LarryO
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Posts posted by LarryO
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The script output from VW for a 3DPoly is encapsulated by BeginGroup; and EndGroup;
But the object created is not contained a parent group.
3DPolys cannot be Ungrouped per say and they cannot be entered for editing a sub part like the holes in a polygon or a helix.
Is there an undocumented use occurring here?
{Object Creation Code}
NameClass('None');
BeginGroup;
ClosePoly;
PenSize(2);
PenPatN(2);
FillPat(1);
FillFore(0,0,0);
FillBack(65535,65535,65535);
PenFore(0,0,0);
PenBack(65535,65535,65535);
Poly3D(
0,0,0,
0,1000,0
);
EndGroup;
OpacityN(100,100);
{End of Creation Code}
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I was reminded that a sweep does almost the same task as using a helix path for an extrude as long as one doesn't need to taper it down to a different radius.
Tools that I have not used in a while.
The sweep seems to have shaved off a few more KB.
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Thanks Pat, the change in focus really helps.
I stripped down the Simpson like product which reduced the file to 20% of the previous version and then noticed that the model now more closely resembled Hilti's concrete screw anchor. So I copied and made the minor thread and text adjustments.
Definitely using symbols for repeated instances will be required if I cannot pull them off as plugin items.
<edit: also I'll be lucky if I am still doing this in 5 years let alone 50, so I will not be waiting around for technology improvements and operating system optimizations 🙃>
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On 5/12/2022 at 9:12 AM, Pat Stanford said:
Do you know that you can right click on a viewport and choose Edit Crop?
Move the mouse near a viewport in question, then right click for the contextual menu. Near the bottom of the list it will show "edit crop" (in your language of course).
That would only be a single click to access a viewport's crop. No script required.
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I have done some fasteners that I thought would be of some use in my work, but I modeled then and have found that the LOD (level of detail) required for differentiation from that of bolts and screws that are already in the library of tools has significantly increased memory usage and computational needs. Significant to the level that I don't think their use is feasible for anything more than a couple of instances in any one design layer or file.
Attached is a screw in concrete anchor of which there are more sizes that I should typically use for detailing installations of steel assemblies.
Any suggestions of changes that could make these workable?
To make these as plugins I think I would have to figure out a more reliable way of illustrating the threads. My efforts of extruding along a helical path have been hit and miss as to whether the result can be processed by solid addition to the shaft. And that was doing it without scripting. I say scripting because I believe that direction would be far more successful at controlling memory use and the clutter of unused profiles in a file's symbol folder. I suppose I could create a library file that the plugin could retrieve each symbol from when called upon for use, but that wouldn't solve excessive file size increases with each instance of various fasteners.
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Rather than this being a setting attached to the viewing environment it could be better implemented via dimensioning tool enhancement.
There are a relatively small amount of tools in the drafting set that communicate measures so it would be easier to program an enhanced and flexible dimensioning system rather than altering viewport functionality. Improvements to viewport functionality are partially limited by its need to be translated to dwg format. -
Sorry I don't know how to reduce VW2022 file size.
Included are the lengths available in Canada for 6mm, 7mm, 8mm [Sold as 1/4", 5/16", 3/8" nominally]
While there are 5mm[#10] in three lengths here I didn't model them. Our engineer's don't fasten structural steel to wood with anything that small.
In the GRK product the tread dies back into the shaft at the top end, the crown of the head is less prominent in GRK than similar Torx headed fasteners. The Torx star is only an approximation as are the locking teeth on the underside of the screw's head.
RSS screws sim to GRK v2019.vwx RSS screws sim to GRK v2022.vwx
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Sorry I don't know how to reduce VW2022 file size.
I was originally going to create a plugin to draw these but my lack of experience in using helix paths and extrude along path in a script put a kybosh into that effort for now. I suspect scripting these constructions into symbols as needed would be far less of a memory hog than placing all of them into a file but the symbols are a start if anyone can use them.
In the Simpson product the tread dies back into the shaft at the top end, there is a fillet to the underside of the head and possibly to the washer transition from the bolt head facets.
Simpson SDS25xxxSERIES v2019.vwx Simpson SDS25xxxSERIES v2022.vwx
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If you need to do this regularly just set up a dimension style for each measurement.
