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RDS Casa

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Everything posted by RDS Casa

  1. markdd. Ah, should have thought of this. I've been enjoying the new data tags. Did not think of using them outside a BIM model. Also thanks, and merry christmas.
  2. Marvalous. Thanks so much. And a merry christmas Marissa.
  3. I need to put a text object in MANY layers which simply displays the layer name its in. EASY I thought at first. Actually, not a simple. Its easy to link a text string to a record field. this has been a great tool for over a decade in VW and helped me a lot. But how do I link a text string to a layer name? Is there an simple way, or do I need to marinette it to either: A:take the layer name and push it to a given record field that it then linked to the text string. B:get a marionette script to select the text (look for a give string?), over ride it with the layer name. Any thoughts very much appreciated. Thanks
  4. Further up date, but still frustrated... I am having some success using the work sheet as a data input method, but still find now way of getting the field in the data tab to appear in the object info pallet (OIP), can anyone at VW advise? Secondly, is there anyway to define the user fields as a data type, eg. number, dimensional, so I can use them in a calculation? And to that matter, is there a way to re-name them? I may have to create an additional record format here?
  5. Update, I have found you can drive it from the work sheet. Greyed out does not mean you can't change it, it just means if you click input you can select from a list of predefined options. Does anyone know where a window gets its Masonry Open width from =(Window.MasonOpenWIdth) ? and Rough Open width =(Window.RoughOpenWIdth)? It seams to take the rough dimension from the width, and the masonry is just adding 5mm to the whole thing? is there a way to control it? I googled it and found this string back from 2008 Did not appear to work 10 years ago... but it must have been fixed by now yes?
  6. er its 2018... anyone at VW fix this in 10 years? how is are masonry openings controlled? Thanks
  7. Hello, I'm hoping someone can help with a few problems I'm having on the windows? I'm trying to put data on to the windows, then extract it through a report. This question is not about the 3d geometry, just about controlling the data pushed to the objects and the extracted from them. When you click on a window and go to settings, and go right down to the bottom of the list, "Data", there are a number useful fields, including some user fields 1-10. Despite having these as not controlled by the window style, I can't get these options to appear in the OIP (without going through the settings screen, which takes 5-10 seconds to come up each time,). You might think the input would be controlled from the second data tab in the OIP (data), but they are not , so the only way to control this information is to go to each window, and go into each setting panel. This is frustrating. How do I get these options to appear in the OIP? Also I did find this, But it looks to me that only some of the parameters can be driven by a work sheet, some (like egress for example) can't seem to be controlled from the worksheet. I'm having to use this information to carry some of the data because other parts of the object are so buggy. Take the cill for example. They always appear on the wrong side of the wall (this is a recognised bug I'm told). So, I want to use the these additional data holders to carry more information about the windows, but now I find it can only be edited via the settings screen? I could make a whole new record format, carrying only and exactly the fields I want, but this loses the capacity to be controlled by the window style. Personally I think all the the places to add layers of information into these objects needs to be unified in a single interface. Finally, everytime I push changes into a window style, I think have to go round and change every end cap detail, because changing information globally appears to mess these up. I must have done it to every window nearly 10 times now. Thanks for any input
  8. Dear all, an update on progress regarding notes, data bases and work flows. Anyone who finds this helpful, you have my brother to thank for this. Sadly I'm not a VB coder. Attached is a text file with a script written in Visual basic for excel. It allows you to use excel to drive your Vectorworks notes database, where by it runs an export from an excel file, creating: - The A column becomes the description, - The B column becomes the notes (main text content). Tabs become different sections, but as yet it just names them -1, -2,-3 etc, and these need to be changed within VW. But we are looking to resolve this. This means as a team you can use excel to edit, and input into a central data set (and use all the notes and track changes included in this). For those of you using NBS, its possible to export into excel using a few methods, then with some simple editing you can have your NBS references etc as notes (NBS used to make a tool to do this, but it stopped working with VW 2016 I think. There was little uptake on it, so NBS stopped supporting it) How to use. You need excel. Maybe it works in google sheets, I’ve not tried it yet but I will. - First turn on the developer tab. Do this via File>options>customise ribbon, and tick the developer tab. - Then open the visual basic editor (far left on my version) - Then click inset > module - Copy and paste the contents of the text file into here. - goto tools >> references and scroll down and tick "Microsoft scripting runtime" to include the libraries that you need - No need to