Andrew Bell@NV

quote: Originally posted by Mitch Kubic: When I start up Vectorworks on my computer it starts up fine then the screen comes up and I can see the outline of some of the tool boxes and that is it. The rest of the screen just stays grey and it will not work. If I move the mouse around the screen goes white with just the Vectorworks outline and then I have to force quit. You might try reinstalling VectorWorks. The video card may not be the culprit, although it was certainly a reasonable first choice to investigate.

quote: Originally posted by Chris Dordoni: Does frequent switching between Metric and Imperial units introduce rounding errors in VW? Chris No, VectorWorks just changes how it displays the coordinates, not the coordinate values themselves. The decimal precision in the units dialog only affects what is displayed, not the actual value saved. Thus if you zoom well in and nudge your object, the display will not show the (say) 0.000001 you just shifted the object by, but you could see the difference on-screen when zoomed well in.

quote: Originally posted by SacSurfin': Or the possiblity of giving an option to what some programs call an instance, which is when an object is copied, an option is given to instance or copy, an instance changes all copies when original is changed, wherein a copy doesn't. This would come in handy for many copies of the same object, if one is resized or re-textured or changed in any way , the others all change to. Isn't this the same thing as a symbol? The only difference seems to be that it allows direct editing, rather than having to go into an "Edit Symbol" mode, which is a user interface issue.

quote: Originally posted by Katie: If this is a situation you are finding yourself in, you may want to invest in file check out/check in software. This is more generally known as revision control software. Although it is most widely used by and targeted at programmers doing software development, it probably should be used by people developing computer files in a variety of fields. Revision control software allows you to keep a history of the changes to a particular file, as well as having a repository for widely referenced files. If you want to edit a file, you check it out, and then you check it in when you want to save the changes you've made. If you later find you've made an error and need to go back to an older version, or to grab a detail from an older version, you access it via the revision control. A cute coincidence, there is a revision control program called Katie...

quote: Originally posted by B.Balemi: What about right click once to return back and to and exit the group ra ra ra .Right click twice to top level.??? Brendan Right-click gives you a menu. Adding exit group and top level to that group while in a group sounds like a fine idea, but you can do this yourself, as least in VW10.5. Edit your workspace, and add the items to the document context menu. Note that Edit Group/Exit Group/Top Level is a menu "chunk", so you have to add all three items to the list, not just one or two.

quote: Originally posted by austins: I tried and I get a 3-D model, sure. But, the solids are subdivided into hundreds of traingle shaped 3-d polygons. Have you tried "Add Solid" to add them together?

quote: Originally posted by Bruce Kieffer: Yes, I want to create a piece of 3D pegboard. I want to see through the pegboard holes. If you only need to see through it for rendering purposes, consider making a transparency texture map for the holes instead.

quote: Originally posted by bohlr: I have a roof surface that will not render with a shingle texture that is attached to it, yet a roof surface created with the roof tool with the same texture renders just fine. Any suggestions? What do you mean, "will not render"? Does it render as a solid object without the texture, or does it look like a wireframe?

quote: Originally posted by jnr: Actually I was editing the symbol, not the drawing. Yes, but if you had "scale entire drawing" checked as Petri suspects, then the entire document will be scaled regardless of whether or not you are in a symbol. It sounds like there should be a warning dialog, since scaling the entire drawing is such a disruptive act, and it just requires a little checkbox be checked.

quote: Originally posted by christian: 2. I am trying to convert a model to hidden line rendering. The file is only 4.6Mb. Every time I attempt this VW comes back to me after half an hour and tells me that I don?t have enough memory. If you don't want to convert to nurbs (as you've found can help), try reducing your 3-D conversion resolution in the preferences. That affects how small of polygons it uses to approximate the surfaces when doing hidden line rendering.

quote: Originally posted by Hunter B: Hey everybody! We need to be able to get a very clean 8.5 x 11 drawing to a client via Email. What is the best way to do this? Our client only uses PDF reader to read image docs, so after I export a file in Photoshop and then convert it to a pdf file the print out looks like $%#@. Any suggestions??!?!? Look for a print-to-PDF printer driver. I've used Win2PDF with good results, and there are others for both Windows and Macs. Once installed, you select Win2PDF (or whatever) as your active printer, and it'll ask for a filename when you say print. Send that file to your client.

quote: Originally posted by JC: Hello everyone. -When I insert any symbol in a wall I can use the (Duplicate Symbol in Wall Tool) to duplicate the symbo,l but... when I draw a Round Wall and insert a symbol and try to use the (Duplicate Symbol in Wall Tool) a warning appears in the middle of my screen saying: "Pick a wall in which to duplicate the active symbol". Why???; so my cuestion is Round Wall are really a Wall???????. The flaw is in the Duplicate Symbol in Wall tool. I took a quick look at the code, and it does not support round walls. I've submitted the need for such support as a bug/wish.

quote: Originally posted by ga: can anyobody tell me how to get rid of a rogue or ghost polygon which cnnot be edited, selected or deleted but gets copied whenever you select all. i have tried everything from checking my layers scale, my layers 2d/3d component, the classes are all turned on.... i am stuck and i need to get rid of it ga It sounds like the bounds of whatever object this is are incorrect, so you can't select it by clicking on it. If you can select everything else and move them to a different layer, then you should be able to select the specific object and identify it (and then delete it.) What version of VW are you running? If it's VW10, it would be worth submitting a file with just that object as a bug to bugsubmit@nemetschek.net.

