defjef

Actually... without meaning to offend NMA, I think they have dropped the ball on the file translation to ACAD. Yes you can import ACAD files, and save as DWG and DXF.. but they have not offered a SIMPLE protocol to fo these trasfers and preserve the data and present it ALL accurately. Not being a programmer and with little understanding of how these products work... all I know is that they BOTH produce a drawing. It would seem logical that there is a way to "DECONSTRUCT" the file.. ie the output we see... and reconstruct it in the OTHER file format. I am thinking of something like a word processing document. You can produce identical documents using different software platforms.. Is it that difficult to preserve all the formatting and so on when the file is converted from say Word to Word Perfect? Admittedly when some "feature" is not present in one program.. it cannot be converted to something in the other. But this must be the exception and not the rule. Another reason to make this process reliable, seemless and accurate, is that it opens up the ACAD environments to VW users. This would allow the VW user to work efficiently in HIS chosen platform and for the firm he works at to open his files, save his files in their standard. I am not sure how many offices would accept even this approach... but it would raise the issue that they can't access or use the VW files. VW is pretty much the same on PC and MAC and that is an excellent thing. For whatever reason they decided to support both platforms. Now they have to bite the bullet and work out ALL the issues for a simple, quick, accurate, reliable way to move file to and from the ACAD environment. ACAD is not going away. Is it? I suspect that the market share that VW may be acheiving is more related to new offices going CAD from pencil drafting than ACAD offices converting to VW. The economics of this industry is such that they must produce upgrqades they can charge for and sell new licenses, or have huge sticker prices for their products. The more product out there the more tech support staff required and you see how many software companies are now charging to support their products. What has happened when the mouse replaced the lead pencil was that a document no longer is a pice of paper that a draftsman worked on.. but it is a file that often many poeople work on. As such the software itself has risen in importance over the skill of the draftsman. Now your skill is measured not only by your "profssional" knowledge, but by your familiariity and skill with a software package. Larger firms with layers of hierarchy will have only the lower levels as cad operators. The top levels will often pencil sketch and are often completely unskilled at any CAD work. They are completely reliant on their staff for output. Samller firms cannot let this happen and they must make a choice to be CAD proficient from almost the top down... or stick with the technology of pencil drafting they may have learned in school for their output. Although schools are teaching CAD skills, it will be a while before drafting is completely abandoned. When it is the software employed in schools must be a good intuitive drawing and techical program... much like VW. Had the graphical user interface, GUI and WYSIWYG, appeared earlier in the development of personal computers, ACAD may not have the dominance that it does today. And if MAC had a different marketing stategy they might be on 90% of the desks today on not Windows PCs. We can't rewrite history, but neither should we, the consumers, be forced to "suffer" from the chaos in the marketplace. [ 09-04-2003, 09:00 AM: Message edited by: defjef ]

This issue come up again and again. It is both a technical issue.. how to as seemlessly as possible move files from VW to ACAD and back without losing data and preserving the drawing's appearance, fonts, lineweights etc. and a marketing issue.. how do you position this product in the market place? On the second matter, VW needs to adapt a stategy for converting ACAD environments to VW.. if they want to capture market share... Converting the files of almost ANY size practice is a major issue when a firm considers switching software platforms. Does NNA have a plan for this? Or are they simply trying to sign up "new firms" that are just venturing into CAD based documents? What are the reasons that a firm will convert from ACAD to VW? Of course it must be a bottom line issue for any business... aside from the "better look" of VW files. If there is a cost benefit... is there any information to support the change? When I look at the ads I see mostly ACAD listings. So I understand the pressure of a firm when they feel surrounded by ACAD and the need to produce work and not spend time cleaning up files and dealing with software issues. I worked in an ACAD office for several years.. I did not work in ACAD.. but came to see that the program, although it had some neat features was basically a line by line process and very much like what DOS was like back then and how Windows and MAC OS were so graphical and WYSIWYG and SENSIBLE. I am quite addicted to see what I am doing on the screen being the "same" as what comes out of the printer. So there are two battles.. seemless file tranfers and working in the entrenched ACAD universe. Any ideas?