save anything. Just close the VB editor. Every time you want to run the macro, go to the developer tab, click on macros (second left on my version), then run the macro called export. This will save a .xml file where you choose. From VW, go to database controls > choose > click the exported xml, and… all your data is now in the VW database😀 Obviously, we are taking no responsibility for messing up excel files/data files. But all the above worked well for me. I’ll post up if we get the tab naming thing working. Here are some more detailed notes about the code and external data base control, if you are using them… The long random strings in the example files are GUIDs which are unique identifiers that are used by databases to identify objects. Usually they are automatically created whenever you add a new entry to a database table. If you are importing your xml to create new items in the CAD database it probably doesn’t expect to be given guids - it will create its own as it creates each object from the xml entries However, reading the documentation it looks like they can be used by the CAD software to synchronise between its objects and those in an external database (or excel etc) and it’s own items. In which case they may be needed. There is a flag at the top of the code to turn on and off the ability to generate guids in the xml when it creates the file depending on whether the cadsoftware needs them or not. Change to true or false (with in the code in the module) to export with or without guids. Also note that it will generate a new guid for each item every time you export the file. If you intend to use the xml to sync or update entries then you don’t want it to create new guids every time - it will likely create duplicate entries in the cad data - instead it will need to use existing guids and will need some slightly different code to this. ExportToXML2.txt
  9. Hello @BG You are right about the formating, so I thought I would post an update on progress regarding notes, data bases and work flows. Anyone who finds this helpful, you have my brother to thank for this. Sadly I'm not a VB coder. Attached is a text file with a script written in Visual basic for excel. It allows you to use excel to drive your Vectorworks notes database, where by it runs an export from an excel file, creating: - The A column becomes the description, - The B column becomes the notes (main text content). Tabs become different sections, but as yet it just names them -1, -2,-3 etc, and these need to be changed within VW. But we are looking to resolve this. This means as a team you can use excel to edit, and input into a central data set (and use all the notes and track changes included in this). For those of you using NBS, its possible to export into excel using a few methods, then with some simple editing you can have your NBS references etc as notes (NBS used to make a tool to do this, but it stopped working with VW 2016 I think. There was little uptake on it, so NBS stopped supporting it) How to use. You need excel. Maybe it works in google sheets, I’ve not tried it yet but I will. - First turn on the developer tab. Do this via File>options>customise ribbon, and tick the developer tab. - Then open the visual basic editor (far left on my version) - Then click inset > module - Copy and paste the contents of the text file into here. - goto tools >> references and scroll down and tick "Microsoft scripting runtime" to include the libraries that you need - No need to save anything. Just close the VB editor. Every time you want to run the macro, go to the developer tab, click on macros (second left on my version), then run the macro called export. This will save a .xml file where you choose. From VW, go to database controls > choose > click the exported xml, and… all your data is now in the VW database😀 Obviously, we are taking no responsibility for messing up excel files/data files. But all the above worked well for me. I’ll post up if we get the tab naming thing working. Here are some more detailed notes about the code and external data base control, if you are using them… The long random strings in the example files are GUIDs which are unique identifiers that are used by databases to identify objects. Usually they are automatically created whenever you add a new entry to a database table. If you are importing your xml to create new items in the CAD database it probably doesn’t expect to be given guids - it will create its own as it creates each object from the xml entries However, reading the documentation it looks like they can be used by the CAD software to synchronise between its objects and those in an external database (or excel etc) and it’s own items. In which case they may be needed. There is a flag at the top of the code to turn on and off the ability to generate guids in the xml when it creates the file depending on whether the cad software needs them or not. Change to true or false (with in the code in the module) to export with or without guids. Also note that it will generate a new guid for each item every time you export the file. If you intend to use the xml to sync or update entries then you don’t want it to create new guids every time - it will likely create duplicate entries in the cad data - instead it will need to use existing guids and will need some slightly different code to this. ExportToXML2.txt
  10. The more I use the call out tool, the more I think it needs this small upgrade. Already the database callouts have two components to them, the description, and the notes. The call out just needs an option to display: -description only, -notes only, -both. All the framework for this already exists... it just needs this option to become a lot more flexible and versatile.
