James Russell

Hey all, The width and height functions are something I commonly use in databases. They function fine except when the object is rotated. Is there a way with a _ or $ or & or INOBJECT that I can reference the actual width or height pre-rotation as apposed to post along the plane axis? See attached if confused. Cheers, J

Jim, =DATABASE((T=VIEWPORT)) is the formula for the database lookup, or Type > is > Viewport Sheet Layer in the database criteria. As to what you can do from there so far I can only get =L (layer), =C (class) and width and height data. Anyone know the record format for a viewport? ='viewport'.'drawing name' was my first guess, alas no. Hope that leads you a little further. Cheers, J

Attached is my current test file. The new formula works thus far. I'm going to continue working on it today. I know I've seen a few posts relating to similar ideas of cut list / material calcs. I'll keep plugging away and let you know if I find anything. Cheers, J

Hey all, Just got back to my computer. Tackled a small thing I've been working on. Wrote this: =concat(min(height,width,(volume/height/width)),' x ',volume/min(height,width,(volume/height/width))/max(height,width,(volume/height/width)),' x ',max(height,width,(volume/height/width))) Which I inserted into a database row with the criteria of type is extrude. It's basically my attempt thus far at creating a cutting list for a whole series of flats in 3D. The only thing is when I press enter the formula works and returns the result required but the formula itself disappears. The reason for it being in all one formula is that when it is dependant on previous cells and is summarised to get the total cuts of each length type the values all change because they are numbers. I just found it interesting and thought I'd share. J

Hey all, See attached. It's frustrating the hell out of me. It's a label legend on my fixture. Has three components, a letter, a number, and then a unit number. The top one is the way it should be but as I apply it to different symbols it spreads itself across the fixture. How can I lock them down? Grouping makes them disappear, can't constrain them to each other. I don't know why you would want this to occur. Grrrr... J

I did some digging and can only presume they come from somewhere hidden in the script. I did find the Section markers folder though in the library which I'd never explored, altering some now. Shame there's not a North Arrows folder. J

Hey all, I'm currently using some Custom Lights from the Visualisation pallet loaded up with Distribution Files for some of the exhibition lights we are testing. They are working well and render nicely, I'm just wondering if there are any other presentation modes associated with these lamps. Mainly I would just like to see and outline of the overall coverage area and potentially some sort of contour style or colour representation of light levels so we can look at coverage range at different spacings and depths. Anyone have any advice? Cheers, J

I guess, as usual, I'm hoping the lighting device it better than it currently is. One of my co-workers is currently taking his VW plans and placing them into WYSIWYG. It makes the focusing, colouring and rendering of plans looks so easy, guess that's getting me a little frustrated. I'll power ahead with the generic, give it a chance. Thanks mk, J

Just tested this in 2010. Made a file. Rendered 4 viewports, in various styles. Sent the file to my colleague on Spotlight 2010, he left 1 viewport unaltered, updated one, re cropped one and updated and added a layer and some objects to the last and updated. All defaulted to OpenGL. I've opened the file. All viewports are OpenGL, just rerendered all of them as Final Quality Renderworks and Artistic Renderworks no worries. Unless it's a 2011 thing I can't replicate it, sorry. J

Barry, I'm in the same scenario as you, RW most of the time on my main computer, several of my colleagues on standard VW with spotlight. Often files that we exchange with Renderworks data change, most commonly to their closest counterpart - FQ Renderworks = Open GL, Artistic = Shaded Poly/Wireframe. I've come to accept it and when I get the file back just revert the settings. I'll test if I can replicate your problem in my 2010, but I've never had an issue thus far with it except minor inconvenience. J

Haha, touch?! Doesn't that quite defeat the purpose of spotlight? Commercial installs that I've worked on this year have a minimum of 100 fixtures and anywhere up to 2000. I would have thought I should be able to turn any of them on with a bearing at a level and it'd just work, without having to place a generic light in their place. I just want to be able to either: A) Grab the pan/tilt slider in Edit Light and move my light. B) Find out where the direct data is for the lighting device in terms of direction and alter it. I presume that because the pan and tilt sliders are disabled that this means that it must be receiving data from somewhere overriding me. Still a lil' bit grrrrring. But thanks for the laugh Michael ;p J

Hey all, Currently doing some test renders. I've got a curved wall and a series of floods in an arc 1metre from the wall. Each of these is perpendicular to their respective position on the wall and raised to the desired height. I want to check and show via render that their coverage of the wall is sufficient at their current spacing. I can turn each of these fixtures on but their tilt is currently at about 45?. Is there a way that I can focus them all centred to the line shown in my wireframe render (attached)? Even just tilt them all up 20?? I've tried setting the 3D orientation but it does not seem to alter the beam output. I don't really want to put in focus points for every lamp in my drawing, in the commercial gig this is proposed for it would be a killer. Let me know what you think. Cheers, J

Cool concept, it'd be great if this just slipped in as one of the functions of the mirror tool...