Thanks again for the info. I won the plotter on ebay for $670 which seemed like an excellent price... considering color D sized plots were costing $9 a sheet...I am awaiting its arrival. Once it arrives I will see how things work out and post my OWN experiences.

Tnanks. I have both Mac and PC so I can use either machine. I'll see what happens with each. I have ME on the PC running vw 8.52 and OS 9 on the MAC. What is the deal with the additional ram? Should I add more ram? What does it do?

VW is a very intuitive program for "drawing". Once you grasp the way it "thinks" and become familiar with the tools... you can really begin to be productive. When we draw with a pencil, we do it one line at a time.... VW is not like that... although you could do it that way. VW is more akin to drawing the way you "think". More than that I cannot say in a paragraph. I learned by doing, picked up a Janis Kent along the way, but 99% was just discovering the power in the program as I "needed" it having a foundation of skills to bulld upon.

Can anyone provide any positive or negative experiences with this plotter?

Rich.. I appreciate your position... and you are right that this may be a marketing issue and not a technical one. However, since this is the place where the VW people presumably receive feedback from their customers... I thought I would give it a try...

I believe NMA should test their releases with all the major market share plotters, both new and old, same with drivers... and indicate which ones are good to go and which one are not. If you can't plot your output, why bother to create it... to live in a hard drive in your computer? Offering a list of complete systems, and their specs is not a considerate thing to do.. but a necessary requirement for NMW. OK they are going to say that there are hundreds of combinations possible. I say rubbish... just provide the LARGE MARKET SHARE items... If people want to assemble systems with other components let them do it at their risk. Why cant we expect that from NMA?

I hear ya Katie... What I am looking for is more like a spread sheet with the features of each version on one chart. Bug fixes are a separate matter and also important... but I was looking for simply the chart of featues... thanks.

Is there a chart which concisely sets out the changes in the VW from one version to the next. Of course, a complete list of every feature in each version would be exhaustive... but to identify the KEY which features have been changed, dropped, added would be useful. These could include, tools, menus, library objects, shortcuts, printing, import/export.... etc. In the absence of such a chart, can some of our users describe all the differences from 7 to 8 to 9 and 10. What is coming in v11 in the way of new features of changes?

I find reading about plotter issues very troubling. As much as I want to upgrade and use new features... I am frightened off by what appears to be many unresolved issues.. such as plotting. I am still back in 8.52 working with few crashes... but they are mysterious when they occur. I will not upgrade until I know that the product really represents a productivity INCREASE. New features mean nothing when you loose countless hours fiddling around with crashing software and seeking tech support.

Obviously in VW8, this scale to fit is not a VW feature and for the printer drivers I have, not an option offered either on my PC machines... haven't checked the MAC recently. Therefore, I conclude that there is no was to minaturize a drawing reducing everything proportionately... including line weights arrowheads hatches etc... from WITHIN the software.

Can we get some sort of answer here??? I was on the phone with VW tech and the fellow was to junior to figure it out and was waiting for Katie to rule on this... Never got a call back.... Nothing here either. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!

This is another interesting issue for users. I work on both platforms. I believe that for users who do there should be some sort of pricing structure for upgrades which recognizes one who uses both platforms without making them pay full freight on BOTH. [ 06-17-2003, 07:53 AM: Message edited by: defjef ]

Since I am not a user of VW worksheets, having found them very crude from when they first appeared, I have always thought of a spreadsheet as Excel. It is a very powerful program for formatting cells, numbers, references to other worksheets or cells within the same sheet. You can hide cells and so on. I find it hard to believe that a VW worksheet will offer these types of features. Counting obejects on the drawing may be a very useful tool and should not be abandoned in favor of an excel external link. Now this mac vs pc thing is a major drag for many people despite the fact that most cross platform software DOES look and perform almost identically on either platform with minor exceptions. VW is one such program. This allows indiots such as myself to work on either environment with those software written for both. Even the OS with folders and mousing and so on now looks and works the almost the same. I hope in the future that a NEW OS emerges which replaces BOTH PC and MAC, takes the best of both and can deal with legacy issues. The the MAC vs PC debate will be over and all engineering development will be done in ONE environment. Hopefully EVERYONE will benefit from this. It is obvious which programs are "winners" Excel may be on of the best programs out there. I say if something is very good, why not find a way to "use" its power within VW. In the end it is all about creating and communicating useful DATA on a coordinated set of readable documents. Anything which aids in that effort should be applauded.