With dual dimension styles one can turn off the primary dimension and only display the secondary units.
Create a second file if you need more than two different types of units and reference in the base document.
Example would be a site plan for a house being in Metres; you would reference in the house file into the document where you would have prepared the site plan and it's associated viewports.
The house file could then be based primarily in millimetres but could also display feet and inches measures as a secondary unit (although I personally would not want to regress to the imperial system). But this method can generate millimetres and centimetres at the same time to produce cross compatible documentation for both Canadian and European standards.
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In the jurisdictions (Canada) where most of my documents were produced for, around steel HSS columns and concrete columns I had to indicate a change in wall type to satisfy the building code requirements. Steel particularly would have to change to type X gypsum board to meet fire resistance requirements. And progress towards BIM production documents would also need to correctly record materials in the file. Around concrete columns the assembly would change to GWB on furring channels, etc. I feel it is only in residential constructions where some design teams have held back from creating comprehensive documentation (I blame developer budgets).
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As a technical construct I see the challenge it embodies, which is interesting.
As an architectural subject I am drawn in thinking of Fluevog's,
and the unattainable products inside because there is no obvious location for a portal.
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I tested it with everything on.
Only Snap to Object on with all snap settings active and
my normal Snap to Object with master snap points off, Snap to Angle, Snap to Intersection and Smart Points on.
The dimension tool only finds the points and not along the objects themselves.
I'll have to be watchful that Top View doesn't get set when Wireframe rendering. I think there must have been a setting before which actively took care of switching the view to Top/Plan when Wireframe was active.
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I've noticed that in VW2022 one can have Wireframe background rendering active and Top view at the same time when setting viewports.
The problem that has occurred for me is the dimension tools will snap to objects under these settings, only to intersections and points.
It was a 60+ minute puzzle chasing this down, I only stumbled upon what I hope is the solution of changing the viewport View to Top/Plan.
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Working in VW2022. Win10Pro 21H1 19043.1645
I made a copy of the Arch workspace.
Attempting to change unconstrained linear dimension shortcut back to M.
Click on "Tools" tab. Short cuts show for the expanded submenu "View/Draw" in the "Basic" palette. (all are justified to right side)
Close the Basic palette and expand the "Tool Sets" palette and expand submenu "Dims/Notes", at no time do the existing shortcut settings display. Not even when an individual tool is selected, nor does it display below the Palettes window where one changes the shortcut.
I had rearranged the tool sequence and added the legacy Centre Line Marker prior to noticing this but removing the legacy tool didn't change anything; and I observed the same issued with the original Architect menu.
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BEGIN RANDOM THOUGHT
At some point if the developer is serious about providing BIM strategies they are going to have to improve the tool produced items to present modern products. Otherwise there will be no possibilities of comprehensive BIM driven specifications produced from the document set. Unless you are the Sears mail order house reproductions guy, no fancy fasteners and plastic in them, hehehe. While there are some good script developers who could adapt existing code, VW tool code is not open source script. Starting pro bono improvements from scratch is a time consuming downer when the result is seeming insignificant in the overall scheme.
END RANDOM THOUGHT
🙃🙂🙃🙂
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Creating a new layer, not duplication. It is something subtle, and could be some habit I have picked too that I've not noticed yet.
I know my older 2013 version creates a new design layer immediately above the selected one when the stack order is ascending downward, and at the top of the list if no layer is selected. If one reverses the stack new ones go below but at no point was I able to get the new layer to become the largest increment at the bottom of the list. ie 5 existing layers, add new layer and existing number 5 is always re-sequenced as number 6.
I'm thinking that maybe in the past that I've always opened the dialog and a layer was selected but now it's not or I'm deselecting it before pressing new.
Ahh, too much thinking about nuances. Time to move on. hehe
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I have noticed this too and I'm fairly certain this is a new behavior that I think occurred in either version 2020 or 2021.
New design layers used to insert themselves at the bottom of the stack list but now they become #1 in the stacking order incrementing the existing layer stack numbers by 1.
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The top side of the grade mesh looks similar to when I have accidentally placed nearly identical objects in the same place. Only having different attributes like class partial visibility, or colour.
