ray isaacs

well, i finally tried it...thanks, christiaan, for the impulse. strangely, the "cast shadows..." option seems to be available for sht layer section viewports, and not for design layer ones. that distinction does not make sense to me. anyway, i did a sht layer section and the shadows cast properly as christiaan had hoped. however, i can't see a way to define the viewing angle in the sht layer viewport. in the design layer you can rotate or use a camera. in the sht layer i'm stuck with the default, which is not a good choice. there must be a way to change this. does anybody know? ray

alfresco, i can't answer your question, but it looks like you're left hanging here. in my experience, texture beds through hardscapes seems to be inflexible. but on the other hand a very convenient method of working with the dtm. are you trying to edit the textures through the oip? with other objects you can edit textures here, but strangely not with hardscapes...unless ther is a secret that i haven't discovered. if there is, somebody please tell. i have had some limited success by editing hardscape textures in the resource browser. have you tried that? hopefully someone who really knows how to do this will comment. as i have said many times, dtm is one of the best features of vw...a main reason i stay with vw...but it is really clumsy to work with. i hope they put more effort into improving it. cheers, ray

christiaan, i've been wanting to try this for a long time, but never got around to it. in section dialog box, under advanced properties, display, there is: "cast shadows of objects removed by section" i always assumed this would do what you are hoping. does it not? ray

mike, thanks! i was trying to import layers yesterday, as i have done many times. only in that particular file i couldn't see any layers. now i know: exactly the same layer names. glad i didn't follow my impulse to smash the computer. ray

gbland, this exact thing happened to me last march, using 2012.i don't remember exactly how i resolved. but, rather than leave you hanging here alone. i'll layout the sequence of events as i recall it. first i sent mt model to vw vss, and they got the same thing to happen on their machines. they could see a problem in the model construction, so they sent it over to engineering. while waiting for engineering, i had some other problems suggesting that my file was corrupted. so, i copied the 3d date (not the dtm) into a new file and created a new site model. then i copied the site modifiers and plants and pasted them into the new file. updated the model, then sent the plants to the surface and everything worked, including the two of three trees in on spot that would not go to the surface before. then i heard back from vw vss that engineering had remade my model and it was working correctly. they didn't tell me what was wrong, and since my new model was working, i didn't think about it again. that's the way i remember. so, my suggestion is to delete the dtm and recreate it. if that doesn't work, try doing that in a new file. hopefully, someone can tell you more precisly what the problem is. cheers, ray

what about axonometrics? i don't do much in terms of cd's, but find that axons are a good way to illustrate framing relationships, etc. mechanical engineers have used axons traditionally to show stacks, etc. because they are parallel projections, they are scalable. ray

don't mean to be a stick in the mud, bimguy. i'm just trying to get my head around this. but, it seems that if the stories concept actually did something like what kevin is describing, that the vertical stacking could be accomplished within the existing modeling environment, including design layers. go ahead...tell me it isn't that simple.

christiaan, i understand what you mean. my response needs some context. designing buildings is only a part of what i do, which includes landscape architecture, urban design. when i mentioned flexibility, i meant the ability to change my workflow across this range of projects, and that was the reason for choosing vw in the first place. i don't do detail documents of buildings. so what you are proposing is not that critical for me, but improvement is welcome as long as the basic model structure doesn't become building centric as with some dedicated bim packages. you mentioned stories. i spend 90% of my time in the landmark workspace. i know stories where introduced a couple of versions back, but have never used them. can you not do multiple stories within a design layer? if not, would making that possible get closer to what you are after? ray

no, not always. as i said above, sometimes i do, sometimes i don't depending on the nature of the project and our goals. but, what i'm wondering--which i may not have made clear above--is if the problem is in the model space (design layers), or in the way the model can be viewed and consequently represented in drawings. i think it is more the latter. as you and others have strongly and rightfully argued elsewhere, vw is seriously deficient in this regard. at the moment you can construct an entire building in one design layer, or you can have single vertical elements extending through the space of multiple layers. but selectively viewing the model in these cases is difficult and sometimes impossible. ray

i realize that, and that's why i wrote: perhaps that is what christiaan means when he says "getting rid of the design layer..." but, you have to admit that when the request starts by saying, "getting rid of the design layer.." that some red flags go up.

