Why?

Dear all, After trawling the forums and numerous web tutorials, I can't find the solution to this problem - though I'm sure it should be rather simple? I have drawn a pattern for some perforated cladding in Adobe Illustrator, exported it to DWG, and imported to Vectorworks 2012 as polylines. I have extruded the polylines and subtracted from the cladding panels. The corners of the building have a curved profile, and so the pattern needs to be wrapped around them. I thought perhaps the 'project' tool could be manipulated for this purpose but did not succeed with that. I can currently only think of converting the polylines to nurbs surfaces in order to manually adjust the X, Y, Z points - though this would be incredibly tedious and time consuming. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Dear all, I've been using Vectorworks for quite some time to produce perspective sections of architectural projects; however always find the available controls quite limiting. I was wondering if there is a way to control the x/y of the perspective origin, and thus adjust the perspective views? Just to assist understanding - I found this project via a quick Google search for perspective sections; http://www.presidentsmedals.com/Project_Details.aspx?id=2403&dop=True You will see that there is a variety of heights and angles from which the camera looks at the sections. I have never managed to achieve this level of control in Vectorworks, so wonder if it is possible? If this is not possible, can anyone recommend any CAD packages where it is? All responses will be greatly appreciated. Have a nice day.

Thanks for the response Peter; I have tried updating the viewport with the Background Render Mode set as OpenGL, and the Foreground Render Mode set as Hidden Line - the result is baffling - as the viewport loads, it begins to show as if only the Hidden Line setting was on (ie. no colour, just black lines on white), but then as it continues to load, the drawing just disappears completely! I'm just trying the Background Render Mode set as Renderworks now, but have you any ideas why the OpenGL option may be glitching in that way? UPDATE: The same thing happens when I try Renderworks Background, with Hidden Line Foreground...

Howard's solution sounds like the best one, as exporting as a DWG will - as he already said - allow you to maintain control over line weights etc; however, another option (for Mac users) is to view the locked PDF which you exported with Preview, and then select "File>Duplicate>Save as...", and save the copy without any security. The benefit of this method is that you quickly save it as a PDF which you can import into Photoshop without needing to go via Illustrator if you have no line weights to adjust.

At the top of the interface, close to the drop down list for 'current view' which controls whether you are viewing in Top/Plan, Left, Right etc. is another drop down list which controls how you want the view to be rendered.

Perhaps if you run the render, and then open the Mac Activity Monitor, you will be able to see how your machine is handling the process; you will be able to see how much of your CPU and memory it's using... If it is running at close to 100% CPU, it will obviously seriously slow down your machine, but unless Activity Monitor reports the process as not responding, you may just have to be patient - and try not to put any further strain on your resources while it runs.

Dear all, I'm trying to produce some drawings from my model which are coloured, but with outlines; imagine Hidden Line rendering, with the white areas filled in with block colour. Does anyone have any advice as to how to achieve this effect? I've tried using OpenGL with outlines turned on - although the outlines aren't being drawn / also the coloured areas are shaded, as opposed to flat, and I wondered if there was a setting to change this? I suspect there may be a way to use Renderworks rendering to achieve this effect, but I'm unsure how to set the settings? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks to Jonathan and Kevin for your responses. Using the purge tool significantly reduced the file size - its a fantastically efficient tool for removing unused data from the file, that I was not aware of - I will certainly make great use of that tool in the future. I also cleared the viewport cache - actually tested deleting all my sheet layers in a copy file and created the viewport entirely afresh, which also seemed to help. I have now managed to get the section viewport, though it still took hours; creating orthogonal section first, adjusting settings to perspective and then updating. Unfortunately with the 3D conversion resolution set to 'low' some of the curved walls and objects are unattractively angular, and I had to sacrifice a lot of detail that I had modelled in the background, but at least I have something to play with! I am now working on extracting another section viewport from the same model, which is also taking several hours. This is actually not the first time that I have had to work hard (/wait a long long long time) to get the desired sections out of my models. On a previous project, I had to shorten the length of the section I wanted, and select a closed finite width in order to load a viewport on a sheet layer. Is it common for users to have similar difficulties in exporting large/detailed sections out of architecture models (several hours long waits)? I would be very interested to know how long other users typically have to wait for their section viewports to load, and their habits for increasing efficiency of workflow... I have a friend who exports large rendered viewports which he says can take 2-3-4 hours to load; this also seems a long wait, but quite reasonable for a fully rendered section compared to the black and white hidden line sections I am creating. However, he is using a powerful desktop comparative to the Macbook that I am using, which is probably the reason why? Are my models (at 200-300mb+) inadvisably large for working with for most users, or is my Macbook just not powerful enough to compute the geometry that I am asking of it? NB: To clarify again, I am rendering in hidden line (drawing intersection lines switched off), perspective projection, black and white only, infinite width/depth/height, 3d conversion resolution low. [PS: Is there any when first creating a section viewport to load it as a perspective section straight away? The drop-down list which dictates orthogonal/perspective etc in the dialog box that opens after drawing the section line is greyed out, and I always have to load a 2D orthogonal section first, then adjust to perspective and update.]

Dear people with experience, and those with bright ideas; I have built quite a detailed architecture model in VW 2012, comprising of 9 stories, subdivided into slabs, floors, ceilings etc. The entire model file size is 315mb. [Layers include symbols from the library, as well as symbols I have modelled myself, and symbols I have imported from Sketchup models (as well as walls, floors, groups, extrudes etc.)] Typically I prefer to create perspective sections with infinite depth, rendered in hidden line view. In this instance - due to the large file size - I reduced the '3D conversion detail' option to low in the advanced settings. The section viewport has been set up on it's own sheet layer since early on in the project and periodically updated as I developed the model; as it got larger, the loading time increased and ultimately it failed to load. I have created a copy of the model, and deleted large parts which I don't expect to appear in the perspective of the section, in attempt to relieve the loading workload! Despite reducing the file size to 250mb, the viewport is still not loading (even as orthogonal projection). I was hoping that some more experienced Vectorworks users might have some insight, and ideas as to how I might be able to get this viewport loaded; are there any particular settings which I could change, any particular kinds of object that I would be advised to remove, or a smaller file size I should target? Any advice or ideas would be really appreciated. NB: Vectorworks does not always appear as 'Not Responding', but I tried leaving the viewport loading overnight, and it still wasn't complete after over 12 hours!