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8 hours ago, jeff prince said:
I’m with you on software manuals
There was an art to indexing a technical document. A casual review of the index could show the quality of a manual's content and that of the index creator. The explosion of small independents in the publishing industry seems to have killed off that profession with efficiency cuts. A table of contents simply cannot compete with a well developed index.
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In the data set that was collected there was a density of points (which I don't have access to anymore) that when looking at them in Vw's 3d drawing space we as humans could visualize the irregularities and similarities of the data representing a stairwell formed from concrete. I could see where there was misalignment from overlapping data scans as the surveyor mapped out the levels of the interior of the space. What we needed out of the data was dimensional data primarily in an orthogonal format to produce a railing system that avoided juts, projections, shifts and voids in the as-built space. The point data needed to be reconfigured into surfaces with edges. With over 10GB of points on a single layer attempting to align to any particular mass of points representing a wall, riser, tread, ceiling in order either create a flat plane or surface to which one could measure from or to was near impossible. The rendering of the view would take 90-120 seconds every time a slight change was need to get the view from one place, angle or magnification to another. I attempted to dumb down the data with an external format convertor and within VWs tool set but the tools and engine is not there in VWs to manipulate and transform such large quantities of data into something the application is suited for.
If I had found a route to success I probably would have a better description of the frustration at the enormous amount of time wasted in attempting to modernize (efficient and reliable) the collection of and accuracy of data defining an as-built construction.
The current system reminds me of the telephone game children used to play by passing along a bit of information and laughing at the end at how the sentence had been corrupted by the time it was repeated by the final participant in the circle. If the data collector is someone other than yourself you will not receive the whole picture needed to make all the decisions require to produce your work and even then you may not have captured enough data in one, two or three visits because the outcome of the documents was not predefined and was more of a work in progress/design.
The reality is that VWs does not come with hard copy manuals explaining the functionality of its tools and specifics of how to implement each. Something which has been lost in the past 30 years of software production and is not limited to VWs. Even Autocad no longer produces its encyclopedic manuals with quick to scan indexes and ability to insert bookmarks. Search functionality even when properly implemented is next to useless if you don't know the terminology used by the author and if the command/tool descriptions are not complete with actual examples of their implementation. Kind of like learning a language without knowing the meaning of the words to be able to choose those words that are applicable to the context. The result is slow and fraught with unpredictable results.
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🤣🤣🤣 In the 90's on our Quadra 900 fully loaded with RAM we could render a single scene over the weekend!
Perhaps a used Mac hiding on a shelf could process the rendering while the touch-up work continued at the desk?
KVM switches were great for sharing the interface peripherals between two machines. You had to love and hoard the old tech though because the secondhand market was and still is overpriced to think about purchasing being economical. 🙃
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Good luck with your research on that. I took a week in an abandoned attempt to utilize the technology to capture basic as-built information within staircases for a large renovation. Vectorworks simply choked on the data overload for which it doesn't seem to have a means aggregate similar points into planes, lines or surfaces. Manually processing the imported data was a non-starter. Simple rotation and zooming in 3d space was an exercise in patience.
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Does this work for you?
Sorry, I'm on a Win10 platform and your file was produced on a Mac so I did not have Helvetica as an installed font.
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It has been many years (20 plus) since I used a utility called Quickeys and I have read that it has been floundering with the new Apple OS. An Alternative might be Keyboard Maestro.
But we used to utilize Quickeys for the creation of macros that would send "do script" events to VW of which some were combined with repetitive mouse movements that operated at the OS level. Whether this could be useful to move palettes from a predetermined location to a new one I don't recall. But it added a level of functionality that was simply not possible within the VWs/MiniCad environment.
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Make Object Child of PIO
in Vectorscript
Posted
Whether this helps or not.
One of my plugins for drawing pickets in a fence could not create itself by collecting three points interactively from the user.
It will edit itself if any existing defining points are moved. This is done through reassignment of the values stored in the instance's record.
But because the object didn't yet exist during creation until after the object script completed the record I was attempting to place values into didn't yet exist.
This was solved by creating a tool to place the first instance. The tool collects the three initial defining points from the user, executes the plugin and then replaces the values in the instance's record.
By using a tool the plugin object created is free to run by its own script and not contained as an object within the creation script.