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Travis

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Everything posted by Travis

  1. Hands down the best resource is to have a project you complete. And then another. Having used Pickup's manuals to train a number of users over the years, both with and without previous CAD experience, I can attest to their value. They will get you using a variety of VW's tools in a useful way. But our primary business isn't drawing walls and roofs. . .and yours might not be as well. So, while his manuals (and related resources) are arguably the best available, they will not apply to every objective. They will, however, give one a significantly useful paradigm about how to get what you want out of VW. Good luck, and keep posting as more hurdles come up!
  2. Bill, This sounds very much like a class issue. Make sure you have the relevant classes turned on both globally (menu bar) and in the affected viewports. Check to see what class you have the VP itself set to. It takes a little work, but you can actually set Class visibility in such a way that you can see something but not select it!! Let us know how it works out. Good luck,
  3. I mentioned v10 because I thought that was noted in your signature line. Either you've updated it, or I misread it. (The latter being very possible) To further the discussion more precisely: it is possible to delete a symbol (or group for that matter), even from the resource browser, by deleting all of the elements it contains and then closing it. And it would fit what you describe. The nested symbol(s) would still exist after you deleted all occurrences of them in the larger symbol. If that happened inadvertently, perhaps you can be aware of it in the future when a simple undo would (expectedly) revert everything back as it was. Good luck,
  4. Andrew, Make sure all your classes are turned on (they probably are). Are your staircase symbol, and the nested symbols, 3D elements? If so, try viewing from a 3D perspective. My memory of v10 is a little rusty, but I recall a similar problem. We were using one of VW's stair plug-in objects (PIOs) and after some number of edits, it completely disappeared from "2D space". It would still show up as a wireframe in 3D, but refused to show its face in 2D. We never did solve it. We worked around it by creating another 2D-only symbol and then grouping the two symbols together to keep them properly referenced. . .the project was just too near completion to warrant starting over on the stair elements. This "vanishing" symbol problem hasn't recurred in later versions, for whatever that's worth. Good luck,
  5. Text font and size settings seem to persist from one launching of VW to another. But alignment and style settings are not persistent. Is there a way, via template or otherwise, to have these (alignment & style) settings default to other than "factory" settings? As we all know, it's tedious to reset things every time one launches and painful when others in the office don't adhere to standards because they forget to do the reset. Any help appreciated.
  6. Jim, I remember back several versions (was it 11? or maybe 10?), that the titleblock's filename would auto-populate with the file's name. It seems, however, we've lost that joy. We're just finalizing our transition to v08, and would love to learn that filename can again auto-populate. Anyone else with better info?
  7. My dimensions always round up under the settings you mention. Is it possible the 8 3/8 length is actually 8.374? Or some other tiny amount less than 8.375? This seems to me to be the most likely reason you're rounding down. Good luck,
  8. Re the audible cues: you need to turn on snaps (Constraints pallet) and/or Use Sound (Preferences) Good luck
  9. 12.5.1 is an update to 12.5 which is an upgrade to 12.0 I'm not completely certain, but I seem to remember installing 12.0 from a CD and then updating from downloads through the revisions. Good luck,
  10. What do you plan to design? And for which locality(ies) are you designing? (Country or state) Once we understand that, I'm sure a few of us can give you some qualified answers. For our office, and the highly custom (generally timber-frame structures) we design, the cost differential between Fundamentals and Architect would be recovered in less than a day. Good luck,
  11. I used it once. . .got so confused, I was eventually lost. I much prefer to develop templates that contain the "80%-stuff" and then add as req'd for a specific project. It's difficult for me to envision an office environment that would benefit consistently from Task Manager: you'd almost have to tailor your work-flow to match TM, rather than the other way round. My 2?! Good luck,
  12. Mac, You'd do well to read Peter's post, work through his steps, and then post more questions here. Good luck,
