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MHBrown

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Posts posted by MHBrown

  1. After working with VW2013 for around a month I have come to the conclusion that is a bug-plagued piece of junk. I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed at how far this once great CAD program has fallen. It is simply a mess. Every day something new pops up. Today's bug-du-jour: when I go into annotation mode in a viewport to add dimensions the cursor will not snap to anything--except the invisible crop box. I can turn every snap on, but nothing happens. I've quit and reopened the application that was working fine on Friday, but has now become almost useless. I'm seriously considering moving back to VW12, even with its age-related bugs. Has anyone seen this particular one, not being able to snap in annotation view? Is there something simple I need to turn or or off? Very, very frustrated. Thanks for any help and sorry about the rant. I hope it is something simple that will make me look stupid so I can get back to work!

    MHBrown

    • Like 1
  2. ...add to my post above that you cannot snap to anything in the viewport when in Annotation mode. For example, I want to overlay a solid polygon on to my elevation to hide some joints and make it look smooth. I can't draw a polygon and snap it to the corners of the elevation. This is awful! I hope it's just my version and that I can simply restart or something. It doesn't seem to matter which "snap tos" I have active.

    MHBrown

  3. Geez Louise, is this yet another bug in VW2013? When I create a viewport I am unable to select it unless I locate the crop line. Then I can select it. As a rule, my crop lines are hidden, so this takes a little doing. In VW12 you could click anywhere inside the crop line and drag your viewports around. Is there a way to turn this back on? Is this just something with my installation? Doesn't anyone test this stuff before release? I'm sure glad Nemetschek doesn't build airplanes.

    Thanks for any advice.

    MHBrown

    VW2013 (beta?)

    OS10.8.3

  4. Thanks for the help. I'm sure these changes aim toward giving it a more 3D feel than in previous versions. I remember one of the very few things I liked about FormZ was that you could draw in a 3D view. VW tried to implement this with the 3D tool that allowed you to change the working plane by clicking on three points on a 3D polygon. Of course it never worked and VW users got used to spinning things around temporarily to draw in one of the orthographic views (at least I did.) That may have been cumbersome, but it worked. I've gotten used to working in 2D views and I'll probably keep working that way for the time being. At some point I'll try to figure it out, but right now I have a deadline.

  5. Thanks, Monadnoc, I've been using MiniCAD/VW for almost 18 years, so I should know what you are talking about, but I don't. I'll definitely look into it since being able to edit objects is so important. The fact that I have to add this previously unnecessary step is more than a little annoying. There was no need to complicate the editing of extrudes. There is no need to complicate the editing of anything, but that belongs in a letter to VW, not this board, of course. Thanks for the help!

  6. It was very simple in VW12, as I assume you all remember. I really wish VW would fix things that don't work and not break things that do work before adding "features" like the blue protractor that appears with the Rotate tool. Who needs that? How long did it take a programmer to create this obnoxious little do-nothing icon? I like VectorWorks a lot, but I'm very disappointed in its present state. I expected so much more in the six years since I had last upgraded. Anyway, thanks for letting me know that I'm not crazy!

    MHBrown

  7. I have an extruded polyline that I'd like to chop down. In previous versions of VW I'd just double click on the extruded piece and I'd get the original shape that was extruded. This is no longer the case in VW2013. For some odd reason when I double-click an extrude I get what appears to be a NURBS surface. Although it is described as a "polygon," "polyline," or some other 2D object, it is not since I have to maneuver to see it (it often appears on edge at first.) This is not a big deal, except that I like to draw guide lines on the object so I know how far to cut it. For example, if I want to cut 2" off the bottom I'll draw a line, align it to the bottom of the shape, move the line 2" upward and select "clip object." In VW2013, however, when I try to draw a line I can't. It lets me do all the steps required to draw a line, but when I let go of the mouse the line vanishes. This is pretty unsettling. Making it into a NURBS shape is one step backwards and making it un-editable is two. The fact that the 3D editing tool does not work makes it even more maddening. Has anyone else seen this behavior or is it a bug with my system alone? Am I the only person who tries to draw lines inside an "edit extrusion" window? Thanks again for any help.