Can you define a custom print size.. which ONLY includes your DESIRED printed area... Move the new print window to your selection then print... I would think it would print no blank pages. [ 06-14-2003, 04:17 PM: Message edited by: defjef ]

CC, I dont believe you can make an argument about the costs of developing and marketing software... and comparing two or more competing products. First a lot of the "cost" of software has nothing to do with the cost of writing code and testing it. It includes marketing and overheads and so on. Secondly, why do you assume that a program like ACAD was more expensive to develop than VW which is much cheaper? And fianlly text formatting is not the only issue for wanting links to spread sheets and word... but it is a powerful one. It appears to me that the direction of development is toward 3D... making that a more powerful and easy to use feature. Since a drawing usually represents something which is meant to be a 3D experience it is only natural that this virtual reality so to speak be placed within our grasp... on our 2D screens and 2D output.

Richard, This forum is the place where users and VW "engineers" can dialog. Who knows how new features are selected for inclusion in upgrades. If I were participating in the decision, knowing how users are working, what features THEY want would be in the calculus of future upgrades. Ultimately if the product is not serving the users they will find other solutions. Not being a programmer I have no idea of the complexities or costs involve in including a dynamic link to another program such as Excel or Word. I do know that it WOULD be a useful feature for this user and I have no problem letting VW and other readers of this board how I feel. The decision to upgrade is a complex one. Are the new features useful, will we be more productive, more precise... Is it easy to learn and get up to speed. If an upgrade offers and array of tools and features which do not impact on the way I work in a positive way, there is no point in upgrading. I still use aol 5.0 because it serves my needs... email. I am still on vw 8.52 for the same reason. To me linked spreadsheets would defintely have me writing the check for an upgrade. It would pay for itself in no time. A spril tool for example, may be nifty, but it owuld be something I rarely use and alone would not be a reason to upgrade. Since I know of no formal survey of users for features, this forum is the best place I know of to communicate our desires for an improved product. Get it? [ 06-14-2003, 01:43 PM: Message edited by: defjef ]

Different users have evolved different styles of working in a VW environment based upon their familiarity with the software, their imagination and skill at getting it to do what they want and the nature of their work. 3D is little use to a production drawing operation, but it is a feature which is useful for presentation purposes. Flexibility is one of the strong points of VW. I personally have found Excel a very useful program in my work. I do not use the VW feature to calculate or perform "take offs" from the drawings. Our work does not call for this. We do often use several scehdules for each project.. which share "features". Our project setup typically involves "copy and paste" or linking of an Excel spread sheet containing several "worksheets" for such things as.. zoning analysis, drawing list, door, window, hardware, finish schedules, or even some typical notes. The spread sheets are edited. They can be issued as letter or ledger format and emailed as attachements to most clients and contractors etc. The ACAD users in our office use an xref type link when they want to include one of the worksheets or part of one on one of their drawings. I don't believe they have worksheets within their program which is as easy to use as the Excel or even VW worksheets. Their links are dynamic and updates the CAD file. Others who have no interest or skill in CAD can open, edit, print or convey the Excel spreadsheet.. such as a secretary who may get a request for a window scehedule. VW users typically copy and paste the worksheet or a selection of cells into the VW file. The paste is not editable, not dynamic but it allows the user to use the power of Excel and get the info onto a drawing sheet and also keep a file which other staff can access as discribed above. What is described above is perhaps a unique way our office works with the tools we have. It is by no means the best way. However, if there was a real dynamic link to an external spread sheet in VW this would be an "improvement". I can envision doing the same for lists of notes and word documents. Despite the excellent text handling of VW, it does not compare with MS Word for example. Also spec writers who are not CAD literate CAN contribute their work to the CAD file so that specs can be EASILY issued as separate book for specs as well as included in a drawing set. I like the idea of "linking" the power of individual software tools to make the output MORE robust by creating ONE file which "talks" to other "files". [ 06-14-2003, 09:01 AM: Message edited by: defjef ]

