James Russell

Hi All, I'm looking at a workflow for Point Cloud data in Vectorworks, in particular room scanning. We had some great success in testing the new AR Point Cloud capture in Nomad and an example .vwx file is attached to this post. However I'm interested in people's experience in a practical workflow for utilising this data. The excellent YouTube video below gets us started on several workflows, in particular Sectional Viewports to Sheet Layers; https://youtu.be/7H2GX2TgS2k However, I'm wondering if anyone has a workflow for creating a Sectional Design Layer Viewport. As shown in the example file attached we can achieve an excellent section using the Clip Cube on the provided point cloud (have a look at the Saved View progression for this) however it would be useful to have this functionality with a limited depth from cut plane Sectional Design Layer Viewport. The only current workflow that I have is; [Optional] Copy Point Cloud to retain original. From a side perspective of the Point Cloud, with the cloud selected, choose to Isolate Points from the OIP. With a rectangle marquee draw over the central portion required as the "section depth". Either leave Isolated and/or Remove Points beyond Isolation in OIP. I feel that if there is a Sectional Design Layer Viewport function or workflow there'd be more functionality in the ability to define the section line z-depth and the extent before and after cutting plane - giving more precise control over the Point Cloud Cut. The workflow above is functional, but I feel it's a little inefficient / clunky, I'd be interested in other user's feedback and other tricks / tips you have! Hope you're all well. J 231117 - Point Cloud Isolation Example.vwx

Hi Kevin, I share your snapping vibe and the implementation of the 'state based snapping inversion' is probably a good and easy overall change. However I've also found people aren't aware/appreciative of the slightly hidden 'sticky suspended snapping' shortcut (done by a quick double-tap of the ` key), which I've probably committed to muscle memory in lieu of your suggested GUI/interface change. Cheers, James

Additionally, let's not forget how crazy this little animation concept can become [See attached Pacman project from 2015] Controls: W : Up A : Left S : Down D : Right Space: Stop Esc: Quit I still strongly believe this deserved to be in the included sample files of VW by default, perhaps @Peter Neufeld. the AU/NZ VW2023 needs to be rebundled. 😅 @michaelk - Pacman definitely requires your tagline of "Badly scripted by James Russell" JRussell - PacMan 2015.vwx

@michaelk : It's not often I awaken from my forum slumber - however I'm impressed and you deserve to know it. However, I'm a marinonette man now, and as such the challenge has been reset. I'm off to explore this for a bit. One day we'll know the Animation works secrets... one day.

Hi all, It's been a while but I'm playing with Marionette for Large Expo components. It feel like two way Marionette functionality should be fairly easy programatically VW change right? We do it for the LED tools, Lighting Devices, etc. Why can't we have a ='Marionette Object'.'My_Field_Name' call, it's just a database entry. I think it's somewhat essential to the development of practical tools to be able to work in bi-directional worksheets - to be able to track multiple entity changes, edit object names/parameters, counts of fields, even booleans changes would make this much more powerful and sellable to client workflows. I hope maybe @Marissa Farrell or one of your crew could look at the plausibility of this request for the Roadmap of this Tool. Otherwise super enjoying it. Cheers, J

Hi Nick, The best way for run based numbering is using the 'Manual' setting within Spotlight Numbering. To do this I find it best to: Have no lamps selected, but be on the Layer with your lamps. Spotlight>Spotlight Numbering from the menu bar. Tick the box next to DMX Address. (See additional options for the DMX Footprint, either manually input a number or by the allocation within the fixture profile) In Numbering Direction choose Manual from the Primary Direction drop-down. Press Ok. Start clicking on your lamps one by one in the order you'd like them to be numbered. When finished double click in a blank space. Hopefully that answered your query, should I have misunderstood let us know! Cheers, J

100%. You'll actually notice in the Lighting Device world this is done through the name field being locked to an auto incrementing number generated as the lamp is placed its unique identifier is created (similar to a timestamp really) - no reason the same can't be applied here (or actually similar would be preferred as a lot of people would like the name field to be available for LOC based lookups...).