quote: Originally posted by Robert Anderson: When you create the layer link, make sure the "Project 2D Objects" checkbox is checked at the bottom of the Create Layer Link dialog, and then 2D information will be created in the layer link. If you forget, there is a checkbox in the OI palette that allows you to enable projection of 2-D objects. You will need to unlock the layer link first.

quote: Originally posted by propstuff: If this is the case, it doesn't work that way. VW "always" draws and extrudes perpendicular to the screen. It's really quite a handy feature at times. This is only true of the 2-D tools. 3-D tools generally work with the working plane, which by default is the X-Y plane. There is no 3-D rectangle tool built-in to VectorWorks, just a 3-D polygon tool.

quote: Originally posted by buttercre8r: I'm new to this program, but not new to this type of drawing... so I'm having some trouble finding the right way to achieve a seemingly simple result. I create a circle. Then do a tapered extrude. I'd like to do 3 things at this point: 1) Turn the flat top into a dome (without affecting the tapered extrude) 2) Fillet the edge where the dome meets the tapered extrude for a smooth transition. 3) Finally, I'd like to extrude another shape from that dome so that my new extrusion follows the curve of the dome. If you want a hemisphere on top of your tapered extrude, you can use the "set working plane" tool to set the top face of the extruded circle as your working plane (use the second mode). Then view the extrude from the top, and use the hemisphere creation tool to create the hemisphere. You'll want to use solid addition to add the hemisphere to the tapered extrude before you can fillet the join.

quote: Originally posted by theboss: I read Katie's comment to the effect that once rendering is started one has to wait for the complex calculations to finish. Escape or command-period will usually cancel a rendering.

quote: Originally posted by jnr: Andrew: Thanks for your response. So if I wanted to choose the ultimate PC configuration for this software, where would one put the money? You need enough RAM to avoid using much virtual memory; beyond that it won't affect performance. Take a look at the task manager on your current machine while running VectorWorks, and see how much memory you're using with as complex a file as you generally use. Give yourself some room beyond that, since you may work with larger files in future, but if you're not hitting the virtual memory, more RAM has no effect on performance. You may find you'll want to use OpenGL a fair bit if you get a card that supports it, in order to lay out your more complex renderings before you do them. So depending on your work habits and whether you change them, the most meaningful improvement for you may be getting an OpenGL-capable video card.

quote: Originally posted by jnr: CPU: Does Intel's new hyperthreading technology have any affect on this software's speed and is it worth it? "Worth it" is a judgement call. I wouldn't move heaven and earth to get it, but hyperthreaded machines are already pretty much in the "sweet spot" (where decreases in performance don't save you much, but increases cost a fair bit more.) quote: Video: I read a post swearing by ATI's new 9800 rage pro (128mb card AGP). Is this worth it?Again, judgement call. The 9800 (or indeed any recent, decent video card) should significantly speed up OpenGL rendering over your old Matrox. It will have no effect on hidden line, polygon, or RenderWorks rendering.

quote: Originally posted by DaveHi50: the object that doesnt render is a simple extruded octagon, with misc shapes ( numbers ) embossed on its surface. How is the embossing done? Is this an object created by add/subtract solid, or is the embossing a separate object?

quote: Originally posted by DaveHi50: Im losing 3d data when I try to up the conversion resolution in 3d preferences--- its fine with the resolution set to low but when I try to turn it up parts of the drawing become invisible. They are still there -I can still select objects--but they cant be seen. Im trying to get rid of the wireframe look of my model.I have rendered useing final shaded polygons. Any sugestions???-- useing WXP-on 3gig p4-1qiq memory Mele Kalikimaka!!!! There are several possible actions that can be taken depend on the types of objects that are invisible, and how willing you are to make changes to your document to support this rendering. Final shaded polygon renderings should be unaffected by the graphics card, so it is most likely a VectorWorks flaw. What are the objects that don't render? [ 12-24-2003, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: Andrew Bell@NNA ]

quote: Originally posted by ekb: Wishing for the following, unless I am overlooking something, a new user 1.Provide a way to identify which sheet is active ? something similar to classes and layers ? A pop-up window with the active sheet listed? Bold font for the active sheet on the list of sheets? Sheets are not "active", they are really shortcuts for a set of commands (hide this layer, show this class, change to this view, etc.) Further changes after that made by you don't affect the sheet because it isn't an active thing. Thus there is nothing to indicate. Conceivably we could tag the last one used, however, until you perform some action that is incompatible with that sheet transition.

quote: Originally posted by lsid: curiosity, what is PIO? Plug-in Object.

quote: Originally posted by Hunter B: I'll give that a try.... where do I send a copy of this file?? tech@nemetschek.net

quote: Originally posted by CipesDesign: nsda, no guarantees, but, every once in while you can fix a corrupt file by cutting and pasting all of the data, one layer at a time, into a brand new document. Also, if you can't open the document at all, try using workgroup referencing to import the layers into another document. Alternatively, contact NNA tech support.