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Samuel Derenboim

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Everything posted by Samuel Derenboim

  1. Does VW preload any files other than its native format when checking? when creating a library I have multiple files in the directories other than vector works for reference ( code related info) is that cached during startup I’d say I have a shared library? And if so, can it be ignored? i knew it was the caching, I just thought it had too many files in there.
  2. + 1 for me! I can’t work in multiple files for this reason at this time. At least multiple large files ( I noticed it did this when I had one large file open, and one small one) so thought it could be a caching or memory usage bug.
  3. Oh, you mean something like dynamic elevation markers. Now I understand. i agree, currently there isn’t something like that you can do in an annotation viewport. Having a dynamic benchmark tied to levels/stories would be very useful. In fact if the can be interchangeable - I.e. change level / move the benchmark or change the benchmark move the level could solve a lot of problems. all that would have to be done is to have an option in the benchmark oip to tie it to a story / level (for display, not change) and another to tie that particular benchmark to that particular story/ level that if you move it vertically, it will change. - or when creating a section viewport they would already be integrated into that drawing. I just see pros and cons with both versions. Developing an idea for programmers to work around could prove to be challenging.
  4. Odd, I've never had a problem, neither in 3d nor in 2d. I just double checked right now. Are you using the latest version?
  5. Matt, in order for it to work, you have to use BIM. When you reference a live section in a BIM model, those elevation benchmarks will reflect the elevation. Also, if you are doing a 2 dimensional drawing, you can use 2 methods. 1st is use Y value relative to reference elevation. This means that the ground plan (0) elevation must be where y value is zero. In case you need to find it, notice on the benchmark elevation there is an x and y mark location (that is its location in the grid). Now change the number in the Y column to zero and youll notice that the benchmark automatically shows 0'-0" as its elevation. 2nd is to use a control point. So you change the location of the benchmark, but modify the control point to the ground plane in order for it to measure the distance from it. Both methods work, but the 1st one and BIM versions are automated.
  6. Hi Andy, Thank you for the tip. I'm aware of this trick, but there are four main reasons this is a little bit of a cumbersome workaround 1. Cannot see the size of the text change while you're designing in design layer viewport. It would be important to understand the scale difference while youre designing that way you konw that it will be in the right locations and fits inside the rooms properly. 2. As text size changes from the Viewport scale, it tends to move. When it moves it can obstruct important elements in the drawing, and consequently you still have to go back to the design layer to change the location. 3. It doesn't export properly into Autocad. Meaning - any modifications you did to the plans will most likely not reflect in any other program. An embedded function inside the text style would and could take care of that. 4. It generally slows down workflow because you constantly need to check if this option is turned on. Its very prone to user error because a user can forget to go into the viewport options. Additionally, with the trick above - you can implement it one of two ways (using the chart). Either you set the class to have the custom size of the annotative scale that you need and use that class for annotation on that particular layer. That would mean creating one additional class and one additional text style at the appropriate size, and distinguising which classes needed to be used on which design layer viewport. (this eliminates flexibility) The second method is to provide the appropriate text styles representing each of the conditions as shown in the chart above. so that would mean if you use 1:1 scale, 1/8, 3/16, and 1/4", 1 1/2" scale for sheet layer viewports and say 1/4" and 1 1/2" for design layer - with 4 varying text sizes for annotation - that would mean you need 12 different text styles representing each condition. Unfortunately very laborious. That and, difficult to change font and variability globally as well. Note - this is similar to annotative elements in autocad, but i personally think it would be easier to implement if you just simply check an option to show viewport lettering size of the appropriate scale inside the text style as a drop down - you simply select the scale this drawing will be displayed in via sheet layer viewport scale.
  7. When you use BIM, as far as i know, I've always used the elevation benchmark tool. It's dynamic, it sets the elevation automatically once you're in the sheet layer viewport annotation area. (when you double click a viewport in sheet layers - pick the annotation option) it will give you the opportunity to call out any elements of the elevations / section in real time. Hope this helps.