I can somewhat agree with this from an ease of use perspective, by default it would be good on copy (either flat copy, repetitive duplication, mirror copy or rotation copy) that things auto incremented however I can also see how the logic is derived from the predecessor of this, the Lighting Device. When you mirror a lighting rig, although it would be a nicety for the unit numbers to perhaps auto increment, for the most part we actually want that data to remain the same - for example in key fill pairs, or floods/wash pairs. Unit 73 (or Channel 73 pending your theatrical preference in numbering and conventions) may actually be present in two or more locations along a bar for pairing purposes. Although it does add additional steps to a workflow when dealing with hoisting the past, particularly on long truss runs with 10 hoists or more, I've just found myself using the Spotlight Numbering feature more, getting familiar with the shortcut key and punching out a line from Left to Right. It's not ideal but it certainly does the job. Perhaps another alternative is the option to resolve Hoist Number conflicts as a menu item - it wouldn't be a large script at all to write! I look forward to you pushing Braceworks further Nathaniel. J

Just thought I'd jump in here with more than just a +1 to this line of inquiry. I, for the longest time, have wanted to use VW drawings in several packages, Unity and Blender primarily - however prevented by the seemingly random normal directions when using formats such as .3ds and .fbx. I hit the very same (if not very similar) series of roadblocks in 2016: At the time I, along with a few others ( @rDesign & @zoomer for example), were having grievances in the way VW renders normals overall. Being able to use objects created in VW in other packages fluidly would have great benefit moving forwards into AR/VR experiences, game intergration and rendering overall. I believe I gave up the day that I drew a 1m cube, exported it, viewed in Blender/Unity the top and the bottom were inverted normals. I then in VW rotated the cube 90 degrees in an axis, exported it, viewed it was completely inverted. That was the day I knew until a core fault was fixed we'd never move a model from VW to Blender/Unity. **Note: There is an answer here to "Double Normal" both side of an object, and yes - this would appear to be a correct solve on face value (no pun intended), however there are multiple downsides including additional excess rendering power, texture map rotation/flipping and overall general messy practice. I would love to see this resolved however looking at the progress and interest thus far I don't really expect it. I'll be following. J

Hi Henry, I've just had a quick look over the Enscape Technical Specifications and it is only for VW2020 Service Pack 3. You won't be able to just update your VW2019 to VW2020, that's not quite how the Vectorworks updates work. You'll receive updates for your yearly version, (ie. VW2019SP1, VW2019SP2, etc), but not for yearly releases. Presuming you're a current student you should be able to log into your student portal and then download an installer for VW2020. (Note: There are some random clauses from memory, like if your course is ending in less than 3 months you'll not be provided with a link - and a few other random things like that.) Otherwise if you can get your hands on VW2020 you should be good to go. Good luck, James

Hi Henry, You are correct that there should be a menu item beneath Plug-ins which would lead you to Tools>Third-party>Enscape>Add Enscape to Workspace. Looking at your Workspace Editor on the left I notice you don't have an Enscape item listed and/or available for dropdown. You could expand the "All Menus" section and have a quick look in there for "Add Enscape to Workspace". This would firstly lead to thinking the plugin wasn't successfully installed originally. I've just done the installation for VW2020 (and noted you're running 2019 here) however it was quite straightforward and mine appeared instantly. Perhaps redo the installation of Enscape, ensuring VW is closed whilst installing, and that you have all the Runtime and Distributables it requires in the first installation menu. Let us know how you go. J

@Kazemester do you happen to have a PDF which displays this behaviour between version (presuming by your post you mean between VW2019 to VW2020 or similar). I've only really ever seen behaviour as @danm01 describes where you have two formats of PDF compression; Vector-based PDFs: These will commonly ungroup into three components; A Bitmap Preview, A White Rectangle (representing the 'Page Space' of a PDF) and a group of the vector data (usually lines, rectangles and some polygons). Rasterized PDFs: These will only have the first two components; A Bitmap Preview and A White Rectangle (representing the 'Page Space' of a PDF). Some people use this as a way to protect data, also depending on the DPI they can be smaller than a complex Vector-based PDF. [also often older venue plans or scanned documents will be Rasterized] If you have an example of a PDF you've run into which behaves as you've described feel free to link it here and I'm sure the community (and myself) will be happy to test between version. Cheers, J

@LeeElston I stumbled upon this whilst teaching a new class a few days ago. I agree it seems like a step backwards compared to the side-by-side previous layout! +1 for a change back to the previous layout.

