Andy Broomell

There are a few small improvements that could be made to the Reshape tool that would really help increase its usability. My thoughts are listed below: It would be great if vertices were visually distinguishable from midpoints/edges. Currently the handles are both the same blue square, and at times it can be cumbersome to figure out which type of point is which, particularly when working with more complex shapes. Below is an image of a potential improvement: changing the midpoint handles to thinner rectangles so they visually resemble the fact that they are edges. I really love the new "Move Edges Parallel" mode, and also love that it only shows the points on which the mode actually works. I feel like this concept could be more universal. For example, "Delete Vertex" mode should only show you vertices since you can't delete midpoints. "Hide/Show Edges" mode should only show edges, not vertices. Etc. You should be able to use the "Hide/Show Edges" mode directly on Rectangles, even if it auto-converts to a polygon. It would be nice if you could click anywhere along an existing edge when using the "Add Vertex" mode instead of only on endpoints and midpoints. Additionally, when you currently click on a vertex handle to add a new vertex, it's difficult to know which "direction" the new vertex will go compared to the existing one. (I therefore tend to add vertices via the midpoint handles). Now that I think about it, it would be nice if the "Hide/Show Edges" mode also worked by clicking anywhere on an edge, rather than just midpoint handles.

This seems kind of related... For Callouts, I always find myself wanting to hit 'Enter' when I'm finished typing the text into the dialogue box. But since 'Enter' is a carriage return to the next line (as it should be), I need to manually move my mouse to the 'Ok' button and click. It's a small thing but it adds up. So it would be nice if there were a way to complete the callout via the keyboard only, such as 'Shift-Enter' for example.

I'm wanting to create a Quicktime VR Panorama in which I can look straight up at the ceiling. I'm currently finding that the exported panorama goes perhaps 30 degrees shy of the zenith. Is there any way to control this? Altering the view before exporting a Quicktime VR Panorama seems to have no effect on the outcome. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! -Andy

I'd like to add that under the View menu there is a command called "Cancel All Viewport Updates" which comes in very handy and could be assigned a keyboard shortcut if desired.

Yes, on 3D objects. The problem is that it doesn't seem to care what type of 3D object or what texture. It's happened numerous times across different files, on different computers, and for people other than myself. (I watched a student fiddling with this tool yesterday and within a few minutes her VW crashed). I'll send you a file with an object and texture that just recently crashed. However, after it crashed I was able to open the file and perform virtually the same steps and it worked fine. The inconsistency is what really bothers me... It crashes a lot but I can't pinpoint any cause. Let us know if you discover anything! Thanks Jim! -Andy

When you click on the 'Layers' button in the Viewport's Object Info Palette, instead of greying out the Design Layer, select it and click 'Edit'. Then in the pop-up box use the Opacity slider to reduce the opacity of that Design Layer. With this method I've had success making some layers visually recede while still maintaining their fills.

This has been a MAJOR issue for me as well over the last few weeks. This vital tool is unfortunately a crash-monster, though I haven't been to find any 'repeatable' bugs. Two things it seems to dislike are working with meshes, and hitting ESC when in the middle of a 2D or 3D rotation. These seemed to make up 85% of my crashes...

You should be able to turn the palette on by going to Window -Andy

Brilliant, Josh! I had no clue that this checkbox existed; it makes the idea of using referenced DLVPs much more feasible. I currently use the older layer import method because of the visibility issues outlined in this thread. I just tested this checkbox and it seems to solve the problem. To make it function as I expected, it also required importing all the class definitions from the referenced file (by going to New Class and selecting the Import option). Then when working in Design Layers you can use the Navigation palette to control visibilities, and when in Sheet Layers each Viewport has its own class visibility settings. Thanks! -Andy

I've found that automatic numbering also gets confused when you duplicate a Viewport. On a related note, it would also be awesome if the Drawing Number field were added to the Viewport Object Info Palette (similar to how you can currently change the Drawing Title without having to go into Annotations). Thanks! -Andy

When using the fillet tool, I've often found myself wanting to create a fillet based on visual aesthetics rather than by a known, measured amount. Currently we have to type a distance into the Mode Bar then select the two lines. It would be wonderful if we also had the option to select the two lines first then drag the cursor to visually define the amount. It would be similar to the second Mode (Offset by Point) of the Offset tool.