    MHBrown

    VW2013

    OS10.8.3

  8. I tried changing workspaces and the Command-6 worked. It seems like there is something about being in that particular edit group window that disables it. I think it is actually zooming out to the entire model for some reason. For example, let's say I am editing a lamp on a table in a farmhouse on a 60 acre farm. If I go "edit group" to isolate the lamp by itself, hitting Command-6 would zoom out to the entire farm site, not just the lamp. That's how it's acting, anyway. Thanks for the help. For now I'll just ignore it.

  9. In fact, it doesn't zoom to anything. Even if I deselect everything and hit Command-6 (in which case it should zoom out to show all editable objects) it shows nothing. I should add that I'm in group-edit mode where everything else is hidden. There is also this annoying pick box that flashes when I cross some invisible border that might indicate the boundary of the entire model, but it is hard to say. It is easy to say, however, that it is totally useless, obnoxious and I would deep-six it in a second if I could figure out a way to turn the darn thing off (as I have done with similar superfluous visual noise makers as I find them, but I digress.) Has anyone else experienced this behavior, namely a broken Command-6 zoom? Is it actually zooming to the hidden objects since I'm in group-edit mode? That would be an absurd, but not unprecedented, error in software logic (see Adobe Illustrator). Any help is greatly appreciated! I use this command often.

    MHBrown

    VW 2013

    OS 10.8.3

  10. I created a section viewpoint and the resulting drawing has a drawing title and the scale included. When I go to the OIP to change the name from the default there is a field for this. I put in the new name...and nothing happens. The words "Drawing Title" do not budge. My new name is in the OIP, but not on the drawing. No amount of updating makes it "take." Can anyone help me out here? Is there a way to simply delete this note? Thanks to anyone who can help.

    MHBrown

    VW2013

  11. Thanks, Kevin, but that's how has worked as far back as VW 8. This new 2013 tool says that the actual 3D model can be manipulated (like in FormZ), but it does not work as it should. I'm hoping someone knows how it does work, if at all. If it is a dead tool then I'll remove it from my workspace and continue to edit extrusions as you mentioned.

  12. I have an extruded polygon that I need to change the shape of. I'm in a view perpendicular to the object so that it appears as the 2D version of the extrusion. Using the Reshape Tool (which is for 2D and 3D according to the description) I click on a vertex and drag it to the new location. Nothing happens. Pretty disappointing. I am using the tool as I use all the other similar tools. Can anyone help me out on this? Thanks,

    MBrown

    VW2013

  13. ...and put the Foreground to "none." That is the important step. Basically remove the double-render option. I find this pretty non-intuitive. I'd think that the foreground would be the primary render. A much better way to do it would to not have it split at all with labels like "foreground" and "background," that are utterly misused here. Those words refer to objects in a three-dimensional space where the foreground objects are nearer to you and partially obscure the background objects. VW should have simply called it "Render one" and "Render two" or "Main render" and "Overlay render." That would make sense. This reminds me of poor translations from other languages where the subtlety is totally lost...along with the meaning. Thanks for the tip, however, it worked like a charm.

  14. In VW12.5 if I cropped a viewport the circle or box would be visible when I returned to my sheet layer. For example, if I made a crop with a 1mm thick line rectangle that is what I would see in my sheet layer: a 1mm thick lined rectangle with my cropped image inside. In VW2013, when I do this the crop shape disappears. Sometimes I want this; sometimes I don't, but regardless I want to make the decision. If I didn't want the stroke to appear I simply made the line thickness zero. Pretty simple. What do I do now? Is there some preference that was added that I'm missing? Thanks,

    Mike B

  15. In VW 12.5 I often did hidden line renderings with one of the sketch modes to make the image look less "real." In VW 2013 this apparently has been changed to have a background and foreground rendering, supposedly to mimic having two VPs stacked on each other. This is not really something I'd spend my time on as a VW programmer, but it seems harmless?except that it doesn't work. If I do a background render as hidden line and the foreground render as "sketch" and all I get is a wireframe sketch image. This is quite a step backward from VW12.5 in which this often used technique was very simple. The only way I can think to do it with "updated" VW2013 is to, you guessed it, stack two VPs on top of each other, That doesn't work, either. Can anyone help me out as to what I'm doing wrong or if this is just another lost feature?