I found that MAC imports the spread sheet as lines and fill and text ... separate objects which can be manipulated in VW... IN PC it DOES ONLY come in as a bit map. It prints OK.. WHat VW needs to do is stop trying to IMPROVE their mickeymouse worksheet and give us a real DYNAMIC "external link" or reference to Excel spread sheets. ACAD has this feature. This would be a terrific feature.

Perhaps I am not being clear one what I am wanting to accomplish. Our output is normally D size or C size plots. If I am working on a drawing to fill a D size page... I will use say... a hatch for stone which looks correct at 1/4" scale... My arrowheads on leader lines are say 1/8" lomg when plotted at 1/4" scale on a D size plot. What I would like to do is be able to print this D size drawing on 11x17 or even in some cases 8 1/ 2x 11. If I use the Scale object command and scale entire drawing and scale text... I have to hunt around for the right percentage to get the D size into a letter size for example... OK this may not be hard to compute.... but after printing, you need to scale back by the receiprical amount and this is inconvenient. The idea of defining a D size drawing and then having the software reduce it in scale to fit onto a smaller page is what I am looking for and what I understood to be the "scale to fit" command. However, a small format printer does not have large format size to use as the "paper size" to shrink from so you cannot select D size. If you do select D size in Set Print Area dialog you get a tiled page. If you select ONE PAGE you can only print to the sizes available to the particular printer in the Page Set up Drop down. So can this SCALE to fit be accomplished as I want... essentially creating a minature print the way you would do if you did REDUCE on a photo copier. [ 06-11-2003, 08:32 AM: Message edited by: defjef ]

Tried the print to scale on VW 8.52...PC win ME. HP 930.. checked the little box in the print set up. The drawing was drawn to be a D size but I used 8 1/2 x 11 and checked scaled to fit... NOT 100%. The print window SHOWED an8 1/2 x 11 in the middle of a larger D size drawing.. and that's what came out of the printer. NO SCALING just an letter size section from the middle of the drawing... What gives???

Having the ability to "link" to an excel spread sheet, much the way ACAD does would AUGMENT the program for those who want a more powerful spreadsheet. For those that are content with the features of the VW worksheet, leave that feature in. Personally, I find the Excel spread sheets much easy to work with, more powerful, interms of formatting. What I do is copy and paste the spread sheets, which is a STATIC example of the spread sheet at the time of copy... If I update the spread sheet, I neet to copy and paste again to insert the current version of the spread sheet. This is a pain... and waste of time. An external refence / dynamic link would GREATLY enhance the way I use Excel in conjuction with VW. I dont think VW should necessarily make their worksheet more powerful, but I do think they should implement some sort of ex ref / dynamic link. That would be a real productivity feature.

I checked the PAGE SET up for our Network Richoh copier/printer at the office. We use it for all letter and tabloid formats. No scaling feature on the Page Setup in vw8.52 over there either. So tell me a small format printer which DOES support that PAGE SET UP feature.

Once again on this SCALE thing. Say I am working a layer with 1/4" scale and use a leader line. It is configured to the default size.. usually given as some dimension in inchines or whatever. I actually dont know what that means.. Does it mean that the arrow head at the 1/4" scale will measure.. for example 1/8"? OK Now I change the scale of that layer to 1/8"... Ooops the arrowheads are now very large in proportion to the rest of the drawing..they may actually be the same 1/8" but the rest of the drawing having been scaled down... the arrowheards are HUGE. The same thing happens for some symbols like drawing Name /Scale tags. WHat I typically do is work at the sscale a drawing will MOST often be plotted as and suffer thw weirdness of huge arrowheads Is there any way around THIS weirdness in 8.52? I am sorry for being stuck in 8.52... but I am waiting for a clean release which wont cause havoc in prductivity.