If you're using VW 2019 and have created this curved travel path from Save Views you should be able to grab the slider in the Edit Path Animation dialog and drag it all the way to the top, creating a smooth transition line; No problem. I'm currently using Spotlight 2020 for the examples in my previous videos - however Create Animation is available in all versions, including Fundamentals. Just be cautious if you have transitioned from VW2019 into VW2020 and used the Migration Options to keep your old workspace then you may not have the new 2020 Create Animation set in your current workspace. Head to Tools > Workspaces > Edit Current Workspace and look for the Create Animation subset in the left hand side. Firstly I appreciated the work you and your team have put in so far in VW2020. As with my second video I have tried to use this new speed slider to alter the path and transition speed between keyframes. A) The slider and context doesn't seem as intuitive nor flexible as the previous Edit Path Animation dialog (at least in my mind, this timeline interface has worked quite well for years). B) There doesn't seem to be the ability to hold on keyframes for a duration of time. C) Reducing the speed of one or more keyframes does not slow the path movement down, it seems to instead reduce the video duration and ignore speed altogether. Increasing the speed (as shown in my video above) also doesn't seem to have any effect - just incase your context of -99% to +100% refers to inverse movement speed for some reason. D) Field of view variables should be inherited from the Saved View they were created from to avoid tedious tweaking of FOV after creation. Should you have solutions and specific methods which can replicate, solve or guide the points above I'd love to see a video showing this in action. Otherwise alternatives might include reinstating the old toolset, at least in another menu or depreciation type effect as with other new experimental tool releases. Again I respect the efforts to improve this tool, and enjoyed creating my first 360º video output which is a new function - however without the ability to pause in place the user in this experience has no time to appreciate the efforts put in. Cheers, James

Hi, I'm no expert when it come to scripting (just like to dabble) however I'm also intrigued by the batch tool allocation you're referencing in the menu structure as I struck it yesterday when looking at Model>Create Animation (which is similar to your 4 submenu items.. As noted in your first post the menu item 'Site Model Processor' add 4 new menu items - including your desired 'Site Model form Source Data...'. I also like you cannot call the menu item; by name, by a subset of Terrain, by a subset of Site Model Processor. I recall vaguely some of the functions were available in the DTM section of the Vectorworks Function Library but I can't find them anymore listed there. Additionally I suspect this subset of scripts references a Python Library set (most probably Site-Packages in your python local folder) and therefore Vectorworks probably has a little trouble accessing it without a few other elements - probably activated within the same menu set. I'm sure some script wizard will have a work around however I'm wondering in what context you're planning to call this function as I don't know how you're going to traverse the pop-up dialog which appears - unless you're planning to power through with defaults in some sort of automated Multi-Site Model creation environment (which is cool, just outside the norm). Interested if someone finds a Menu call which works. J

Animations Examples-1.m4v Thanks for the replies thus far. Videos are a little easier for showing these examples (considering we're talking about Animations I should actually animate I guess!) Let me know your thoughts! PS: Added labels to the videos, they worked out better along the bottom, not down the side as mentioned in the original record.

2019 Vs 2020 Animation-1.m4v Hi all! Please see my attached (and hopefully embedded) video regarding the changes made between 2019 and 2020 Create Animation functions. I'm just a little disappointed/confused/interested. Any feedback, advice or opinions are welcome! Cheers, James

@Kane In relation to your question regarding SMB vs AFP they are two different types of connectivity protocol; (Microsoft) Server Message Block [SMB] and Apple Filing Protocol [AFP] This is primarily used when talking about a hosted LAN structure of Project Sharing and is normally dictated if your office is Mac or Windows based. Commonly people who are unsure will preference the SMB format as Mac support both SMB and AFP connections nativity. As for the second query regarding Dropbox and Google Drive integration sitting on the fence between the two *is* possible if you get all the shared permissions settings correct and more often than not have a dedicated server machine which can be used to bridge the divide between the platforms acting as a shared base. It would however be highly advised that you attempt to stick with one cloud sharing platform with all users have read-write capabilities. Best of luck with your adventures down Project Sharing. It's a rocky yet rewarding task - if you can collectively get all participants onboard (this is normally the harder part for me!) J

@BrandonSPP 2019-OZ-SP4 Designer, Renderworks for Mac on a 2017 MacBook Pro - High Sierra. I'll test it on an 2019 SP4 Windows tomorrow and see if I'm going crazy!

Hi all, So I'm having a little trouble with Spotlight beginnings prior to Braceworks analysis. Please see image and example file attached. I believe I've made the simplest example I can; 1 x Truss, 2 x 0.5T Hoist, 1 x Lighting Fixture. When I choose to calculate my system my Hoist Workload seems to give me this error of Suspension Point? I've tried to put house points in, I've tried to make bridles to other points in the roof. It doesn't seem like I can just say these Hoist are allowed 500kg each, my system weighs Truss+Lights (in this case ~40kg), give me the green light and no warnings please. This youtube video ( https://www.yout [DONT EMBEDD PLZ] ube.com/watch?v=RKQ3k78EwR8 ) seems to make the process quite easy however I haven't made a rig which is error free yet. Does anyone have a guide, video, anything which shows Braceworks from start to finish - particularly for those of us working in Spotlight preparing models for Braceworks calculations? Or let me know what's wrong with my basic example and I'll apply it across my advanced rigs. Hope you're all well. J Please test me - Braceworks without Braceworks.vwx