  11. I'm leaning a little about xml. !!! It seems there is something called a schema, and this can control how the xml file is imported into excel. So, if any has (or has the ability to write a schema) that tells excel how to import into excel, then excel could be the editing software, which could solve the team work flow problems? Certainly this would help for me. Whereby each section from the VW data base imports to a seperate tab in excel, named as per the section name Then within each tab, each note has a row, with the description in one column, and the note text in the next. Then assuming (?) its possible to export using the same schema, all the editing could be done in this way. And use the in-built excel track changes and comments to control revisions with colleagues? for me, I'm just currently trying to find a quick way to bring a lot of good text content into the notes database. Sorry, don't think I'm good enough to create a schema.
  12. Hello, I've just started to use Notepad XML 2007, to try and edit/import a lot of spec notes. It looked promising, but unfortunately the names don't come through to the organisation tree. So I spent a good while naming the notes in notepad. Lucky I stopped after an hour and tested it. It loads fine into VW, but if you then make any changes in VW, it seems to save over all the updated section names and note names, with nothing again!!!! If anyone knows a good external editor, I could build up the spec information in this, and just use VW to place the notes?? OR if any VW tech are reading this, can you get VW database controls to name the entities as per the VW control, so editing them externally is achievable? Sorry its not a useful workflow, but its more that I'm suggesting the use of an external editor to control the text content. Only I've not found a good one yet.
  13. @BG Could I ask what data base editor you use for this? I'm trying notepad xml 2007. Its ok, but it seems if you change the section or note titles in the XML editor, they are lost the next time you edit/save the notes from VW? Thanks
  14. This is visually irritating. In the annotations layer, I was using call outs. I clicked this part of option in the OIP Which cycles through the sub objects for edit. No real reason, I just wanted to see what it did to be honest. It turns part of the call out blue, presumably to identify the bit you are editing. The problem is, its stays blue after editing, and nothing I try gets rid of the blue. Worse, it even appears in viewports on sheets I did not even edit. Always in the same place. Every single sheet now has this blue scar on it. Its not there when I exit the annotations, but always appears in every annotation layer, on every sheet, always in the same place. A complete restart does not resolve this. Please can someone tell me how to get rid of it? Unfortunately I did it on a few before I realised the problem. So now I have 3 blue scars in my sheets. very irritating. Thanks
  15. Hello, There is something with this tool I don't understand. The origin of the sheet layer seems to effect the bench mark tool when in "Y value relative to reference elevation" mode ??? So, If I have a line in the design space at y = 10,000. In the design layer, the benchmark tool when on "Y value relative to reference elevation" mode, outputs 10,000, as one would expect. But, make a viewport to that line in a sheet layer, and if the origin of that sheet layer is not on 0,0, it impacts the bench mark tool output when on "Y value relative to reference elevation" mode??????????? Why would it do this? I can see perfectly how changing the origin in the design layer would rightfully change the Y reading, but not the origin of the sheet layer sheet layer? Surely this is irrelevant to geometry I have placed in the design layer. I did not even realise the sheet layers can have their own origins? took me ages to find the reason I would have thought, to maintain consistent benchmark reading across viewports in multiple sheets, the benchmark tool ought really only care about the Y value of the design layer(s) the viewport (s) are looking at? See above how the origin of my sheet layer has some how shifted to y=-85, which is why my bench marks were 85mm out? This is really curious to me, and my worry here is seeing as I don't how my sheet layer origins jumped out in the first place, this means it could happen again, and this would throw out the benchmarks on that sheet, even though the geometry in the design layers has never moved. Whats the story here? Am I using this tool incorrectly? Thanks
  16. Hello Does any one know if its possible to use Data Tags in sectional viewports within the design Layers? I can only get them to work in the annotations layer, which only exists on sheet layers? am I doing something wrong here? My models are rarely complete enough to go straight to the sheets layers; there is almost always an explode and clean up in the design layers first for sections and elevations. Thanks
  17. Thanks @Boh, I shall try this. Certainly it will help by the look of it. Thanks again
  18. Shame. Undermines the point of a database, I mean, may as well copy/base from a word document otherwise. Thanks for reply
  19. Did this ever happen? I can't find the option to re-link to database changes? I also added a request to the functionality today... simply to have an optional tick box in the object info palette to display only the database description, not all the notes.
