Sam Jones

Couldn't agree more. Not even close in my industry, live entertainment. Mistakes are much more easily caught and prevented with CAD. There are of course mistakes unique to CAD, but they are vastly outnumbered by the ones avoided, but this is primarily has to do with data, which in my industry, is on an equal footing with the graphic. We primarily treat our drawings as graphic databases.

Really? Hand drafting was fun. Editing was hell. With pencil line weights were often, not always, inconsistent. With good ink pens they could be made consistent, but inking the drawing was tedious hell. Angles and parallel lines did not have the accuracy they do in CAD. Then there is data. Accessing was done by hand, counting, and it was laborious and error prone. Correlating and assigning data, the same. Then there is duplicating. You took the drawing to someone who could. Plotters didn't plot hand drawn plans. Blue prints did not duplicate accurately, but one is not supposed to measure the plan (yea right), so I guess that doesn't count. If hand drafting was your beef wellington, I'll choose another restaurant.

Make a PDF, or print out your sheets on a plotter and you'll have just the security for your work that your grandfather had and probably better "access". While getting to that point you'll have a much easier time creating and editing. BTW, it depends on what you mean by "access". He couldn't edit that blue print, and you might be able to find an application that can edit that PDF or create something that can be edited. I would give up a lot to be able to do away with eraser shields; although I really enjoyed using T-squares, triangles, and parallel rules. The real favorite was the drafting machine. Apples and Oranges; your grandfather and Vectorworks; maybe apples and beef wellington.

Good to know. Now I understand the nature of the rotation. The lack of a yoke is crucial. @Jesse Cogswell thanks again for the code. Crucial for dealing with non orthogonally planar 3D objects. I'll start with testing the results of applying SetEntityMatrix() to raked truss systems. Fun times ahead.

Very cool. I'm particularly interested in exploring "Get3DOrientation" and "SetEntityMatrix". Thank you Jesse. I hope it works for the.dreamer. However, I'm still unclear as to what is actually desired by flipping a Lighting device in 3D . Will the flip include (should?) the hanging hardware? The yoke? Does it include only the 3D orientation of just the barrel and lamp housing?

There are all sorts of possibilities, but I need the real example. What do I mean? What are these fixtures attached to? Can we just change their pan and tilt? Do we have to change the clamp on the position? there are at least 2 different versions of flipping the light 180°, maybe more. There are 3 differen axes defined by the light and its yoke hardware that are independent of the working plane. I would need to see the lights, the position the lights are attached to, and the floor. Additionally, it would be nice to see the target focus at least one of them. The problem is that the pan, tilt, and swing do not define the working plane they are adjusted relative to it.

The quick answer is no. However, I don't really understand what he wants to achieve. I'm not seeing/understanding what he desires to achieve with the "flip". Perhaps an example with a few lighting instruments would be clearer to me. My limited smooth brain looks at the above example and does not see a flip; just a limited rotation along 2 axes. Is the "flip" supposed to use the same axes? All 3 axes? Or, are the axes to be defined by the object. I bet it is an interesting problem, but I don't understand the end result.

LEGACY HOIST If you want to display and collect data and don't care about Braceworks compatibility, doing so is easier with the Legacy Hoist. For many it is easier to learn what you need to know to use effectively (I think so, but this is very debatable). All the data is in the Object Info Palette and the location arrows point in the correct direction. With current Hoist tool the arrows always point in the same direction and you have to carefully pay attention to the sign on the dimensions. While the Legacy Hoist is compatible with Data Tags, many users find the on drawing label easier to use. The Legacy Hoist will never be compatible with Braceworks. While it is provided there will be no maintenance of the Legacy Hoist by Vectorworks. There will be no further enhancements of the Legacy Hoist. You need to use Hoist Symbols that are compatible with it; download Joe Golden's "Legacy Hoist Library.vwx" provided by in the post above yours. VW should have these in the Resource Libraries, but they don't. HOIST TOOL (current) Compatible with Braceworks. Will be maintained by Vectoreworks. Enhancements can be requested of Vectorworks. There are VW Coffee Breaks and VW University courses on the use of the Hoist Tool. There may be more, but that's all I know.

Cool solution, but specifying the increment and its increase seems problematic

Do you want something different than the "Align and Distribute" Tool?

Thank you Jesse! Place "ResetObject(lamp);" as the last statement in your "getDir" procedure.

Post a plot simple or otherwise that has the label legends you want to use. "SetRField(HandleArray[Index],'Lighting Device','Use Legend',LabelName);" works for me in 2 of my scripts. Let me check your sample drawing with your script.

I just looked at making a custom selection and saving it as a script. That might be the easiest way to go. May depend on how your circuits are numbered. Sam

It would be in the script. The vectorscript procedure would be SetRField(Handle to the light, 'Lighting Device', 'Use Legend', Name of Legend you want); Do you want to get into coding the script? You will need to know about handles to objects, data structures, flow of control, and error trapping (lights with no circuits. This is not rocket science, but it is involved. In the kitchen some recipes are more difficult than others. How your circuits are label will effect the script. Are they all numbers with no letters? It is not necessary for them to be all numbers, but if they are not you will have to use "IF" statements instead of "CASE" statements. Still with me. The script will look at each light, probably with a "ForEachObject" procedure. It will read the circuit value. it will compare the value to a list of where the circuits are, probably with several IF THEN ELSE statements, but maybe a CASE statement. When the comparison finds the side of the theater that the circuit is on, it will assign the appropriate Label Legend with the SetRField procedure. That is the algorithm; the actual code would take more lines. There are many ways to skin a cat, but that is what comes to mind first. @Jesse Cogswell or @Pat Stanford or a few others could chime in here; however, it seems the script would be valuable (very) to you but not to many others, if any. BTW, It would be wise but not necessary, to move your user field circuits to the appropriate Circuit Name and/or Circuit Number fields. This is most easily done with AutoPlot's "Copy Field to Field" command, but you can do it pretty easily with VW's "Find and Modify" command. Another approach would be to make a selection of all the "Coming from left" lights and assign them the appropriate Label Legend; then do the same for the "Coming from right" lights. You might be able to set up a custom selection (under the "Tools" menu) for that, but I haven't looked into it If you want to talk more about it, I hate typing. Send me an email and I'll send you a Zoom invite. Sam sjones@autoplotvw.com

It is likely, that the easiest script would be one that changes the Label Legend based on a criteria you specify. I may be dense, but it is unclear what you mean by "from which side the the Power comes." Is the direction from which the power comes stored anywhere for a script to access?