scottmoore

@Pat Stanford very informative and timely. A colleague of mine asked about this on Friday and I couldn’t explain it very well. This is precisely what I would have been looking for.

When I can get things to slow down a bit, I am going to look forward to diving into this!

@jeff prince I don’t know that a line type will translate to CNC output. Typically line types are not recognized. As to symbols for the clips, that is a great idea, however, that is how I initially started doing these kinds of projects some time ago and it turned out to be far more cumbersome than the trimming. Curvilinear forms are always problematic. Ellipses even more so. I have a couple of hours left on this project and one more to complete in the next week. I’ll get through it, but what should be a fairly simple process just becomes a little annoying.

Reviving an old thread. Why can't the trim tool work as expected? I do lots of CAD files that involve channels with widened areas for mounting clips. I create the first wall of a channel with arcs, straight lines or whatever tool is necessary. I use the offset tool to create the opposing wall of the channel. I again use the offset tool again to create a concentric set of geometry for both walls of the channel that will define the extents of the clip mounting location. I use the double line polygon tool in the "create lines" mode to determine the end of the clip mounting locations. Then it is a simple matter to use the trim tool to leave the proper clip mounting location; except it SELDOM works correctly. Here is the first step prior to trimming: After I have used the trim tool: Notice one of the four clip locations (top right) actually worked correctly. One clip is missing one line, one is missing three and one is missing four. Here is what it looks like after I fix it by manually drawing lines: I have sorted out the order of operations to make the fix simple, but when there are hundreds of these clips to draw on any project, this becomes VERY tedious. By the way, this project is very curvilinear in nature, but the same is true when it is simple arcs, circles and, to a lesser extent, straight lines.

Sorry, I meant “symmetric by distance”. Thanks for the clarification.

In the US, the term water closet has started gaining traction referring to a toilet in a small, isolated room as opposed to being open to the entire restroom. I recall a story from the ‘70s where an American architect had designed a wayside chapel into an overall concept. He abbreviated it “WC”. An English client was extremely confused to fine the WC had seating for up to 40 people….. Regarding hybrid symbols, this was a huge selling point to me back in the MiniCad 5 days. “You can draw in 2D and 3D simultaneously? Sold!” Keep in mind that the 2D component doesn’t have to be a literal representation of the 3D object. Two examples: The accepted symbol for a wall outlet (at least in the US) is a circle with two lines through it. Create a hybrid symbol that has the circle and two lines as its 2D component and an actual 3D model of a wall outlet as its 3D element. Very handy. For people symbols, take a 3D person, but in plan view add a piece of text detailing what that person’s function might be and a small cross hair mark as to where they are actually placed. Of course you could also render the person in top view, export that image and use the image file as your 2D. Tons of useful options in hybrid symbols.

I don’t know if this helps, but “scale by distance” is a good way to sort out scaling map images. If you know a specific distance on the image, then draw a line on the image to define that distance, copy the length of the line in the drawing, then select the map image, scale by distance, paste the line distance in the first field, enter your know distance in the second, and you should be really close. It’s much simpler than it sounds. On outdoor site surveys, I always find a few obvious landmarks and measure between them. Items you know you will see from a satellite image. Then you can scale away fairly accurately.

Good question, but I don’t know as I always edit items before bringing them into a drawing. Since I was under a deadline I reverted to using my truss symbols. I’ll circle back to this at some point soon.

These started as 12” x 12” bolted Tyler truss. The fixture was an Aryton, perhaps a Ghibli? I’ll share a file tomorrow. …and thank you Scott for your assistance.

I am, against my better judgement, attempting a drawing using BraceWorks truss symbols. A couple of bothersome things I’ve thus far encountered: - when snapping a lighting device to a piece of 12” utility truss, it snaps to the center as expected and then I have to move the fixture +/- 5” to align the a truss chord (using the move command, not dragging) This is expected behavior as I understand it. When finished, some fixtures are attached to the bottom chords and some, inexplicably, to the top chords. All the same lighting device symbol inserted the same way; dragging until the red centerline appears. - I just encountered a scenario where attaching a fixture to a truss causes the truss to become an “invalid truss symbol”. That seems far more unusual. One note, I did modify the truss symbols in the following manner: - modified the 2D appearance of the trusses to make them appear a bit more realistic. - added a texture to the 3D component instead of a color - truncated the symbol name in the resource browser. I’ve also duplicated the symbols to have both black and silver options. Interestingly enough, the black trusses are the original and the silver are duplicates, but it is the black truss that has the issue. The Silver duplicates perform as expected. Any thoughts?

One other note on file size and speed: While it is fairly common knowledge that replacing as many arcs and curves with straight lines in 3D is a massive time saver for rendering, I did not realize that also applies to 2D objects. When creating symbols, the 2D portion will often have arcs involved. If an item is going to be used a lot (for instance, thousands of chairs) reducing unnecessary radiuses will improve performance; often significantly.