The idea of a 3D Viewport Crop sounds interesting; it seems like it could function quite similarly to the Clip Cube or even somehow be tied in with it? It definitely sounds like a useful request!

It would be great if the Video Screen Object allowed you to specify the Class prefix when classing out projection parts. Currently it defaults to VS- and there's no option to change it. While you can rename the VS- classes that it creates, as soon as you modify the Video Screen object it recreates the original VS- classes. The Speaker Tool already has the desired functionality that I describe: a checkbox for classing out parts plus a box where you can type in the custom Class prefix. Thanks!

I've had this exact same problem with this exact same font (Flux Architect). The issue was consistently inconsistent; I could never quite figure out what was causing it. It's a shame since it's such a great-looking font!

That sounds like an excellent idea. Thanks Jim! While on the topic of the Export Image function... Under 'Export Area' it would be lovely to also have the ability to simply choose a rendered viewport and have it export that. This would be in addition to 'All Visible Objects', 'Current View', 'All Pages as Single Image', 'Each Page as Separate Image', and 'Marquee'. For example, on a sheet layer I have a viewport of a perspective view rendered in Final Quality Renderworks. I go to Export Image, select the 'Viewport' option which takes me to my drawing (kind of like Marquee does), and I single click on the desired viewport. Click Save and I'm done. I often have multiple rendered viewports on a Sheet Layer and currently use 'Marquee' to designate the area I'd like to export. Since you can still snap to everything within that viewport sometimes it's hard to quickly and reliably click on the outermost corner of the viewport. Because I'm making constant updates and continually exporting the same viewport (in order to have a 'history' of jpegs), I really want to be consistent in the exported area. It seems like doing this by Viewport rather than by Marquee would help make it an easier task. I hope this makes sense. Thanks again!

If you want to 'interactively' scale a Viewport (and don't care about its measurable scale) you can Group it; this allows you to grab the blue handles and stretch as desired (assuming interactive scaling mode of the selection tool is on). You can then ungroup your Viewport when it's at the size you like. This is very useful for perspective views and renderings when actual scale isn't important. Hope this helps!

I'm pretty sure this was fixed in 2014. I used to have this same issue, but after updating versions I noticed that it now saves whatever file format you last used.

It would great if you could right-click a Sheet Border / Title Block and in the contextual menu have the option to edit the Symbol that's being used as the Title Block. (Or at the very least "Locate Symbol in Resource Browser.") It would be similar to the current functionality when you right-click a Symbol. Right now to edit a Title Block Symbol you have to manually find it in the Resource Browser. More than once within each project I find myself wanting to adjust things other than the content of my Record Fields, and this would be a seemingly easy improvement to speed things up a little bit. Thanks!

I really miss this functionality. When deleting a linetype I often find myself wanting to make the objects that were using it listen to a different linetype that already exists. Since the replacement linetype already exists, neither of those workarounds do the job. (It's kind of like merging linetypes in a way).

What a great site, Jim! Thanks for the link!

I've encountered this same issue and unfortunately haven't found a fix. It would be lovely if Vectorworks increased functionality for multi-line fields!

To tag on to this... It would be great if you could do the same with Sheet Border objects in order to quickly navigate to the Title Block Symbol. Even better, I'd like to right click the Sheet Border/Title Block and have an option to "Edit Title Block Symbol" which would take you directly into the 2D component of the Symbol. Thanks!

At the very least it would be nice if it ended up in the center of the screen after creation instead of the drawing center. After creating an image prop I've typically found myself cutting and pasting in order to get it on my screen. Good suggestion!