Kevin McAllister

Thanks for this! My favourite list of the year.... KM

These look like great improvements! I'm particularly excited about the colour improvements. Kevin

I've found myself having to detail fasteners more often than expected. I'm grateful for what exists but more would definitely be helpful. Kevin

It works fine when I open it. I wonder if the issue is related to the title block being referenced in. I would make a copy of the file, break the referencing links and see if it works then. Because I don't have the referenced files the link are automatically broken when I open it. Kevin

As an observation, I've often wondered what the perk is for longtime users. There are often specials (eg. add a new license at a discount) which aren't really beneficial for a one seat business. I see much more benefit given to new or returning users (usually in August before the new releases). I don't think there's ever been an offer that made sense to take advantage of for my small business and longtime user / service select subscriber. I've been using Vectorworks since Minicad 5. I think I do get a price from a long time ago locked in when I renew but I'm really not sure what that discount is since its not really advertised as a promotioin. That said, I do understand the need for Vectorworks to have a predictable cash flow just like I like to have for my own business. My excitement with Vectorworks is still high enough to keep me using it.... and upgrades to basic tools/commands would help keep that enthusiasm. Kevin

I guess. JimW mentioned that there was work being done so that the file type wouldn't have to change every release cycle. I haven't seen it on the current road map but I'm assuming the work is still being done. Kevin

^ this is definitely going to be a thing. The proper option is to have a free public beta (like Rhino). If I'm going to be a continuous beta tester I would like a reduced rate (and would happily take one) for being one. Kevin

I'm curious whether temporarily adding a licence using the monthly rental option is compatible with Service Select. The entertainment industry will be using the monthly rental option for assistants etc. if its affordable. Kevin

Also, I wonder if this means we're finally getting to the end of different file types for different versions.... KM

As a service select subscriber I'm not sure this makes much difference to me. One thing it might do is get all my collaborators onto the same version. Having to export between various versions on a project is a messy workflow. Kevin

Upvote my longstanding wish for Sheet Layer Viewports to be able to look at Symbols as an option..... Kevin

Are you looking for the sheet layer to look the same as the design layer while you're working on it? You can always crank up the sheet layer DPI while you're working and then reset it and re-render the viewports before creating PDFs. My example is a screen shot of the sheet layer with the DPI set to 1000. I've also turned on Zoom Line Thickness and turned off edges in the background Shaded rendering. Kevin

For a while it looked like features for digital manufacturing were on the roadmap but I'm not sure they are any more. Too bad really since we're all using CNC, lasercutting, 3d printing etc. in our design and build processes now. JimW was very interested in these technologies. @JuanP is there someone else representing these technologies on the forums now? Kevin

Ok the situation gets weirder and weirder. It seems that extrudes made from different starting objects render differently 🙄

Ok, so doing some more testing. I started with a new file in VW2022 SP4. I exported back to VW2021 to see how it used to render. Here's the comparison. There's inconsistencies here with both line type and solid/not solid. All items are set to By Class and are in the same class. All of the components of the array are set to be classed in the same class.

Interesting. I experienced something like this today for the first time using SP4 and in a clean file. I was troubleshooting another issue I posted in the Entertainment forum. The extrude was rendering with white edges in a sheet layer viewport using Shaded with edges on. When I converted it to a generic solid it rendered with black edges as expected. There's definitely some rendering weirdness right now. Kevin

Hello, I am wondering if anyone else has had this issue. I built a speaker array and assigned it to a specific class with a dashed line. When I render my sheet layer viewports in hidden line the speaker bumper and the geometry I built above it render correctly, but the speaker boxes themselves don't render with the correct line type. Everything is By Class and I've also gone into the Classing dialog for the speaker array and specifically assigned the speaker items to the correct class. I'm using the speaker array for flexibility. Normally I just model all of my own geometry... which is faster than troubleshooting this type of stuff 😊 Thanks, Kevin array wrong linetype.vwx

Bumping this wish! It's still relevant. KM

I think they're referring to this concept, where corners are prepped for CNC work based on the cutter diameter - https://blog.inventables.com/2014/06/learn-about-milling-inside-corner.html Kevin

I often delete everything generated by the command except the overall outline shape to create very simple 2d versions that accurately represent the footprint. KM

Are you trying to create an extrude with a sloped/curved top surface? If both your top and bottom object were NURBS curves you could connect between them and create a solid using the Loft Surfaces Tool. Your reference is a little different than what you're describing. It's a series of stepped slabs. If that's more what you'd like to create, I would draw the stepped side section, extrude it into a rectangular step unit and then slice the sides off at an angle using the Split Tool. Kevin

The floating palette takes some getting used to and I wish is was fixed in the mode bar. And it would be great to set seeing the 3d ghosted in the background as the default. I would recommend adjusting your workflow to use Vectorworks to autogenerate your 2d component as a starting point for editing. While in the 2d component of a symbol right click and choose "Generate 2d from 3D component". It is very quick and creates decent results for most things. Give it a try and I bet you'll grow to like it. It does do some quirky things with line weight (assigning directly instead of by class) so I grab the overall outline and shift it back to by class. It creates a nice looking 2d symbol. There may still be some improvements coming. @Matt Panzer used to be the person overseeing it.... he may know what's planned. Its not specifically on the Road Map that I could see. Kevin

I would imagine the rendering engine is getting confused because the top and bottom surfaces of the extrude would be in the same space. Convert your source surface to a NURBS surface instead of an extrude if you need it to have zero thickness. (Command Option K on a Mac) Kevin

I wish it were too. I also wish you could do things with operators, such as + to append or = to replace. So if I had a series of viewports on a sheet titled Table: Top, Table: Front Elevation, Table: Section I could select all of them and do table=chair to change them to Chair: Top, Chair: Front Elevation, Chair: Section. My example is sort of silly in its simplicity but I often duplicate sheets, select all the viewports and change the layer they look at to a different one. Each layer contains a single scenic unit. Its a fast way of working and the slowest part is renaming the viewports 😁 (Vectorworks could learn a lot from Lightwright's name editing tools.) Kevin

I don't think this is possible. Even though you are able to name the viewports individually with the same name (I'm not sure this was always true either) Vectorworks is generally set up for unique naming. Kevin