Jonathan K

Hey Andy, The other forum is kind of locked up still so I will post here. Finally had some time to sit down and take a hard look at this today. Looks great! Here is a little feedback from adding some line array to a working plot. Maybe I am missing a step but whats the procedure for building an array with variable box angles? Rather than tilt difference (which seems to yield a constant curvature array) it would be a bit smoother to have individual hanging angles for each box and the top box to the fly bracket. Then using the Top Tilt attribute to refer to the hanging angle for the fly bracket. When editing an array after inserting boxes the only way I could get the boxes to update was to delete them, make the changes in the OIP and insert them again from the array tool. I am guessing that is what the Update button was for but does not seem to work for me. Last thing I noticed was from a side view with dispersion active the lines seem a bit odd. There is a center line that runs 90 degrees out of the face of the box, which is kinda nice. However changing the vertical coverage in the OIP only changes the top dispersion line when it really should split the difference between the top and bottom dispersion lines. IN fact, I don't even see a bottom dispersion line. I will be in the office the remainder of the week (more or less) if you want to chat. Awesome for 1.0!! /cheers Jon

Hey Andy, Finally had some time to sit down and take a hard look at this today. Looks great! Here is a little feedback from adding some line array to a working plot. Maybe I am missing a step but whats the procedure for building an array with variable box angles? Rather than tilt difference (which seems to yield a constant curvature array) it would be a bit smoother to have individual hanging angles for each box and the top box to the fly bracket. Then using the Top Tilt attribute to refer to the hanging angle for the fly bracket. When editing an array after inserting boxes the only way I could get the boxes to update was to delete them, make the changes in the OIP and insert them again from the array tool. I am guessing that is what the Update button was for but does not seem to work for me. Last thing I noticed was from a side view with dispersion active the lines seem a bit odd. There is a center line that runs 90 degrees out of the face of the box, which is kinda nice. However changing the vertical coverage in the OIP only changes the top dispersion line when it really should split the difference between the top and bottom dispersion lines. IN fact, I don't even see a bottom dispersion line. I will be in the office the remainder of the week (more or less) if you want to chat. Awesome for 1.0!! /cheers Jon

I have had a similar issue. Did you try exporting and raising the DPI to 300?

Matt, This works perfect. Thanks!

Is there a simple way to scale the key down when placing on a scaled sheet layer? I just started using the drawing border tool and I would love to "attach" the key to the title block for a smoother looking document. Problem is I cannot find a decent way to reduce to scale the block down to the sheet layer scale. It always draws in my design layer scale and resizing fails miserably. I guess I could just do a viewport of the key. Not a big deal to create my own. Just seems like there should be an easier way. Thanks!

JL, I am kinda guessing that you are drawing a balcony batten. Draw a polyline arch. Modify > Create Symbol Modify > Convert > Convert to Light Position This should work out fine in 2d plan. If you need to do a pipe in 3d you will need to play around with the extrude along path command to create the pipe. Hope this helps. jk

I think in this particular show I am working on going through the extra steps isn't going to be necessary. I think I understand what's going on in this instance and why. Like I said the only place that it really affects me is in the rigging sheet layer. I will however keep this in mind for the next time I run into this. Thanks for the advice Michaelk and Pat! jk

I think this is just something fundamental I am not quite comfortable with. Sorry for the basics questions. I am by no means a professional drafts-person. I don't think that I fully understand the differences between top/plan and top view. Let me see if I get this straight. I am starting with a hybrid object and dropping the 2d component in order to get the desired orientation. Then switching back to a hybrid object when converting to a lighting position. Therefore the object will not show up in top/plan in which only 2d data is visible? Ultimately it doesn't matter if I have the object showing up in the top/plan because of the way we look at a show in viewports. I can simply use top view for rigging plans instead of top/plan. Funny I could probably hang this element in real life faster than I can draw it! Thanks Pat! jon

Slight addition to my previous. The truss disappears in top/plan but is visible in top view. I always hesitate to use the word but is this a bug?

Greetings all, I hunted around for a while looking for some info on this. I am sure it's been covered but... To rule out anything odd going in my plot I started a new drawing to "play" with the circle truss only. Draw a circle truss with the round truss tool. 12" x 12" box with 10' radius. Segment length 45 degrees. Check draw 3d only. 3d rotate 90 degrees. Doing a vertical circle truss upstage center with a custom lace and grommet screen. This is all pretty easy enough. However, when I convert to lighting position the truss is no longer visible in top/plan. I would like it to be a lighting position to aid in inserting fixture objects. Is there a better method to do this, or am I missing a step? Regards, jon

Gentlemen, Array calculators are proprietary. Some as simple as a spreadsheet (JBL) and some as complicated as Soundvision (L'Acoustics). Speaker polar patterns are not simple ovals. Physics voodoo is more commonly referred too as coupling and happens with all speakers, not just line array. Sound modeling software does indeed calculate reflection... and a LOT more. It also relies on having accurate surface data. For instance a cinder block gymnasium sounds a lot different than a wooden concert hall. That being said. I would love to get my hands on a simple array tool that would give me reasonable representations the physical layout of an array. Something that I could "plug" various array data into, select a speaker box and place it into a drawing. Getting both horizontal and vertical polar response data (coverage)(similar to the "cone" in VS-4) would be icing on the cake. One of the simpler calculators around is the VERTEC Line Array Calculator. It's really just a fancy spreadsheet. Maybe you could look at that just to get some ideas. http://www.jblpro.com/catalog/general/technicallibrary.aspx You might also have a look at EASE. http://www.easefocus.com/ Sign me up as interested.

Trust me, he knows! At least I got him to buy me the VS-4 plugin. Thanks again for you replies!

I am working on a Mac but have a windows style mouse. Mac mice are awful imho. Anyhow. I can select multiple lights, yes. From the Vis Palette I can shift click and select as many fixtures as I want. When right clicking them in the selected group and choosing edit I get the diet version of the "Edit Light" window. It does not have any of the beam control attributes. I should have said in my previous post that the beam options go away with multiple fixtures selected.

I was playing around with that as you posted in fact. Changing the falloff's to smooth and the Lit Fog texture to Hazy really did the trick. Huge difference indeed! Too bad, it seems, that you must do 1 light at a time.

Brilliant! Thank you gentlemen.