  20. I don't think this is currently possible (PLEASE do tell me if it is). Its kind of simple ... Just a tick box on the call out tool Object info Palette, that means it can display the description, rather than the note text. That's got to be easy, right? ! This is so that the note text in the database can carry detailed specification information, but the displayed description carries only its description reference. In most cases I only need the reference (eg. "F1.312 Coursed Rubble stone") the detailed spec information can then be displayed using the General Notes tool somewhere else. The general notes tool already has the option to use the description as the left hand column, under "General Notes Display". And then, Vectorworks referring to a .xml file controlled by ODBC control can be used as a powerful spec writer. I don't have to use NBS Without this, it 2 databases talking to each other. Thankyou.
  21. Hello @C.Miguel, Just to report some progress. Good suggestions by @JMR in the forum string linked in my previous post. In short, add the database control: =COMPONENTNAME(1) to the header, the number in brackets denotes the component name it will call up. so my spreadsheet at the moment has headers that run: =COMPONENTNAME(1) =COMPONENTTHICKNESS(1) =COMPONENTNAME(2) =COMPONENTTHICKNESS(2) =COMPONENTNAME(3) =COMPONENTTHICKNESS(3) =COMPONENTNAME(4) =COMPONENTTHICKNESS(4) =COMPONENTNAME(5) =COMPONENTTHICKNESS(5) =COMPONENTNAME(6) =COMPONENTTHICKNESS(6) etc. This lists out all the components as per the original forum post. Albeit in a horizontal line, one row per wall object (which is then summarized to display one row for each wall type in the document). It produces a quite intense worksheet when you have a lot of wall types and a lot of components. Hope this helps.
  22. Thanks @JMR Interesting.... yes, I can get each column to report the next component, thanks. But still not list the components in rows. What this does allow me to do however is to create one row for each wall type, and then list out the components successively in that row, using the IF command to put a blank cell in for walls with less components. Its a very wide worksheet though! The information is there, and is generated automatically and quickly. The output is not so Contractor friendly. But lets see how they take it. Thanks.
  23. And I can't find a way to give individual components a record format, even one I create (other wise I could just list all objects with that record field). It seems that components are not objects in the way everything else in VW is, so I'm not sure they can be listed in a Database. This is why its not possible to data tag them? What maybe is possible, but beyond me, is to a script of some kind that grabs the data (because as you have shown, the data can be called) and throw it into a worksheet, but not a data base one. just a normal plain spread sheet. And if so, the key info (that I need at least): The Mark (of the wall) The description (of the wall) The name (of the wall) ------ Then below that, list out in rows each component:, its name, its width, its lambda value, its R value, If its a normal spreadsheet (not a data base) Then I would also add a specification reference column, Referring each element to a specification clause, eg. block work to F10.355 (which is the NBS common concrete blockwork). Seeing that a record format can't be assigned to a component (I believe) this would have to added manually later). From my amature reading of @taavilooke nice little script, I think its possible? but I'm not good enough to take this and extrapolate it to list out the components. Thanks for your suggestion though.
  24. Thanks. One step closer... but it only lists out the first component for each wall object. How do I get it to make a database row for each component? When I go to "list all objects of type......" component is not an option, When I start with component, it wants to list all objects where a given component is present? Basically whatever I do, it lists the walls, not the components in the data base?
  25. mmmm, I don't want to give up before I've started, but quickly I find: vs.GetComponentName vs.GetNumberOfComponents(obj) vs.GetComponentNetVolume(obj, index) vs.GetComponentNetArea(obj, index) But nothing about the thickness, even in the SDK wiki. So at best, I think all I could ever do is get it to list the component names in a wall, and I'm not 100% sure how to do that. Beyond dividing the component area by the wall length to get the component thickness (bad idea I suspect), maybe this can't be done? I've also had a bit of a detailed look at the IFC data in a wall. Nothing links to the components, There is an optional IFC record called material, which lists 8 components and allows data input. I had hoped these linked to the components in a wall, but they don't. You just get 8 slots (referred to as components) irrespective of the number of components in the build up 😞 . Nothing is dynamic to the VW component build up. This also means Data tags can't pick out components in a detailed viewport, which would have been nice. All this seems crazy when the build up information is just there, being useful only to VW users... and beyond a screen grab I can't get it out? Ironically everything I need is in 2 screen grabs! There has to be a better way to get out the information for other people in the process to use?????
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