I'd be interested to know if you're getting a result here - if so what. Probably also if you could expand it to; Message( 'X: ',pControlPoint02X,CHR(13), 'Y: ',pControlPoint02YY, 'Sx: ', Sx, 'Sy: ', Sy); Just so you could see if those two values are being put / converted in correctly. The minor problem I can kinda see coming is once the user moves the "End Here" control point pair there's the potential you'll overwrite that data fresh when you make any other refresh to the POI, in anyway (I could be [probably am] wrong here) - as such you might want to put a comparator, something along the lines of (presuming the reference for control points is 0,0 in this context - syntax will be wrong); If((PControlPoint02X<>0),Sx:=Num2StrF(Rx),'') Like I said syntax aside that *might* be a thing worth doing. Someone here surely has dealt with floating control point boxes which aren't by default at the start of a polyline... J

*I never said this was the right way... but it is working quite well so far...

So.. I got angry at VW. =SUBSTRING (to the best of my knowledge) doesn't apply for this case where there is mismatched upper/lowercase characters - which I can accept. So then I decided to write a script - (with the help of my good friend Dan); --------- Copy below this line into a script of your choosing with Python ------------ #!/usr/bin/env python3 def removeFixtureId(v): obj = v.WSScript_GetObject() fixtureId = v.GetRField(obj, 'Lighting Device', 'FixtureID') fixtureMode = v.GetRField(obj, 'Lighting Device', 'Fixture Mode') # Locate the starting position of the Fixture ID within the Fixture Mode fixtureIdPos = fixtureMode.lower().find(fixtureId.lower()) # If the position is 0 or more then it is present (-1 = not present), so we # should remove the Fixture ID from the Fixture Mode if fixtureIdPos >= 0: # We want to take letters from the end of the Fixture ID onwards readFrom = fixtureIdPos + len(fixtureId) fixtureMode = fixtureMode[readFrom:] # Remove any spaces that might be left over from the left+right fixtureMode = fixtureMode.strip() # Return the processed Fixture Mode v.WSScript_SetResStr(fixtureMode) return fixtureMode # Uncomment the following line to activate this script removeFixtureId(vs) ----------------- Above this line only ---------------- Now's where things get interesting. (see attached) It looks as though the coding in the Lighting Device is swapping to fields around 'Lighting Device'.'Fixture Mode' and 'Lighting Device'.'Old Fixture Mode'. Calling these independently as column headers we get this .lit result (Dan presumes a key matched pair of the overall fixtures list or similar). I have to tap out and continue with some real work however I would like the Mode field of the lighting device to populate with the Substring of the real Fixture Mode oneway - as the Num Channels currently does. Enjoy the read. J

Hmmm. This doesn't happen for me - just the one Y. Made a second Control Point set and they labelled as expected; 'ControlPoint02X' and 'ControlPoint02Y' I've just finished battling Control Points for one of my recent scripts. Snippets attached below (where relevant) - I can send you the full script via email if you need to break it apart (few relations would have to be made for forum posting!). But never had to write back to the control points... ------ cpx,cpy,ctx,cty,control_round :REAL; {Collection of Control Points} ----- cpx := PControlPoint01X; cpy := PControlPoint01Y; control_round := PControl_Round; ----- {Creating the Control Point Box and Text} IF show_title OR show_descr OR show_cat = TRUE THEN BEGIN { set the text properties } TextSize(10); TextRotate(0); TextJust(2); TextVerticalAlign(1); TextOrigin(cpx,cpy); label_concat:= ''; IF show_title = TRUE THEN BEGIN label_concat:= Concat(label_concat,title_descr,CHR(13)); end; IF show_descr = TRUE THEN BEGIN label_concat:= Concat(label_concat,body_descr,CHR(13)); end; IF show_cat = TRUE THEN BEGIN label_concat:= Concat(label_concat,category_descr,CHR(13)); end; CreateText(label_concat); cptext := LNewObj; { get the bounding box of the text } GetBBox(LNewObj,t1x,t1y,t2x,t2y); RRect(t1x-control_round,t1y+control_round,t2x+control_round,t2y-control_round,control_round,control_round); HMoveForward(cptext,TRUE); {message(Concat(t1x,' ',t1y,' ',t2x,' ',t2y));} END; ------ It's dirty but seems to work for me and my floating info box. #SorryNotSorry (bad codes are what I do!) J