Thanks Mar and Tamsin, just the starting points I needed. Cheers, James

Just incase you ever need to view a Education document, as I did whilst marking educational work, you can use any of the VW Viewers to open and flick through layers, minor dimension and viewport changes and print. Also remember that even if you can open an educational document it and any components from within it are tagged as educational upon printing. Even if copied to another document. It's like the plague, stay away! Just incase that helps anyone in the future. J

Hey all, Is it possible to have a texture emitting light in 2010? 2011 even? I believe at some stage I've seen it done on 2011 but I'm not sure. Just wanting to make some illuminated cubes. Cheers, J

Ah, that's so cheeky, one little tick box. Thanks Michael.

Hey all, I've always had issues trying to render light in Vectorworks but today I truly hit a wall. Here's what I wanted. I have a set of 3 steps. Each of them is 4m wide, 2m deep, increasing in height - 400mm, 800mm and 1200mm. From above, smack bang in the middle of the middle step, there is one Selecon 90? Pacific shuttered in to a box covering the middle sections of all three steps creating a corridor of light about 2m wide and covering the entirety of the 6m stairs, 1m of darkness either side. I made a focus point on the middle step, set it's height to 400mm, assigned the lamp to it, clicked draw beam, pulled in the shutters about 30% either side and it looks good in the wireframe. Now the issue: Right click the lamp, edit light, turn it on. Hit render. OpenGL shows nothing, Fast RW shows blinding light everywhere, Final RW shows something close but changes every angle you look at it from, Radiosity dies. I'll attach my new test file. Have a look, let me know what you thing about it. It's 2010 RW. Happy Hunting, J

Seems like every second post here is the inverse feeling of the previous. Click and release all the way! The amount of times I start drawing a shape from an edge or corner and then completely forget where it's going, pull out the plan, check a number, hover over a few smart points and then click. I can't imagine holding! I guess it's evidently clear from above that both styles are in frequent use, better keep them both up. J

Wow, nice stuff tim. Might pull out my virtual scissors and slice a few. J

Hi all, I'm currently rendering the exterior of a set covered in various plywood sheets. I'm wondering without making a series of different textures if there's a way I can make my plywood wood texture regenerate randomly for each sheet. It just looks tessellated and bland at the moment. Cheers, James

Hi Elisha, This is also something I've wondered for a while and never really delved into... until now. I've been playing with the Vectorworks Lighting Device and it's associated parts for a while now and I'm commonly breaking it in the process. Within that I found that when a 3D component is added to one of the container components of the lighting device it is displayed on the 3D plane with the 3D object. I'm not using 2011 yet but I'm led to believe that there are 3D text functions within that enhanced from 2010 which believe we're both still using. When I inserted an Image Prop, with it's function set to rotate to viewer, into a container it did an okay job of representing the circular component I had selected for my Channel Label (noted that it was just a screen shot as the base image, ). The flaws that I have in my plan thus far are that you can't access the Lighting Device record from within the symbol container for a device and that I don't have 3D text that auto rotates to viewer to associate to the record. If you did have these two things through a plugin perhaps you could just allocated a container symbol to each of the text attributes, (channel, unit number, colour)... possible perhaps, but not within my current abilities. Maybe it'll spark someone else here. James

I find that it's always the vital line at the corner of a building or specialist joint on a cabinet that just decides to disappear for no reason at all.

Thanks for your replies! I ended up re-nurbing my object and creating a more simple loft than I had before (thanks Kaare!). Still a painful process for visually not a great deal of difference. The re-build nurbs function is great, I would like it a little more if you could identify multiple points that the curve must pass through, mainly to constrain it to a desired shape or size. It'd be nice if this was a handy dandy plugin hey Benson...? If anyone has any other methods, especially regarding complex shapes such as lofts, I'd love to hear them. Cheers, J

Hey all, At the moment I'm working with some complex 3D objects with many vertices and faces. Some are nurbs and others are solids crafted from additions and subtractions. I'm wondering if there is a tool within VW that can simplify a model. For example when I used to do animation we would have a sphere with a vertices count, or a UV depth of detail. By increasing the number of points around the shape the smoother it becomes but also more complex and troublesome for CPU and memory power, and vice versa. Is there a way to reduce the amount of vertices my complex objects have making them look slightly poorer to increase the performance and usability overall? Cheers, James