Kevin McAllister

I agree that its all a bit confusing. I must admit I've never used the Join menu command. I use Compose and Decompose all the time. It is especially useful for joining Nurbs curves in 3d. I also use the surface (add, intersect, subtract) constantly. It feels like there could be some house cleaning to streamline things (ie. add surface and add solids could (and should) be the same command by adding 2d/3d awareness). In the vain of this thread, I found: Trim (Menu command) Join (Menu command) Compose Decompose Trim (Tool) Connect/Combine (Tool) Split (Tool) which all perform related functions to lines. As I said before, Vectorworks has unfortunately become the Microsoft Excel of the CAD world. Powerful features hidden by an out of control interface. Kevin

Is there a way to set the default width of the Sheet Name column in the Navigation Palette? I have to drag it wider every time I reopen Vectorworks. I've attached an image of how the column starts. Thanks, Kevin

Hello, Does anyone know what can cause the options to Export to earlier versions of Vectorworks to be greyed out in the File>Export menu? It seems to be specific to one file. Thanks, Kevin

Hi there, Try this - 1) Set the layer scale you want to work at first by right clicking and choosing Active Layer Scale. 2) Import the PDF using File>Import>Import PDF. 3) Select the PDF and choose Modify>Scale Objects 4) Choose Symetric by Distance. Choose the Current Distance by clicking on the dimension icon. Click two points on the PDF where you know the dimension. Enter the known dimension in the New Distance box. Make sure the Entire Drawing checkbox is NOT checked. Hit OK. Your PDF should now be at the same scale as the working layer. You may want to add a signature to your profile that details your computer setup and Vectorworks version. Kevin

Ok, so I discovered part of the problem seems to be having the doors open in 3D. K

Is there a way to properly map a texture onto a door? I have a parametric door object which I have assigned the inner/outer leaf parts to a style class. When I assign a wood texture to the class it maps onto the door as vertical lines. I did a test with the same texture and extruded rectangle which was much more successful. Thanks, Kevin

I don't think its a font problem either. And I wouldn't doubt if it was related to SP3, since I have never had it happen before. As an aside, you can do Batch PDF (Export) that works if you click the separate files checkbox. A plus I've discovered is that when I combine the files using Acrobat, you get a proper bookmark for each sheet (its the first time I've actually found the bookmarks created by Vectorworks to be useful actually). Kevin

Hmmm, I had this exact problem with my current project. Its not a problem I've ever experienced before and I use Export PDF (Batch) all the time. I have also used the same font (Avant Garde Gothic) for years. It was also fixed by exporting them individually. Kevin

There is an good editorial about it here (especially page 2) - http://architosh.com/2010/05/sledgehammer-autocad-for-mac-beta-in-the-wild/ The Youtube video is also interesting. A focus on improving how people interface with CAD could encourage their competitors (read as benefit Vectorworks users) as well. KM

I checked this symbol out for curiosity sake and all I can say is wow. As Michael says, I could easily have been made with a few simple solids. I downloaded the DWG file thinking it might be an easy way to explain how to build a symbol on your own. Unfortunately its not any better. All of the curves are made up of facetted line segments. Its amazing to me that files are posted in this essentially unusable condition. I suspect they don't work in either Vectorworks or Autocad and have only converted files as a "convenience" for the end user. Kevin

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but here goes - - draw the whole face frame as one piece. There are various ways to do this. I drew the individual rectangles and used the Add Surface command under the Modify Menu. I noticed the vertical stile in the middle is set back and separate so I drew it separately from the frame. - extrude the face frame. extrude the stile. -fillet the face frame. Fillet the stile. -cut the face frame back into individual "boards" using the Split Tool in the Split by Line mode. Kevin

I wish we could select a Bitmap Object in Vectorworks and convert it to an Image Resource. See various options described in my question below. Kevin

Thanks Ray. I suspected as much but it never hurts to ask. It seems that you should be able to convert in Vectorworks.... Kevin

Ok, so today I discovered the Fine Tune Camera dialog. This is one of the most intuitive things I have ever found in Vectorworks. It is awesome. So the wishes - (1) to be able to select a Camera as the source view for a Viewport (yes I know there are ways to do this, but I would like the Viewport to be directly linked to the Camera, so when the Camera is updated, so is the Viewport). (2) to be able to adjust a Viewport view using a dialog similar to the Fine Tune Camera dialog. Kevin

This may be a very dumb question, but is there a way to convert an bitmap element within Vectorworks (ie. a cut and pasted image, an imported jpg image, or a bitmap created with the Render Bitmap tool) into a useable image resource (useable as a texture, fill image, image prop etc.)? It seems like there should be an easy way... but things aren't always what they seem.... Thanks, Kevin

Preston, I think I know what the problem may be. Go into Vectorworks Preferences (Tools>Options>Vectorworks Preferences), click on the Display tab, and then click on the Edit Font Mappings button. If there is a list of Font Mappings, delete them. I suspect you may be mapping some fonts to Arial.... so they don't show up as themselves, but as Arial instead. Kevin

I would tend to agree. The overall interface could use a lot of tightening up. And as new things are added, there is no consistency. Vectorworks has a little bit of everything going when it comes to interfaces - drop downs, tabs, pop ups, etc. - almost as if whatever was in vogue when the feature was added became the default. Kevin

Preston, After your step 4, duplicate the shape you've created. Extrude the duplicate. Then select both the original 2D shape and the extruded 3D shape and proceed to step 6. This will give you a symbol with both 2D (the original shape) and 3D geometry (the duplicate you extruded). KM

Preston, You can't insert a symbol into itself. When you are entering the symbol (when you right click to edit), you must have already had the symbol tool active. The easiest way to fix your problem, in my opinion, is to right click and choose edit 3D. Draw your position again in 2D, tracing over the existing 3D geometry. Alternately, you could duplicate the existing 3D geometry and then choose Modify>Convert>Convert to Lines as a quick way to create some 2D geometry. When you exit the symbol, it will become hybrid (have both 2D and 3D versions). Good luck, Kevin

I think the molding PIO is a great idea. There seems to be a work around for everything, but this is supposed to be the forum for innovation :-)

This thread may help - http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=128142#Post128142 KM

Thanks Peter. Submitted. K

I've played with this a little more in a clean file. It seems to be a bug. I have attached an example file and a PDF of what I'm seeing. If someone can confirm they are seeing the same thing in the file, I will submit it as a bug. Thanks, Kevin

Can someone else try this and see if they get the same result - - add some custom dash styles (I cut and paste some lines from another file) and edit the order of the dash styles under File>Document Settings>Dash Styles - choose one of the moved styles and assign it to a Class as the default By Style line type I am seeing that while the drop down in the Class dialog shows the correct line style, the objects in that class still display the old, pre-move style (ie. the old style that was 4th down from the top, instead of the new style that is now 4th down from the top in the drop down). Hopefully that clear enough. Thanks, Kevin

Mike, Having recently built a library of theatre related stuff, I would like to point out something I discovered. Its not actually true that any PIO object can be made into a useable red symbol. If the PIO is a path object type of PIO, it will always want you to draw a new path if its inserted as a PIO (red symbol) instead of retaining its saved shape. It was something of an unexpected discovery on my part. Cheers, Kevin