Good information here. Just to clarify (and assuming one is using symbols when one would expect) grouping does or does not impact files size? Following the seating examples sites, I typically do not use the seating tool, so instead I manually create my seating layouts. When I create a section of seats (using chair symbols) I’ll go ahead and group it. I’ve never considered the implications on file size. Now, determining a proper file size for images for texturing, that is an issue.

A few years later, the solution for exporting to visualizers is simply to export the design layers from which the DLVPs are generated independently. To the question of naming conventions, I have some prefix information that is unique to my workflow but now call both the layers and classes DLVP 01 thru DLVP 10. I add a bit of specific detailed naming after once I’ve determined what one might be used for on a specific project. Works pretty well and I still find it quite intuitive vs schematic views.

My opinion is that VWX developers have decided it is easier to move users to external render programs than to rebuild VWX to the point that it provides GPU rendering. I would imagine that would be a massive undertaking. Your points are all valid. My suggestion is to spend some time in a blank file just adding lights and adjusting them. Personally I’ve never had issues selecting and moving the sources. The biggest frustration for me is the confusion in calculations in a light beam where lit fog is in use. The beam of light, regardless of settings, appears brighter, the wider the beam gets. Somewhat backwards of how light really works.

Truly, the best thing you can do is experiment. Lighting a rendering is not all that different, in most ways, than lighting a theater scene or, perhaps more to the point, a video or movie shoot. In those scenarios you hire professional lighting designers, so plan on having to do some homework. Play around with light sources to begin with. Setting the light type, beam and field, various fall off options, intensities. Note that <100% is an option and sometimes necessary. Look at angles, and direction. Then it becomes a relationship between lighting, textures, reflections, backgrounds, etc. Also note, that utilizing IES files, especially when the light is grazing a surface, can add a ton of realism. The point above made by Luis is a good one. If you watch the credits on an animated movie, you will see a lot of people involved with “lighting”. There is a reason for that.

It is extremely frustrating to me that arc lengths are only measured from the counter-clockwise direction. I do a TON of work where I have to create arcs along existing arcs and mine have to be specific lengths and run specific directions. Currently I have to draw the arcs counter clockwise, set the appropriate lengths and then, if the arc actually has to run clockwise (which is often) I then have to rotate the arc into position. That is simply archaic. What would be ideal is either include a graphic in the OIP that is like the 9 radio buttons for a rectangle or 3 for a line as mentioned in this thread: or, a simple radio button that states “flip direction”. The former would allow arcs to work like other geometry which is smart. The latter would be less intuitive but quite simple to use. The current solution is just far too cumbersome.

We still yoke fixtures out on HUD truss (both top and bottom chords) as well as connect to the onstage and off stage chords, sometimes to the verticals and often to the legs in either the leg or catwalk position. Not to mention that VWX does not know to snap the fixtures on the center chord to the TOP of the truss, unless, of course, you’ve inverted the truss into a basket…… ….but yes, we all need to switch to HUD truss. (Or Tyler GT, Christie F-type, PRG BAT, or the SGPS version whose name escapes me.) 😉

That is awesome Jesse. I’ve got a project coming up quickly that needs this feature for certain. Much appreciated.

Late to the conversation here. Realistic rendering is an art form unto itself. There are no magic tool sets. It’s all about attention to detail (what to include, what to leave out, how to “cheat”), lighting, textures and rendering styles. You can produce really beautiful renderings in VWX, but it’s all in the details. As to including venues, you can see what is already available. For me it depends on the level of client and the potential that I will be in the facility more than once. That determines the amount of time I’ll spend on a model. If you can get decent 2D plans you can go along way in modeling. Grab all the photos you can from the web and/or in person. The architect tools available in Spotlight are plenty to get you going. I find I only use the wall and door tools at most and sometimes not even that. I say that because a lot of times it’s far simpler to generate simple geometry with an image texture than actually creating something like, for instance, a door. It will typically look better as well so long as it’s not a focal point of your design. Your renders will be much faster as well.

Copy that and thanks Jesse. That makes perfect sense. No need for the additional script as it would take the same amount of time to just rename the sheet layers. It is interesting to see how all this works. I've noticed that there must be something to changing the name of a symbol as the name in the resource manager comes up with the newly assigned name. The symbol's name in the object info seems to remain the original. Regardless, this is a serious game changer and time saver. I love it!!

OK, this is really quite amazing and I really appreciate it. I do have one question; the script does not seem to locate sheet layers. Any suggestions? Otherwise, this is exactly what I needed and a massive time saver. It finds layers, classes, saved views, and symbols in one operation. So great!!

That is also fascinating @Jesse Cogswell I will try both of these approaches when I get through these next few projects. Currently my calendar is extremely full. Thank you for taking time to pursue this!

Actually, I use blank layers to break up my list of layers. This allows you to organize anyway you would like, and if instituted in your template, will make locating layers (and saved views by the way) much simpler.

I just create them. @jeff prince idea above is a good one.

@Pat Stanford Wow! Yes, that is exactly what I need. I will give that a shot. ps: that excessive hair loss ship has sailed a very long time ago…..