not to belabor this more than necessary... but it seems to me that you are taking a very narrow view of the use of the design layer. in the the end you are building one model. it is your decision how you want to organize it. in fact if you chose, you can build the entire building in one design layer (which i sometimes do for a variety reasons), doing many of the things described above. the problem becomes one of presentation, such as setting the height of the plan view (also live sections), which is a valid complaint discussed in other threads on this forum, and a serious shortcoming in vw that 2013 very little to improve. that should be improved and perhaps that is what christiaan means when he says "getting rid of the design layer..." i for one see a lot of value in the design layer and appreciate the flexibility that it affords. on a side note. many on this forum seem unhappy that vw is not revit. we use revit very heavily in the school where i teach. it does some things very well, some things it does poorly, especially working beyond the building. if i want revit i will by revit, but more likely archicad. i do not want vw to become revit it is a different program. i just wish that it worked better--and i have made that clear to the folks at vw. ray

tamsin, it's still happening in 2013. happens every time. i've stopped using 2013 at least until sp2 for other reasons. but, i hope this gets fixed. ray

seems like the issue is not getting rid of design layers ( which can be used however you want to use them, or not), but getting live sections--which we ask for year after year. ray

i have the same question as miguel: why? the design layer does not in any way mean 2d. so there is nothing inherently in the way of 3d designing. i find that the combination of design layers and classes gives me a lot flexibility in organizing the model space. sometimes i use it literally, as the vertical stacking of a building. other times thematically, such as existing, new; or site, buildings, plants, lights and cameras. sometimes as varaitions. sometimes i mix it all up. in the end, its all one model. ray

c10916, you are not stupid. this has been going on for ages. my colleagues who do not use vw laugh their %}^^#^ off every time i show this to them. i don't know why vw can't fix this. i pointed it out a ling time ago. i'm sure others have as well. ray

jnr, i installed sp1 last week. doesn't seem to be the answer. apple maps was a disaster, but i don't depend on apple maps for the daily productivity of my business. fortunately i still have 2012 installed.

i am experiencing a weird, surreal thing in 2013, as though vectorworks is inebriated. at some point in the working session, things get very sluggish: selection tools stop working, navigation hangs up, etc. i tried watching some patterns in detail, but that is very difficult. i find that frequent restarting is required to keep things moving. the last incident was something like this: in a 3d wireframe view i select an object. only after slightly zooming in and out does the select highlight appear. then i delete the object; only after zooming slightly do i see that the object has been deleted. then i press command/5 to return to top plan view; only after zooming slightly does the view return to top plan. its really wacky. for now i switched back to 2012. interestingly the file which is a native 2013 file exported as 2012 opens and works perfectly in 2012. am i alone? have others experienced this? cheers, ray

that's right. the pads in the model i sent to vw vss are 10cm apart. they responded saying that they have replicated the same results: intersecting pad warning when pads do not intersect. and further that the model appears to be constructed correctly. now they need to look more deeply into it to determine whether the problem is in my model or a broader vw issue. i'll let you know what they find out. ray

bingo! turns out it was due to some fallout from some serious ios/vw corruption last winter that i apparently didn't entirely clear up. still some file permissions to update. thanks, pgym. ray

c10916, site modifiers are complicated. apparently there are rules, but they only seemed to be revealed through trial and error. my experience is that texture beds can overlap pads. although i have gotten a few random strange results that i can't explain--isolated cases of model being confused. i usually find that simplifying the model reduces the strangeness. i'm also told by vss that the way a texture bed is created can make a difference, as there are multiple ways to do this. it's hard to see the logic is some of this, but it seems to be that directness and simplicity play a role in this. for example a texture bed created directly may work better than a texture bed created from a hardscape. finally, texture beds themselves may overlap. but the stacking order can't be altered. supposedly the one created first stays on top, but i find this to complicated and prefer not to overlap them. that's about all i know. ray

c10916, i've run into this, too...many times. recently i was very careful not to overlap pads, but got the intersecting pads warning anyway. i sent the model to vw vss for an explanation. i haven't heard back from them. time to follow up, i suppose. as soon as i get a response, i'll post the information. cheers, ray

kevin, i have run into problems having files selected in the finder. but, i just double checked, and that is not the case here. pgym, i saved both ways--"save" and "save as"-- but there is no difference in this case. as i look into it more, it seems to depend upon which folder i save the document to.

thanks, rob. when i get sometime, i want to try the 30 day demo.

tamsin, does that mean you have to repeat the process for every object in the model? very cumbersome. then what happens when you make changes? peter, i want to find out more about archicad. do you know of a similar forum for archicad users? ray

monkey, i'm saving to the hard drive on my macbook. i tried saving to the desktop and it worked. thanks for the suggestion. i also tried saving to a new folder and that worked. for some reason i can't save to the original folders from which the files come. i had a similar issue last winter, getting a different error message. at that time i had to create a new user account and re-do all of my folders. don't want to do that again. i wonder what is causing the problem. is it mac os, is it vw, or is it the combination? in the mean time i'm waiting to hear from the vw tech people. cheers, ray