Kanastrous

I'm importing DXFs and DWGs created by another designer in Rhino, and find that wherever there is an arc segment, the original segment has disappeared and been replaced by the 'remaining' segment (IE if it's a 5-degree arc, instead of importing as drawn it comes in as the *other* 360 degrees of the arc, with the original 5 degrees missing). It seems to happen with certain straight-line segments, too. Does anyone know if there are particular settings or a process to remedy this? Thanks, all!

Thanks everybody!

This seems pretty basic but I have not succeeded in finding a suitable solution in the Help, or on-line... All of my lines display identically on-screen, regardless of their assigned weight (the weights show properly on prints). How do I get lines to display varying thicknesses on-screen, to reflect different line weights? I'm working in wireframe mode. thanks!

The original .dwg was exported from Sketchup, which indeed exports everything as itty-bitty unassociated line segments (which I then clean up as necessary in Vectorworks, replacing segments with proper lines, radii, etc as needed). Yes, arcs may be composed of small line segments but those line segments were not originally dispersed the way that they are now... This is not the basic problem, though - I'm looking at a half-inch stack of documents produced in precisely the same way over the last several weeks, not one of which displayed this kind of misbehavior while I was working on them. btw this weird sketchup->vectorworks approach is dictated by the peculiarities of our production workflow here. Just the way it is.

Pat - The 'jittering' I'm describing is in the non-concentricity of the circles that should be concentric, and the many lines that ought to intersect to form corners but are instead offset from one another. It's in the .pdf you linked, too, and that's both the way the file displays on-screen, and how it prints. michaelk - Yes, the messed-up-knobs is one of the things I'm talking about. Also, the way that radii should end right on the ends of lines, but don't. And the way that lines making up - for example - the draw latches are all randomized, and to some degree just-plain missing. Kevin - Yes, what you linked is exactly what I mean by 'jittered.' Alas between the last correct printing of the sheet and noticing the messed-up-ed-ness, there were no scaling operations performed, at least, no known or deliberate ones. I don't think the effect is sufficiently consistent that I'd suspect rescaling as the issue...and anyway everything still measures out correctly (ie a given dia. 1/4" knob is still 1/4"). mike - I checked the menu and 'Rough Sketch' was not selected (it's set to Wireframe). Thanks for the brainstorming, guys! Still redrawing...

Alas I didn't get to note the exact sequence of commands leading to the mess-up. Well, thanks for looking the file over. I really am grateful that you're willing to take the time and try to figure it out. If I can untangle any more of what led to this, I'll post it right away. In the mean time I'm resigned to just having to redo a day's drawing. Thanks again, karl

Apparently selecting and moving the stand at the left side of the page is what did it. Or possibly selecting and moving the device drawing (the views on the right). Using shift+directional arrows to make the move. I'm manually reconstructing it now, having no other choice. @&$#%*^!

The file can be downloaded from this link here: https://www.yousendit.com/download/bFFNck8zT2JOQnl4dnc9PQ

Can't think of a better description: imagine a drawing where most of the lines and shapes have moved just a little bit, in random directions, "jittering" the image. It's a fairly complex drawing in terms of detail, and now it's useless hash. A problem I have noticed before is that I will select, say, one particular line or group of lines and move it - and some other element of the drawing that isn't selected or connected to the selection (sometimes even on another layer!) will move or change when I move or change the selection - and what's really odd is that the non-selected element doesn't move in the same way or direction, but rather in some random direction at a 1-to-1 ratio to the item that *is* selected... Between the last good version of the drawing and this messed-up version, I selected everything and moved it a bit up the page. This is likely *when* the jitter happened, but I don't understand *why*. I *have* to figure out how this happened; I can't place any confidence in the tools until I know why, and any more time spent working in VW risks being totally wasted if this happens again.

Got that font pack. Very nice, and the price isn't too painful. Thanks! Much appreciated.

*edit again* Deleted all of the dimensions and other associated notes and text, and now it flips just fine. I guess this means that you can't flip stuff that has dimensions/notes/whatever included.

*edit* I found that it *will* -rotate- the selected items (left 90 degrees, right 90 degrees) - but still won't *flip* them, vertically or horizontally...

So I have a portion of a drawing that I want to flip horizontally, but when I try I get a box saying: this editing operation cannot be performed because of constraints on one or more objects involved So off I go to the Modify > Edit Constraints menu, only to find that the 'Edit Constraints...' line is grayed out and therefore un-selectable. Well, if there are constraints upon the geometry, why isn't the 'constraints' menu item available, to access them...? All advice much appreciated, in advance.

Right...signature now updated. I'm sending files to the HP across our office network.

...not consistently, though - one document in which there are some .05% gray-filled borderless squares prints as expected, but subsequent documents with the same settings, etc print the same .05% gray as solid pitch black. Any theories? Thanks in advance for any and all advice...

I'll try those - thanks!

Yes, downloaded from here - http://www.fonts101.com/xt_fontdetails_az_FID!40700~Frank_the_Architect~font.html

Okay...changed all text to Arial and everything printed just fine... ...then noted that a couple of dimensions had been left in the Frank the Architect font, and *those* printed just fine, too, along with the majority of text in Arial. My co-worker's theory is that the Frank the Architect font is heavily memory-intensive for the plotter, so that when all is in that font it just gets dumped, but when there's a small quantity of text in that font, the memory can handle it. Does that sound reasonable? Next question: can I change smoothing etc settings in how Vectorworks renders the type? Perhaps I can find a setting that makes the memory overhead of that font manageable...

The font is a TrueType font called 'Frank the Architect.'

Thank you everyone for being so generous with your responses. re: exported .pdfs: when I exported a .pdf it opened lacking the text, just like the printed output off the VW document re: font - same font in both files, the printing-with and printing-without re: worksheets: I am working in only one layer and have not made any organizational changes. I ought to clarify that I am a very inexperienced user, to the degree that I don't know how to answer the question. Hopefully this is meaningful: when I came home and opened the document and set it up to print on an 11" x 8.5" page on a home printer (an HP deskjet 3520) the printed portion of the document came out with the text in place as desired. I guess this suggests that there is an issue when printing this particular document on the particular printer in use at my work place. Maybe. Or maybe it means that for some reason the document wasn't opening properly at work, although it was on the same machine.

Du'oh! Of course... Windows XP Pro V2002 Service Pack 3 Vectorworks 2010 SP1 Build 114226 HP Designjet 500PS ..it does appear to be a file-specific problem, in that the previous file created with the same settings prints fine. But when I copy-paste the contents of the not-printing-right document into the file that prints okay, it still prints without text.

Everything else does, though - lines at correct weight, imported bitmaps, dimension lines and elevation bubbles...but not one item has the text that appears on the screen, printing upon the page. Settings are identical to the previous document, wherein all of the text items printed just fine. Anyone have any ideas what's up, with this?