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MHBrown

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Posts posted by MHBrown

  1. Can anyone explain exactly how to get this perpetual license? I was only able to download a Trial perpetual license--which I think anyone can do. This is very confusing and the EPIC website where I assume one should download it sort of leaves you hanging. Has anyone actually succeeded in this and, if so, could you please give step-by-step as to what you did?

    Huge thanks for any advise on this.

    MHBrown

    2019 MB Pro 16", i9 Intel, 32GB RAM, 8GB GPU, OS Catalina

  2. Hi All,

    I'm using VW2021 with the latest service pack on a MacBook Pro 16" i9, 32GB RAM, 8GB GPU. When I import PDFs (which are actually referenced files) they import fine, but will disappear from the screen unless I am scrolling. They are usually no more than 10MB in size, but the size doesn't seem to matter. All PDFs, small and large, exhibit this problem. I'm using a Dell monitor and a VGI adaptor, but nothing else seems to give me this problem. Consequently, I feel it must be a VW issue working with the graphics card (Radeon Pro 5500). Has anyone else seen this? Is it fixed with VW2022? Thanks for any advice.

    MH Brown

  3. In VW 2021 on MacOS, I use the Organization tool to set the scale of a Design Layer to 1:1. When I import a TIFF file that is around 7' wide it comes in around 56 feet wide (around 8x). Is Vectorworks looking at pixel width or something like that? I know it's not Illustrator or InDesign, but sometimes I need to bring graphic files as image files.

    Thanks!

    MH Brown

  4. Whether I'm in the design layer or a viewport, when I click "Create Horizontal Section Viewport" nothing happens. I don't get an opportunity to place section lines in the elevation view I'm looking at (in a design layer). Vectorworks just takes me to the sheet layer where the section should be. I'm working it exactly the same way as I create vertical section views, but, as I say, it does not work for horizontals. Can anyone who has successfully created horizontal sections help me out? It's really strange because horizontal sections are just as necessary as vertical ones. I'm puzzled as to why it is so difficult. I'm on a 16" MacBook Pro running the latest version of VW2021. Thanks for any help.

    MHBrown

  5. Unbelievable. I just assumed it was me. Thank you for filling me in. I'll upvote it, but this seems like the first thing that would be required to design in 3D. I hope VW is listening. This is the type of thing that would make me not upgrade to a newer version until it was fixed (such an egregious omission is, in my view, a "bug"). Thank you, I suppose I'll stop looking for it. Now that VW is no longer a "Best Buy" bargain (but now pretty expensive) I might look at AutoCAD for Mac again. I tested it for a month and it's really not a bad piece of software once you get the hang of it. I believe it costs less than VW, too.

    Best regards,

    Mike

  6. In using VW2021, I can't see how to restrict movement to one of the three isometric directions when looking at the object in 3D. For example, I'm looking at a lamp that I want to move down a little bit (Z), back a little bit (Y) while looking at it in isometric 3D view. I don't need to enter any precise numbers; I just want to drag it. I remember in AutoCAD, I had three arrows to grab and drag. Is there any such thing in VW? I'm assuming that I need to hold some key combination, but I can't seem to find how do this.

    Thanks for any advice.

    Mike

    Mac Book Pro 16"

    VW 2021

  7. Thank you, klinzey. I'll check that the textures have shadows turned "on." To respond to P Retondo's puzzlement about why shadow casting can be texture dependent. If—and this is a big "if"—it works as it does in Strata3D then there is a good reason for textures to not cast shadows. I often use Strata for rendering. One of the nice things is that in Strata if you make a texture not cast shadows, then light will travel right through solid objects. This is very helpful when rendering interiors because you can leave the ceiling in place and just make its texture "shadowless." You can then place the lights above the ceiling and not worry about turning the visibility of the ceiling on and off or cramming all your lights below the ceiling. If VW does not work this way then, yes, having shadows controlled by textures seems puzzling to me, too. Sometimes you can have TOO many ways to do something. Thanks again for the help!

    Mike

  8. I created a hanging light as a symbol and placed a spot light in as well so that it would illuminate my scene. When placed in a scene, however, it does not illuminate anything. Is it not possible to put lights into symbols and have them work? That's not all. In general, my lights have lost the ability to cast shadows of any time when using the Renderworks Styles settings (interior-Final, in this case). Again, there are lots of lights and not one shadow. I did a small test file with a chair, a wall, a floor and a single spot light. I got shadows in OpenGL and Final Renderworks, but nothing in the Renderworks Styles - Interior. This is is VW2020 SP5 on macOS Catalina. Any ideas?

    thanks,

    Mike

  9. I use 3D symbols to gain some of the functionality that ACAD's dynamic blocks bring. I create a 3D symbol and put it on its own layer (I suppose like a WBLOCK page?) and pull viewports off of it for my sheets. Once in place, the same viewport can have the view changed from top, front, sides, orthographic, etc. I think it can also be flipped. You can't stretch it, but that's kind of a 2D thing and drafting in 2D is totally for the birds anyway (that means "crazy" for non-North Americans). That said, I think the door symbol does allow you lots of variation in size, transoms, sidelights, etc. So I'm not sure what the problem is there. Anyway, just my two-cents on how to create the same functionality, but not with a VW symbol as a self-contained entity, but as a contextual one, meaning it gains functionality in where you place it and how you reference it.

    Thanks,

    Mike

  10. As a follow up, I managed to turn off the "Application Window," so now I can see other application files on my desktop while VW is open, but no VW files are open. I then noticed that even without the Application Window that the VW files still opened in tabs, verifying (to me) that the Application Window served no purpose. Then I realized that the user cannot select the tabbed files. Let's say, for example, I open File A, then File B and File C. They all go into neat tabs (as in Illustrator, or any other Adobe product). Only File A, however, can be worked on. The user can click on Files B or C, but the file only remains active while the mouse button is being held down. Upon releasing the mouse button, File A reverts to being the active file. The user has to close File A to work on either File B or C. Even then, only B or C can be worked on, not both. The user cannot switch between the tabbed files. With the Application Window, however, it works perfectly. I'm thinking that the Application Window might have been invented to fix the tabbed file bug. I this true? Does is do something else I'm not seeing? No other application I know of that allows tabbed files has anything analogous to the Application Window, which for me does nothing but get in the way when VW is open and I want to work in another application. Does anyone else see this or is this unique to my install of VW?

     

    By the way, Pat, closing the last open file does not quit/close the application. You must be thinking of another OS, but on the MacOS this is not the case. I have Vectorworks and Illustrator open right now with no active files. It has been this way with Macs, I think, since OS System8.

    Thanks,

    Mike

  11. Mark, thank you , but the reason I want to convert the text to polylines is not material to my question. Pat, I think you may be right, but I'll have to experiment. It had never been a problem in the previous 20 years, so I was curious as to why it suddenly was an issue. There are so many problems with edit windows with this version I may have assumed this was another one without thinking through it. Thanks for your advice.

    Mike

  12. Text. Text does not work when editing a 3D symbol. I want to add some dimensional text to a 3D symbol. In previous versions, I would double-click to edit, look at front elevation view, type my text, convert to poly lines, extrude, and place in position. Now when I try this the curser moves as if I'm typing text, but nothing appears. Add this to the list of things that do not work in editing windows.

    Thanks,

    Mike

    VW 2020 SP4

    MBP 16", Catalina 10.15.6

    32GB RAM

  13. Hi, Jeremy,

    The 3D fillet tool fails all the time on all sorts of curved shapes, so it is not specific to this shape. I've tried applying smaller and smaller fillets until one works, but that is not a solution since it is not the fillet I want. It seems to be a problem with how the tool is coded.

    Thanks,

    Mike

    • Like 3
  14. I'm using the latest version of Vectorworks Architect 2020 on a 16" MacBook Pro, OS Catalina. I do a lot of furniture models and like to use interpolated NURBS surfaces to create cushions. What I like to do is extrude the shape I need and extract one of the surfaces as a NURBS surface; then I use the Interpolated Surface tool to manipulate it. The problem is this: if the extracted surface is not a rectangle I get a message saying I must use an "untrimmed" surface. Well, it IS untrimmed. It's not trimmed at all, it's just not rectangular. There is a button in the OIP with the word "untrim," which I can click. That converts whatever shape I have into a rectangle. Strange. Why would I want to do that? If I wanted a rectangle I would have created one. I discovered, however, that the Interpolation seems to only work on rectangle-shaped NURBS surfaces. It doesn't work on anything else. Is this true? Is there something I am missing? It seems so limiting that I must be doing something wrong.

    Thanks for any advice.

    Mike

  15. I'm using VW 2020 SP3.1 on MacBook Pro 16", Catalina OS

    The 3D fillet tools seems to be failing far more often than it used to. Attached is a typical example, in this case an extruded polyline. Even a fillet as small as 1/8" will not work. It is a very efficient polyline with very few vertices. I've even converted it to a generic solid with no luck. These are objects that used to fillet (if that's a verb) just fine; suddenly, with this version, they have only worked about a third of the time. Any ideas?

    Thanks,

    MHBrown

    Screen Shot 2020-07-02 at 8.38.56 AM.png

    • Like 2
  16. This is hard to describe, so I attached a screenshot. But I'll give it a try. When I open a file in VW2020 SP3.1 it puts itself into a tab. Each subsequent file I open is placed in a tab. This makes it easy to switch between files, so is generally pretty handy for me. If, however, I click the little gray "X"  to close all the files I'm left with the giant gray rectangle shown in the screenshot. There is no red dot in the upper left corner to close it; I can only either minimize it or fit it to my screen. Why would I need to minimize this box of nothing? Even worse, why would I want to have it fill my screen, hiding everything on my screen with a gray rectangle. In short, this is a pointless--and pretty obnoxious--impediment to getting work done. It must go. I've tried to find a preference like "Hide Useless Objects," but have found none. How do I rid myself of this meddlesome box? What Einstein at VW thought this was a splendid idea? Am I the only one who finds this annoying? Thanks for any advice.

    MHBrown

    Screen Shot 2020-06-03 at 8.57.12 AM.png

  17. There is still a huge bug that persists from at least VW2018. That is when you go into a 3D symbol to edit, you cannot draw a 2D object in any view but top plan. It is outrageous that his still exists and makes it nearly impossible to edit symbols. This along with the long-standing bug of having 3D symbols take on the orientation of the symbol instance that was clicked on makes symbol updates exceedingly laborious. These have been known bugs for a while. Please let me know where I need to post them...again... to get some action.

    Thanks,

    MHBrown

  18. Thanks for your help, Kevin. What is VSS? Some sort of secret society? I've paid in advance for a year for my VW subscription and I got the desktop app. I am signed in to Vectorworks Cloud Services which, call me crazy, makes me think that I can use the Vectorworks Cloud Service that pops up on my rendering choices. Just how many additional hoops do I need to jump through? Is Vectorworks Cloud Services the same thing as VSS? It seems a little more complicated than it needs to be.

     

    I like the idea of having the rendering take place off site. When I look at the Help menu it doesn't say anything about having to sign up for more. I don't know how large the rendering is because I have not rendered it yet, but is is only 300 frames (10 seconds).

    Thanks again for you help!

    Mike

  19. This has happened to me many times and I think I figured out a work-around. For me, this seemed to happen with files that were created in VW2018 and opened in VW2020. I completely scrapped files created in a previous version and re-created them with "untitled" VW2020 files. So far, these "pure" files have not been losing their handles...not much anyway. I'm very carful not to copy and paste anything into them that came from another file. That's hard to do after working with MiniCAD/VW for nearly 25 years.

     

    This is a serious problem because I'd venture to say that every user--as in 100%--who is not coming new to VW will always be opening files created in a previous version. I have not been able to isolate what exactly it is that is incompatible between the versions. That will be impossible to determine unless you are digging into the code, I suspect. But it's worth a try.

     

    Thanks

    Mike

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