawing checkbox is unchecked. -click OK. This should scale your PDF up so the objects in it are now in scale with your layer. You will get best results if you use Import PDF to bring in the original PDF (don't use Import Image File) because most PDFs will come in as vector files that you can snap to. Here is a visual reference of the process. Note that in my case I am importing a PDF with a metric drawing on it, which accounts for the mixed units in the Scale Objects dialog. If you continue to have problems, maybe consider posting your file. Cheers, Kevin

Is there a way to prevent Vectorworks Adobe Air Help from resetting to the start page every time you choose it in the dock to switch back to it? Switching between the help viewer and Vectorworks can't be an uncommon task.... Adobe Air has to be one of the most aggravating pieces of software I've ever used. It is constantly resetting itself and seems to update itself almost every time its run. Not very user friendly at all. Kevin

Make sure you are importing the PDF using Import PDF not Import Image File. In some instances Import PDF may need to be added to your workspace. While the PDF will import both ways, Import Image File places a raster image, not a snap-able vector based PDF. Kevin

I find VW 2011 really lags in some instances, even in brand new files. I'm not sure what's up but something is definitely not right. Kevin

There was a bit of discussion about the units issue here - http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=29777&Number=145580#Post145580 Kevin

Thanks to all for their advice. In the end I took what it generated and re-ordered it myself. Petri, its true I could have easily created a report but it would have been missing the visuals. I tend to use the key more for identifying symbols and turned the counting part of it off. I'm surprised there is not an option for combining a visual for a symbol with a worksheet. Knowing that it probably sorts based on symbol insertion order helps for new documents. This is what I suspected the order was. In the end, I suspect a wish list item might be a field in the lighting instrument record that numbers a instrument type's position in the key (and also in the Lightwright instrument maintenance sort order). I think each designer's key order may be personal preference. I tend to order by manufacturer and then type. As an example - Altman 6" Fresnel Altman 6x9 Altman 6x12 Strand 3380 Fresnel Strand 6x9 Strand 6x12 ETC Parnel ETC Source 4-40? Thanks again, Kevin

Is there a way to organize the order of the key / inventory count? Thanks, Kevin

Peter, Instead of pasting into Vectorworks without anything selected, choose the text tool, click into the document as if you were going to create text and then paste. Things should behave a lot better. Kevin

This would be awesome. KM

Hi Nathan, One trick when creating new layers and classes is to duplicate an existing one and rename it. If you use the duplicate method, the layer/class will be turned on in any viewport that contained the layer/class you duplicated. HTH, Kevin

This is an imperial/metric conversion problem you're seeing. I did some experimenting and it looks like the units need to be MM in Cinema 4D for the import to work. I suspect Cinema 4D files do not carry unit information. I could get everything to go across at the proper size as long as the document units in Vectorworks were metric and the unit preference in Cinema 4D was MM. It didn't seem to matter which metric unit was chosen in Vectorworks. I would support a wish that cleared up the scaling issue during export. Kevin

Horst, Do you have Save Viewport Cache turned on in the Document Preferences? Although it means you don't have to re-render viewports after loading a file, it certainly does increase your file size. It also looks like you may be using the Human Figure tool to generate your figures. If you are, I would class them so you can turn them off in the section viewport. I have had files slow down considerably whenever they are used. If you're only interested in the geometry along the section line, you could limit your section under Advanced Properties in the Object Info Palette. You can also change your 3D Conversion Resolution there as well, which could help your memory issues. Kevin

In my experience, the page outline is just another object on the sheet layer. The sheet layer origin itself cannot be changed, but the relationship of objects to it can. The easiest way to set the page back to its original 0,0 location is to double click on the Page Move icon in the tool palette. The page will just back to the origin. Kevin

Here is my observation about the new 2D/3D implementation so far - - think of it as 2D objects in 3D space because that's how they're being treated. The objects remain 2D and edit as 2D only they are oriented on a 3D plane other than the layer plane. - because of the above, the 2D objects behave as 2D objects in rendered views. This is even more so in viewports. Starling75's example shows that (ie. the text box not just the text renders in many render modes). Text is also heavily affected by your viewport resolution in modes other than wireframe. - Dimensions don't necessarily behave as you would expect in rendered views. Some of this is a function of the dimension tool itself, which I think needs to be rebuilt by Nemetzchek from scratch so the dimension line actually breaks at the text instead of just being masked by the text fill. Generally it feels a bit like Vectorworks has 3 modes - 2D, 2 1/2D and 3D. Interesting 2D planar objects are exported as a texture on a plane to Cinema 4D. Bear in mind I've only played for a few hours. Lots of other stuff to discover. Overall the upgrade feels pretty good.... Kevin

Please add the Spotlight Toolset to the Designer Workspace by default in future releases. Obviously I can and do add it myself when I create my custom workspace. It makes sense to create my custom workspace using a copy of the most complete (ie. Designer) workspace as a starting point. Because I am adding the Spotlight Toolset in the workspace editor, instead of having its nice spotlight icon it shows up as the generic wrench. This is not so intuitive..... :-( Kevin

I've only spent a couple of hours with 2011 but there are a bunch of small tweaks that I quite like. So far my favorite is the ability to have toggle buttons at the right side of the mode bar to toggle some of the most used preference like Zoom Line Thickness and Show Other Objects While In Edit Modes. Kevin