Ericsw

I grabbed the default Source 4 symbol, copied the 3d symbol, and pasted in place for the handful of symbols in this plot. Looks like I will be editing my symbol library next chance I get. Thanks for all the help!

Thanks! I came to the same conclusion just trying to see what was different. I am not sure how to implement the fix your suggested, but I really appreciate the investigation.

Here you go! I really appreciate it. Process: 1. Make New File 2. Add a single focus point 3. Import my old symbol from another drawing 4. Import a default symbol from another drawing 5. Set both lights to 12' on the z axis 6. Assign both the focus point 7. Check the box for draw beam 8. Wonder what is wrong It looks like clicking draw beam changes the default symbols tilt and pan (under the Focus field in the object info). My symbols pan and focus remains 0 for both fields. Manually changing them has no effect other than clearing the focus field. Setting the focus field resets the pan and tilt. Beam Draw Weirdness.vwx

Title says it all. I have a large lighting symbol library that has been travelling with me since 2013. In VW 2023 when I give the light a height in space and a focus point, instead of drawing the beam as expected it draws it as if the focus point with straight under the lighting object. If I import an included symbol the beam function works as expect. I would very much prefer to not re-import and rework my entire symbol library. Any ideas? Thanks.

Thanks so much! I know things change, but the ease and security in the past really made upgrading and maintaining my license a breeze.

Why can I no longer renew my Service Select account online through the customer portal? I understand that a subscription model is becoming the new paradigm, but sending me an email that looks like a phishing scheme where I have to click through a link to enter my card information is an enormous step backwards. When I called customer service I was told that there is a new system in place, but it seems that a link in an email could easily be put on my customer page. Please fix this for those of us who have been customers for a long time. Thanks.

I need to build a couple of drafting computers from medium to large lighting plots (98% of it in 2d). Since graphics cards are stupid expensive at the moment I was wondering if anyone has had any direct experience with the new Ryzen APU (5700G specifically which has 8 cores and 16 threads with built in graphics). The goal would be to use the APU as a stop gap until I can find the budget for Nvidia 3060 or 3080.

Up until v2019 I was able to get VW running under Wine on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, though graphic acceleration was a bit of an issue, and my hardware was very old. Since v2020 the installer loads, but the serial numbers are refused (valid Service Select license). VW is also the only reason I have anything to do with Windows. I have taken to running Windows in a KVM Virtual Machine with GPU passthrough on a Manjaro host. It requires a bit of setup and an extra graphics card, but I haven't had to boot into Windows proper since I got it setup.

I am a select service member and finally downloaded windows 64 bit VW2020 installer from my portal. However I can not get past the initial screen because by serial number is not being recognized. I have copy and pasted from my portal and attempted to enter the number manually. In both cases the installer say INVALID SERIAL NUMBER and do not allow me to proceed with the install. I am most definitely using the correct 2020 serial (as opposed to my 2019 or 2018 number). Anyone have any ideas?

Final update for the night: Using a selected or named range in excel to limit the excel spreadsheet does not work. The new range is recognized in the VW ODBC menu, but it seems to have no effect.

Update. The ODBC link is working. I zoomed in so I could watch the symbols populate with text. However the ODBC Update does not complete when it gets to an empty row of the excel document. VW had completed updating all my symbols but it just keeps going through the excel document, and accessing the whole thing takes close to 6 hours. Does anyone know how I can let VW know what the end of the data source is? VW2014 does not seem exhibit this behavior. It kicks out when it gets to an empty row of the excel document.

I think I have solved the problem...kind of. I was able to install the 64 bit ODBC drivers from Microsoft with a little bit of finesse and registry fiddling. Everything now works as expected. VW2015 64 bit can see the excel files as databases. I can link the symbol text to the proper excel column. I can view the table from inside VW. However now an import that once took 3-7 minutes is at 15% complete after an hour. Has anyone else seem slower ODBC reconciling after switching from 32 bit driver to 64 bit? Moving forward do I need to rethink the structure of this document? VW support has been gracious enough to send me a link to a 32bit version of VW2015 but I expect to be using this document (or some form of it) after VW2016 which stops 32 bit support. As I have the time now to attack the problem I would like to try to solve it now. A little background on what I am trying to accomplish: I have a document with 400 symbols (basically text boxes) that have linked text. Each symbol has been manually linked to a row of an excel document. As each project (theatrical show ) comes through I adjust the info in the excel document and VW sucks it in via ODBC. IN version 1 of this document VW tables were used, but in 2009 those were slower to edit than an excel spreadsheet. After the initial linking took place the ODBC link was much smoother and easier to do large amounts of edits quickly. I am open to any suggestions on how to make this work better and smoother or other avenues to explore or ways to speed up ODBC. Thank you so much for all the help thus far. Attached is an idea of what it looks like in the final form. This is the bottom of one page of typically a 35-50 page document.

Thank you! Is it possible to install a 32 bit version of VW 2015 on om 64 bit version of Windows 7? 32 bit office has it's fair share of compatibility issues. according to my IT dept. Alternatively I found a way to force install the 64bit drivers, but I am not sure that will help as the excel file will still be created with a 32 bit version of that software.

Hello, IT just upgrade my computer and upgraded my VW Spotlight to 2015 from 2014. I have a ODBC linked document that uses an excel spreadsheet as the data source. Both setups were running on Windows 7. I accessed the 32 bit ODBC administrator in SysWOW64 and setup my file as normal. I have opened and the older VW2014 file and saved as a new VW2015 file. However when I go to Manage Databases I get a error when linking to the DSN I have newly created. Specifically : "(3) the ODBC driver has returned an error" Viewing details gives: [0] Driver error: IM014 [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] The specified DSN contains an architecture mismatch between the Driver and Application The workbook is listed as connected, but the tables are inaccessible. I have upgraded to the newest Windows ODBC drivers. I have tried the excel file as a 2007, 97-2003, 95 workbook. I am establishing the DSN in the user section, but that has never been a problem before and when I add DSN as an administrator VW can no longer see them. The only possibility I can think of is that when the upgrade from 2014 to 2015 happened they choose the 64 bit VW version and that somehow broke ODBC from 32 bit sources. Anyone else have any idea? Thanks, -E