Andrew Bell@NV

Does the solid have a solid fill? I believe that even if it has a texture, it will render as wireframe if its fill is none on the attribute palette.

quote: Originally posted by reverb: The following scales should be available in the architectural scale area of the layer scale window: If you're using these scales a lot, it's pretty easy to create your own plug-in command to set it. Select "Create Plug-in", create a new plug-in of command type (naming it something like "Set Scale 3-16", select "Script..." and enter SetScale(32); {for 3/8"=1'0"}Use 64 for 3/16"-1', and 128 for 3/32".

quote: 1) Walls don't have a "control line" (as they do in ArchiCAD. Good point, and the OI palette could certainly support such a thing. The widget would be like that used for lines. I'm surprised I haven't heard anyone suggest this before. quote: 2) I should be able to move an element or selection set on the screen according to any vector that I define with two mouse clicks (whether or not those mouse clicks are on the selection set). Go to http://www.vectordepot.com and get the move/duplicate by vector plug-ins, they'll do exactly that. I do like several of your duplicate array thoughts, although that's generally outside my area of expertise.

quote: Originally posted by Antone Cepernich: After creating a 3D object and giving it a fill or texture, performing an action such as Convert to Mesh, Solid Subtraction, etc., resets its fill/texture back to None. There are multiple issues present here, but essentially it's just a question of not having had the time to support everything you would like. Meshes, as currently implemented, are limited to a single texture with a single mapping. Thus converting more than one object, or an object with a mapping incompatible with meshes (an extrude with a perimeter mapped texture, for example), would not work with meshes as implemented. As of 9.0.1, at least, the texture itself -- if not the mapping -- is maintained if you convert a sphere or extrude to a mesh. Solids, as currently implemented, have similar limits. Maintaining the three textures of a wall would be nice to have, but not having this was not judged essential enough that we should hold back supporting walls as solids until textures are preserved. All a question of programmer time and priority, really.

quote: Originally posted by chris jones: I have recently installed VectorWorks 9.0.1 on my Macintosh PowerBook G4, but whenever I try to open the program, I get the following warning: "VectorWorks is running in demo mode. You cannot print, save or export from this version." How do I get out of demo mode? Is it an installation problem? I'd be grateful for any help. Did you buy one of the industry series but just install the foundation product? If so, I believe this happens if you tell the installer you're going to install Architect/Spotlight/Landmark/etc afterwards, but don't actually do so. If I'm right, you'll either need to reinstall the foundation package and say no, or install the industry package.

quote: Originally posted by johnharley: This illustrates why measuring in acres should be built in to the program "right out of the box". There will be a plug-in command available at http://www.vectordepot.com that should work to display acreage, regardless of your units, etc. settings. (Note that it has not received more than the most simple testing.) [ 11-04-2001: Message edited by: Andrew Bell@NNA ]

quote: Originally posted by Mark Chevalier:I have a rectangle I know to be 1.0 acres and the message I get is "Acreage is 2.371". Does the object info palette display 43560 square feet? I created a one acre rectangle, changed units to feet, and ran your script. It worked perfectly.

quote: Originally posted by johnharley: I also will try this technique. However, this is something that should be available out of the box. Hmm. One thought that comes to mind is perhaps the display system could have settings for showing values in certain ranges in certain units. For example, maybe polygons more than 10,000 square feet in size would be displayed in acres, more than .5 square feet in square feet, and below that in square inches (perhaps going down to microns, etc. as needed.) Alternatively, the area display (and other similar displays) on the object info palette could potentially have a control associated with it that could choose between various units. Note that this is just thinking aloud. Any further thoughts on what you think would work best? ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by hmseiden: Emphasis on the "will..." The 9.5 beta being distributed runs in OS X in native mode (as well as in OS 9.x.) Everything I've heard says 9.5 is a free upgrade from 9.0.1, and for purposes of upgrading from previous versions should be considered the same. ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by jnr: You might also notice that if you put too many openings in a wall or take it in and out several times, that a wall will sometimes display like there is still an opening in the wall when there actually is none. I would suspect corrupted code... good luck If you manage to create a file that demonstrates this, send it to bugsubmit@nemetschek.net, or to me directly if you prefer. ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by Vince: Thanks for your speedy reply. I tried your advice. What I need is a ramp that starts horizontal sweeps thru 90 degree's and ends horizontal. Imagine someone needs to walk down it. Sweep a horizontal line around a locus, and you'll get just that. If you want to e-mail me, I can send you a sample file that demonstrates it. ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by Vince: Where can I get any useful information about using NURBS (The manual is vague to the point of being useless). How about some examples in the how to section of your web site. What I'm trying to achieve is a curved ramp. Say for example a ramp that starts at 8' high and then rotates through 90 degrees and drops down 8'. NURBS, being new to VW, don't have all the interface and flexibility we intend them to have in the long run. While it is possible to use VectorScript to create the nurbs surface you describe, if your ramp is a circular path, you might find it easier to create a sweep (of a line or a long thin rectangle) with a 32' pitch to create such a ramp. Or, if you need it to follow a not-quite-circular path, create that sweep and then use extruded polylines to cut away the bits you don't need with the Subtract Solids operation. If this isn't good enough for what you need, let me know and I'll try to explain how to create actual nurbs surfaces. ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by Mark Chevalier: Is there a way for the object info pallette to show polygon area as acres as well as / instead of sq ft? No, but a quick VectorScript that does the conversion is pretty simple. If your units are "Feet and inches", the following VectorScript will show the area of all selected objects in acres: Message('Acreage is ', Area(Sel=TRUE)/6272640); You can create a plug-in menu item, enter that single line as the script, add it to your workspace, and give it a keyboard shortcut. Presto, acreage on demand. ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by jnr: Does anyone remember the name of the web site with the Vectorworks add-ons (textures, scripts etc.)? All I can remember is the blue text. I seem to have a memory leak... http://www.vectordepot.com ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by StarGate:It is very pitty that Apple relies on software developers to make use of the second processor. There is no alternative. Programs are sequences of instructions, where certain instructions must be performed before others for correct results. Progress in analyzing code to identify and restructure parallelizeable sections would probably earn you a Ph.D. at a major university. quote: So the question we have to ask ourselves is the following : Do we like to accept the higher development cost for a dual processor version of VectorWorks? I suspect if you called Rich or Sean with $500,000 cash in hand and told them you wanted multiprocessor support, they'd express interest in your proposal... ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by Archken: After an extrude is moved, paste in place does not work when editing inside it. This was available in MC7 and sorely missed in VW8. Use a floor object instead of an extrude. Extrudes are for true 3-D objects, where they can be rotated out of the X-Y plane, and thus there is no relationship between the ground and the extrude's "local" 2-D space. Floors, on the other hand, must remain aligned with the ground. So you can do your copies and paste in place, and things stay aligned. Move the floor, and the internals move with it. Is there some reason you're using an extrude rather than a floor? ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by jnr: Hey Matt: I'm using 9.01 on win98se,lots of RAM. Stretching walls has become a pain that I don't recall in 8.5.2. Trying to maintain orthogonality when stretching any type of wall length now seems to be arbitary. Do you get a weird little twist where the sides of the wall cross each other, or is it a perfectly good wall otherwise that just isn't aligned? The former is a bug that is already fixed in the 9.5 development code. (Note that the bug only affects the actual interactive drawing of the wall, not the final wall.) ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by Eric Chenault: I tried oval ... however that doesn't select circles. For purposes of custom selection, circles are (360 degree) arcs. But improving the flexibility of the tool to allow just selecting circles could be quite useful.