  8. Also, in case anyone wants to use these as a reference, i'm adding a dynamic excel template for you guys to play around with text size. Let me know what you think. Text Size Reference.xlsx
  9. Good evening everyone, Wanted to list a new request for future versions because i've been having a problem for a bit of time now. I've been standardizing my firms sheet standards, symbol standards, and template standards for drawing types. One thing that i have ran into while drawing in vectorworks is the problems with text scale and consistency of text size. To give a bit of background - we know that we have two different types of scales that we all draft in - design layers and post the information in sheet layers. Both however, are governed by scales. Design layers have a scale for line types, etc... and sheet layers reference design layers in the viewports. One thing that I love that Vectorworks did was the text style tool that standardized all text used in a file. Meaning, if you said that a text style for a particular drawing is to be size 12, you can use that text style consistently. However, the team didn't take into account one minor detail - Let's say your design layer scale is at 1/4" = 1'-0" and are using a viewport in a sheet layer viewport scale at 1/4" = 1'-0" with a text size of 12. The way VW is programmed - the nice thing about it is the size of the text stays consistent - it appears in sheet layer at 12 as it would for 1:1 scale. However, the complexity increases when the variables change. Let's say you have the same design layer scale at 1/4"=1'-0" but have a sheet layer viewport scale at 1/2"=1'-0" - what happens? the same size 12 text appears as size text 24 - because the viewport is showing the text 2 times the size of the design layer viewport. Now for the request - since we like to allocate different sizes on the sheet layer scale - is it possible for the text style scale to have an option to appear the size of 12 in the Viewport scale and scale the size of the text in the different design layer viewports accordingly? In the end - we inherently want all of our text to appear consistent throughout all of our drawings and the way we see from our eyes is at 1:1. So all we have to do is pick 5 or 6 different sized text sizes rather than dozens (if not hundreds) if we increase the variability of our text sizes in sheet layer viewport scale vs design layer scale. Heres a chart below for some more information regarding the ratios.
  10. HOLY (*&#)$(*&#($*&#$ !!!!!!!!!!!! Gerard, you are THE MAN! This works like a charm!!! Just curious, did you learn to code in Vectorworks? or did you know python prior to??? How hard is it to learn? Either way, Gerard, This script is excellent. Don't know how to thank you enough. Gerard, Thanks with this tool, I would be able to create an ample resource for libraries for light fixtures, FF&E, proprietary specifications, and even custom callouts for details (if i can get the callout tool to work for symbol definitions). Do you work for Nemetschek / VW? I can share some of the libraries with you later if you like. Integrating this into project management saves a substantial amount of time on the production of CD's !
  11. Gerard, that process is for a symbol instance. That’s the easy part. Now try importing the same symbol from the resource manager into another file, you’ll see the record information is empty in the symbol, and even if you apply it, the record fields need to be re entered. In in order to avoid that, you need to write what’s in the symbol instance (An example of what you’ve shown) to the symbol definition (resource manager). That way if you make a shared library in the resource manager you can drag and drop with the desired resource information without constantly having to refill it. Currently the only method of doing that is by right clicking every symbol definition and modifying its record information from the resource manager, which is very cumbersome, and wanted to ask vw or someone to help me make a script to write the information from symbol instances to their respective symbol definitions. any help from vw?? 🤓😇
  12. Really? you have a script that can write instance record information to symbol definitions? You already have a ready script? or are you saying it's just possible ? I just wanted to add this request to the wish list since i too don't think this is an impossible feature.
  13. It doesn't work exactly the way you mean. Yes, you can write record information to a symbol from a worksheet. The problem is - it will not write it to the symbol definition for use with different files or integration into the resource manager.
  14. Hi, Many a time where you happened to want to create a library but found it too cumbersome because the record information must be written directly in the resource manager rather than a spreadsheet? Is it possible to write existing record information inside of a symbol to the symbol definition please? This would tremendously expedite symbol and library creation.