  13. I can't even imagine doing walls (efficiently) without the Architect package. Which version of VW are you using? Out of curiosity, what is the motivation for using Fundamentals? You're running up against the limits of the Fundamentals package: it's not easy. Since we don't use that package, I'm not much help with respect to a "best way". Perhaps others here will have more useful input. Good luck,
  14. JL, The short answer is yes (by using extrudes) and no (there's no parametric object that will create battered walls). This has been discussed from time to time and the consensus work around seems to be: 1) Layout out your walls using the Wall tool; insert doors & windows. 2) Draw a 2D "section" of the battered wall; extrude this along a line drawn at the appropriate centerline (in plan view). 3) Go along and subtract solid "blocks" from the extruded wall wherever doors and windows occur. 4) Turn off the walls' class (but not the doors & windows) for C/Ds This won't give you trim (casing, sills, thresholds, etc.) nor will it be very easy to modify opening locations or sizes. . .tho not terribly difficult. Good luck,
  15. Sure. Just note the right-click is contextual: meaning you get a different menu if you're pointing at an item when you click than if you're pointing at the document in general, better known as "nothing". Go to Workspace Editor and edit the Document Context and Object Context menues. Good luck,
  16. Taking Islandmon's idea a bit further, just buy plotter paper in a narrow width. I know our paper supplier will slit a roll to any width we specify. Then just print on a roll-capable printer. (Epson's 2200 comes to mind as an inexpensive but reliable option) Good luck,
  17. We've had good experience, when hiring drafters w/Acad experience, to run them through ArchonCad's books. Jonathan has been/is a practicioner of architecture. While we don't utilize all of his protocols, there're well thought-out. And his approach to learning the vernacular (you're no longer drawing in lines and arcs, but rather shapes and objects) seems to make sense to the ACAD crowd. I personally have only ever used VW, so I don't speak well to the cross-over learning curve. Welcome aboard and good luck,
  18. Yep, virtually everything we do is in 3D. I'll take quigley's advice and play around with the free version, when I have a few minutes. Thanks for the input,
  19. Your "ghost" line may well be related to your printer driver.? It would be well in the future to list your hardware & software, including OS and version. What margin settings do you have in the Sheet Border OIP under the Border Settings. . . button? This margin setting is sensitive to the printer driver and places the Border at the specified distance from whatever margin you've set in the printer interface. We generally set the printer interface margins to zero and then control the Border offset via the OIP. In your case, you may be able to adjust the two settings so the VW Border prints over the ghost line, thereby eliminating the problem. Good luck,
  20. I have a cad-challenged (meaning their office is over-committed to acad) landscape architect that has recently become enamored with SketchUP. They've asked if we can send them a SketchUP version of some landscape structures we designed and built for them a while back. They're after the 3D model so they can do some marketing materials that include their landscape design complete with our structures integrated. Since we've not used SketchUP all I know is there is a plug-in of some sort to facilitate communication between it and VWA. Can someone tell me if it's possible to create a file?probably using said plug-in?that I can send? Such a file would need to ultimately be read by SketchUP.
  21. Katie, You're right. I'd grown so accustomed to simply drawing all my roof components, that I hadn't run the Frame Roof command since updating. Thanks for noting this. BTW, if the Framing Member Tool was ever to come up for review, I'd love to offer some input. Best,
  22. Regretfully, the roof framing command took a dive with v12. You might also have learned that it sometimes doesn't pitch the rafters correctly. Used to work pretty close to real-world, now it's not very close. This has been discussed several times here and I believe entered as a wish-list item if not a bug. The work-around is just that: work around or have an editing festival (what a metaphor!) One shortcut during that festival is to pick a view that facilitates selecting all the rafters at once (and any other members "out-of-plane") and move them all together. We use the Framing Member tool on a daily basis and would possibly use the Roof Framing command more IF it worked properly. Sorry I don't have better news! Good luck,
  23. Benson, In VW Preferences, Display tab, uncheck Adjust Flipped Text. Now it will stay oriented however you put it. Good luck,
  24. Are these lines adjoining? If so, use the Tape Measure tool and click the start and end of the first line and then the end of each adjoining line: the tool will show a cumulative total in the data bar at the top of your drawing window. HTH,
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