quote: Originally posted by Weirdone: When I enter into the program and get the pan function on and let the cursor go over the screen, trails of the pan hand 'stick' to the screen - this also occurs when I use the line function using the smart cursor cues. It looks like a screen resolution issue. I run AutoCAD on my computer and it doesn't have the same issues so I don't think its my video card. I'm running on Windows NT system Autocad may not be using the same video API calls that VectorWorks uses. There's a thread on the message board labelled "video card woes", which was all due to problems with nVidia's drivers for the Mac. VectorWorks was one of the few products that used certain XORing draw calls, thus most apps were unaffected by the problem. nVidia released new drivers, and the problem went away. So don't count out the video card driver just because something else doesn't exhibit it. Have you checked that you are running the latest video card driver for your card? And again, which card is it? Are you running NT 4.0, or Windows 2000? ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by Scott Pointon: Creating Copy to Lines view of a Item such as a head gland for a hydraulic ram gives an unsatisfactory result (isometric view) lose half the view of internal surface. Can you send me (or bugsubmit@nemetschek.net) a sample file that demonstrates the problem? ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by jnr: I fixed it myself by turning down the hardware acceleration until it stopped crashing (my computer-properties-performance-graphics). If that fixes a problem, then the fundamental problem is with the graphics card driver. Check their website for updated drivers, that's much more likely to fix the problem than anything NNA does. ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by erock5000: Thanks Andrew, I'll give that a shot. Note that OpenGL has support for hidden-line rendering, although it creates a raster (bitmap) image rather than actually creating lines. So "convert to lines" wouldn't work with it, nor would add-ons like Doodle! that try to give the lines a hand-drawn effect. But it could be useful for visualization. If this would be of interest, post a note to the wishlist board expressing your interest. ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by oxidiser: I seem to get a fatal error when I modify existing door parameters (trim dimensions etc) and the software shuts down. Am i not using the door tool correctly No, the software should never shut down on its own. I haven't heard of problems in this area; have you tried to contact tech support? OS and VW version information would also be useful. ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

One thing you need to remember is that VectorWork's hidden line rendering is not "simple." Unlike an OpenGL or RenderWorks image, it is mathematically precise, computing exact intersections between lines. This allows you to zoom in nigh-infinitely on the hidden line render, but also means that the time it takes to render a scene is "non-linear" with respect to the number of polygons in that scene. In VW 8 and before, it was in fact proportional to the square of the number of objects in the scene. Have 100 polygons? It takes not 10 times as long as doing 10 polygons, but 100 times as long. I added code to pre-sort the polygons in VW9, and this decreased the factor somewhat, but it's still not linear, and can't be. One recommendation, if you don't need facet lines and have curved objects, is to use the facet line removal option. At present this is only available via VectorScript. Create a VectorScript with the single line: SetPrefReal(72, RealDialog('Enter new smoothing angle in degrees',Num2Str(1, GetPrefReal(72)))); and you'll get rid of lots of facet lines, which should both improve performance and reduce memory usage. I've submitted a plug-in menu command with the above line to http://www.vectordepot.com. If you get that plug-in and put it in your plug-ins folder, you can then add the menu command to your render menu and it'll be available whenever you need it. ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA

quote: Originally posted by klinzey: With 8.5 you have to hold down the Ctrl key (Cmd-Mac) before you select the object. In 9 the control key can be pressed at any time during the operation. Just to clarify this: what matters is whether you are holding down the control key when you release the mouse button. You can press control and release multiple times during the drag, but only the final position will affect the outcome. ------------------ Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA