Kevin McAllister

So today I made my first Vectorscript PIO. I totally support better documentation and examples. What exists now is too cryptic and not designer friendly. I started by using example scripts from the website. These scripts need much more commenting within them if they are truly to be examples. I also used all the manuals available (online and in the help system). Interesting I stumbled upon an error in one of the manual examples. I only discovered it was an error after much trial and error on my part. This sort of stuff really needs to be improved upon. I also discovered no one should code in Vectorworks itsself. Better included coding tools are needed. I used a program called TextWrangler, which I also use for coding HTML. Thankfully it colour codes and cleans up some of the code, making it much easier to see what's going on. My two cents. Kevin

Ted, If you delete most of the items out of a test file, the conflict is most likely in a symbol. When you do the round trip from Vectorworks to Autocad and back, many things come back in a symbols often nested in other symbols. I suspect you'll probably find your conflict somewhere in the Resource Browser items. Kevin

I would suggest a slightly different approach. Rather than trying to attach the record to the drawing of the artefact itself, attach the record to a custom label symbol. As long as you insert a label for each artefact, you can still use a worksheet for counting and organizing. I've attached an example file. Kevin

You can also download and use Print to PDF which is a shareware utility available for earlier versions of OS X. You may want to consider adding a signature to your profile that includes your version of Vectorworks, operating system and computer.... Kevin

Steve, There's your problem.... you need to use File>Import>Import PDF not File>Import>Import Image File. If you use Import Image File, Vectorworks converts your PDF to a raster image and discards the vector information. You also lose the ability to snap to it. Kevin

The opacity of any image can be changed in the Attributes palette. I often dial them back to 50% for tracing over.... Kevin

With your first try, using hidden line and the mesh object, did you set the SLVP Smoothing Angle to something greater than 0 degrees? It can be set by clicking Background Render Settings. You'll have to experiment a bit to find the right setting. Anything up to about 30 degrees tends to work well. Kevin

You can draw a NURBS line easily with the NURBS Curve Tool by changing the default degree to 1. In the Mode Bar, click on the third icon while the tool is selected. Kevin

Most markers have a 2D Scale Factor that can be adjusted in the Object Info Palette. Kevin

It should work based on my own experience. I've referenced in items for other files and included them in sections. Is there a way to strip the files down enough to post them (ie. replace your geometry with some simple proxy objects) so we can see the referencing? Kevin

It sounds like the Class containing the referenced DLVP may be turned off in the Sheet Layer Viewport for the section. Out of curiosity, are there both Screen Plane and Layer Plane objects in the reference along with 3D objects? Kevin

It is possible with a Mighty Mouse. I know because it used to be my setup. I think the ball needs to be set to third button (or middle button) in the system preferences for the mouse. I can't test it at the moment as I'm using a Magic Mouse.... Kevin

Hi Will, Thanks for the file. Is this the one that shows a twist? Or is this the fixed version? It shows up correctly in VW2010. It makes more sense now that there are so many slices, as its not really curved so much as facetted. I think I would have built it as two pieces, the straight bottom half and the facetted top half, allowing me to reduce the the number of slices in the bottom half to two. Benson, I had the same result as you when I started making a version using circles and clip surface, spinning beach ball. I think its because my 3D conversion for curves is set to very high. Will's version has a fixed number of points in the flutes, whereas the number of points in ours changes as the 3D conversion factor is changed. If you can make a version with the loft rail command it probably actually is more efficient. My experience has been the NURBs can help the efficiency of a file. Kevin

Can you post an example file? I'm not sure I entirely understand the shape if it requires so many polygons. When I've had trouble with multiple extrudes, I've made smaller segments and then used the Add Solids to combine the pieces. It allows you to retain the history and tends to cause less problems. Kevin

Ok, so I thought they were resetting themselves because of something I was doing, even though it seems a little random. Perhaps there is a bug here, but I am not sure how to reproduce it consistently. Its still a mystery where their default values come from. Kevin

Does anyone know what sets the default line weight and dash style for a section line. They don't seem to relate to the defaults in the Attributes palette. I often assign them to a specific class and set the attributes to by class, but I have to do it manually afterwards. And if you adjust the section line the attributes reset themselves... Kevin

I would like to be able to access a drawing number by clicking on a viewport, much like you can edit the drawing name. It is a real pain to renumber the drawings on a sheet if you have more than a couple, since you first need to change the existing numbers so they are out of range (it blocks changes if a number already exists), then renumber according to the new layout. Doing this requires editing the drawing number within the annotations of each viewport multiple times.... Kevin

Are they Nurbs "curves" or Nurbs "surfaces" in the Object Info Palette? It sounds like they may just be "curves" (ie. only the lines). You can convert a "curve" to a "surface" by choosing Create Surface from Curves from the 3D Power Pack in the Modelling menu. Kevin

Steve, How are the PDFs being created originally? It sounds like they are being created at a low resolution as an image, without any vector data (ie. maybe screen resolution). There may not be enough data to zoom in on... I have encountered this once and a while. It often happens if they are compressed when sending via the Mac Mail program (don't ever let it compress PDFs). When you ungroup a PDF in Vectorworks, you will often see how low resolution the bitmap portion of the PDF is. It can sometimes help if you import the PDF onto a layer that's a small scale and you scale it down to the size you need. Kevin

Jeff, I have had your same experience in the past. It turned out that a symbol had gotten corrupted. It would render fine in a design layer, but always crashed Vectorworks when rendering in a Sheet Layer Viewport. I tracked down the problem by process of elimination, starting by turning off half the classes in the viewport and rendering again. If it rendered, I switched those back on and turned the others off. I continued on until I narrowed the field. I worked on a copy of my original file just to be safe. Once I found the corrupt object (in my case a symbol), I was able to replace it in the original file. Hope this helps, Kevin

Here is an image illustrating my point. If you like the font size as is (ie. it will print at a readable size), you will need to adjust the layer scale instead. This can be done for the current layer by right clicking and choosing Layer Scale. Alternately you can select a group of Layers in the Navigation Palette and right click for Edit, then choosing Scale. Kevin

I would suggest checking the scale of the layer you are working on. The text for the tool probably is the default point size. It will always vary in its relationship to the layer scale when first inserted (ie. 12point is always 12point relative to the screen resolution when inserted on a 1/2"=1'-0" plan or a 1/8"=1'-0" plan). Kevin

It actually won't unwrap in VW2010. It gives an error message. How was the subtraction done? Because everything is already converted to Nurbs, I have no way to test the unwrap other than on the Nurbs. If you reposted with the original solid subtraction I could give it a try. Personally, I would report your result as a bug. Kevin

I discovered the "line" defining length and direction can also be an arc. KM

Please, please, please allow the Drawing Name and Viewport Names to be linked automatically so that you don't need to update both independently. This is really only an issue because Viewport Names, not Drawing Names, appear as bookmarks in exported PDFs. If they didn't (ie. it was Drawing Names instead), I wouldn't care what the Viewport Name was...... Thank you, Kevin