  16. OK, so I place a Renderworks camera in my model as I've done countless times before in previous VW versions. I move it around until it is roughly in position. I double-click it to see the view. Nothing. I click on "Display Camera View" in the OIP. Nothing. My top/plan view goes to top view each time for no good reason. Sigh. I'm really finding this version of VW to be a huge disappointment...and a waste of money. So many things not fixed and so many things either gone, broken, spread apart or changed for no apparent reason. Can anyone help me out in what must be a "new and improved" way of using the Renderworks camera? Apparently more clicks in more places equals "improvement' in NNA's view. Thanks in advance.

    Mike Brown

  17. I know I must be missing something. I am trying to place texture maps on a wooden bench I modeled. As is often the case, I place my textures on each part and then go to the texture mapping adjustment window to rotate it, move it, resize it, etc. Much to my amazement, the "Edit mapping" (NOT edit "map") is missing and I cannot find it. I find it hard to believe that the rendering tools, which were not so great to start with, would have actually gotten worse between VW12 and 2013. Did they really dispose of the map adjustment tool? If so, then I will simply dump the entire Renderworks package as useless baggage taking up hard drive space. There are a couple of minor mapping tools on the OIP, but those are not nearly enough for what I need, actually an insult for what is supposed to be a professional CAD program. I was really hoping that with the purchase of C4D, that VW's rendering power would improve. If the mapping tool is truly gone then count me as bitterly, bitterly disappointed. I may actually go back to VW12.5 even though it barely runs under OS 10.8. Can anyone help me find this tool? It has to be somewhere.

    Thank you in advance.

    Mike Brown

    iMac 27"

    OS 10.8.3

  18. Pat, I think you misunderstand me. Yes, the "Custom Visibility" command is a menu item. The routines created using this command, however, are definitely scripts. It even gives you a "create script" or "execute now" option. When I select "create script" it allows me to name it and pick which palette to place it on or to create a new palette. When I select an existing palette, nothing happens. The script is gone forever. If I select "new palette" it allows me to do so and the new script I created is placed there. One script per palette, however, is not an option. I have a big screen, but not that big. It is clearly a bug and I'll pass that along to the bug list.

    Thanks!

    Mike Brown

  19. But it DID go on a scripts palette. I have a floating palette named "Hide Text" and it has a single script on it named "script-1." It works great; I click it and all my text vanishes. I have no easy way to turn them back "on," however. I need to add another called "Show Text" so I can bring the text back. If it is a menu command, too, that's fine. I can use it from there...as long as I can place a "Show Text" command right under it. Thanks for everyone's help on this. Slowly, but surely, I'm getting the hang of it.

    Mike Brown

  20. I found it in Custom Visibility in the "legacy" tools menu. Very odd choice to scuttle such a useful tool. When I ask to place the new script into an existing palette, however, it doesn't go. In fact, I can't create a script from the Tools menu, name it, and have it visible on the scripts palette of my choice. Is this happening to anyone else? The only way I can save a script is to create a new floating palette, which I don't want to do.

    Thanks,

    Mike

    VW 2013 service pack 3

    iMac 27"

    OS 10.8.3

  21. I seem to remember in VectorWorks 12 a command called "custom visibility" where you could create a script using various criteria and then make all objects so defined be temporarily turned "off." For example, I'd like to make all the text on my drawing invisible. I know I could do this with Classes, but that is not my question. My question is whether or not the "custom visibility" menu command is still available or if it has been removed (or if I was just imagining things!)

    Thanks in advance.

    Mike

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