  15. There are 3 things you need for point cloud modeling in VW 1. Laser Scanner 2. Registration - what this does is it connects the scanning worlds of different files into one. Essentially what it means is that every scan that you take /with or without targets gets saved as one scanning world. Your job afterwards is to combine them to get one giant scan of the entire facility. An entire facility can have as many as 20 - 100 scan worlds. Be ready for a heapload of memory (storage) use in order to register the information. Recap isn't a very good program - simply because it is designed to register the files automatically and isn't very accurate. For your purposes you probably will need 1 / 16" or 1 /32" accuracy, and proper alignment is imperative. I would recommend Leica Cyclone software, however this isn't a very cheap program in of itself. Registration can be done manually or automatically, and it tells you how precise your registration is based on the number of targets you aligned with every scan world. (you need at least 3 - 4 targets) There are others, but cyclone is the only one I've used by far so far, and on a very very complicated project. Some other software include a. Recap b. Pointools c. Faro Scene d. VisionLidar e. 3dReshaper 3. Once you have assembled all of the scan worlds in one registration file (.pts, or .laz, or .las) you can import it into vectorworks. There are a variety of methods how you can process the information once the point cloud is imported, however, workflow would depend on you, your computer power and your graphics card. Hope this helps.
  16. Is it possible to create a plugin or marionette that reads a worksheet or spreadsheet and uses that information to generate wall styles? The reason for this is because in todays world - the amount of wall types, STC ratings, UL ratings, and R ratings of wall styles is dramatically increasing. In order to minimize the production time for generating wall styles for a firm, what if they were able to be generated from a spreadsheet? Using the same information that you would receiving information from a schedule, instead you generate the wallstyles by imputing the information into a table using the same record labels for the parameters that set the thickness of components, description of components, and description of the wall style, UL and STC ratings / R & U values.
  17. Mark, I agree, it only works with the wall tool. But other than that, there is no other way of using it? It seems promising - it assigns record information to symbols that are not plug-in objects, but for wall types - it just reflects the information. Is it because the record information is locked? and if so - is it possible to lock symbol record information?
  18. Good afternoon everyone, Could someone help me out? I've scoured the VW forum for displaying record information from a symbol using the ID Label tool. So far i've used the default equipment record label and assigned the same equipment record to the symbol. However, one thing i noticed is that the ID label tool always overwrites the information in the symbol with the record information rather than simply displaying it. Is there a way to just dispay the information therein? not erase and overwrite it? Thanks in advance community !
  19. sorry everyone, figured out the solution to importing classes. Just for reference though, what is the reason for this function? to change active classes in the document?
  20. Is it me, or is class and layer mapping broken under SP 2 VW 2018? I try to save my classes to a txt file, but I cannot import any classes into a new file. Could anyone verify?
  21. Pat, Thank you! Just modified your code to make it work in one column. Just make a worksheet column show this below: =value(substring('property line'.'area', ' ', 1)) Just curious, why is this such a hassle for property lines? Couldn't they just make it originally a numeric function?
  22. Good afternoon Everyone, I'm having a real problem with calculating area summaries for the Property line plug in object. I've been trying a number functions additional to =('property line'.'area') in order to convert this string into a numeric value. I've tried =value, =area, =round, =num, =str2num, etc... and I can't for the life of me get it to work. Anyone had any similar problems - VW 2018 SP2 PS - I checked the VW forum records, there was a similar wishlist item, but for some reason =area function worked in that instance. Any help please? Thank you in advance!
  23. Hi all, another question, Is turning mass individual groups into individual and separate symbols a possibility? and second - how would i go about learning the functions of the included marionnette objects inside of vw?
  24. Hi everyone, Has anyone tried to write symbol instance record definition information to a symbol definition record using a marionette?
  25. Hi DomC, Just curious, is it possible to do something similar with IFC or revit import?
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