line-weight

Hm. Those screenshots I posted, they are from an imported version of the point cloud where I only imported a certain % of points (less than 50%, may even have been something like 10 or 20) because my computer couldn't cope with importing the whole thing. But I think that should only affect the density of points, not the double-layer thing.

I'm now examining the point cloud they have provided. There are quite a lot of parts where there appear to be two parallel-ish ground planes going on. Am I being paranoid in worrying that this means they have not aligned the results from the various scan points properly? Or is this quite normal and probably just representing areas with long grass or similar?

Agreed that it'll probably never be realistic to model everything in 3d - and I'm not arguing against the detailer being made available - but there is certain stuff, like telling the 2d detailer that a timber frame wall has studs every 450mm, that ought really to be something that we can tell the 3d wall object, and then gets shown in sections without further intervention being necessary.

Ah yes, I remember this as a potential solution now. Eg mentioned here https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/112393-issue-editing-text/#comment-507014

For the first time in a while, I've had a site surveyed by a 3rd party surveyor (most of my jobs are urban and on small plots so I very often just do any surveying myself). Previously my expectations for a site survey would be a DXF file, with various elements in different layers/classes. If I was lucky the classing would be useful/meaningful. The survey would also have spot heights over the entire site, at reasonable intervals. If I was lucky those would be in the form of 3d locii - otherwise 2d but with the elevations written next to them. Maybe it would even come with contours already extrapolated. For this survey, I just asked for a topographical survey with spot heights, and certain objects (tree trunks, boundary, building footprints) marked. It was clear that they would do a lidar type survey regardless and they told me they'd send me a point cloud, along with a PDF/DXF version of a conventional 2d plan. Because this has all changed a bit since I last had such a survey done... a couple of questions before I start querying/complaining about anything. 1. The DXF file has spot heights marked across the site but they are just 2d locii. This is usable - but I'd have to manually give each of them their proper elevation in order to make a site model from them. Given that a point cloud exists, is it unreasonable to expect that the spot heights they extract and give to me in this simplified DXF form should be 3d locii? In other words, is that something that would be normal to process from the point cloud raw data? 2. The blank areas (some are large-ish) I'm guessing are bits of ground that they didn't pick up in full detail, as a result of where they positioned their survey device. But it's a reasonable/normal expectation that they should pick up the full extent of the site, right? If they missed a bit, then they ought really to go back and collect it? 3. One of the things I asked for is the site boundary, which is mostly defined by fences. Some of those fences are somewhat buried in hedges. I haven't tried checking yet, but I have a feeling that the fence lines they have drawn on the DXF plan are based on looking at the point cloud data and saying, the fence is probably about here. There are not reassuring circle or square objects representing significant fence posts (generally, I'd expect these to be recorded at each change in fence line direction). When something significant (like a corner fence post) is hidden from a lidar sensor by foliage or other objects, they need to either add another sensor location, or get in there with a manual measurement relative to something that has been picked up - again, is that a reasonable expectation? 4. Likewise... the existence of a shrub or tree isn't an excuse not to record the ground level immediately below it, right? Obviously within reason - but traditional methods would often involve choosing survey points strategically, or moving some branches aside, in order to get a fix on the base of a significant tree trunk or similar, I would say. 5. For future surveys... do I need to be more specific about how much interpretation from the point cloud data is done by them, rather than me? In other words, is it a common expectation now that the survey company might simply provide the point cloud data, and it's up to me to turn that into a form that can, for example, be represented as a human-readable 2d site plan? Obviously, what I actually complain about will take into account exactly what was agreed, and the fee paid, and so on, but it would be useful to get a sense of what most people would expect nowadays. (I'm in the UK, if that makes any difference)

For me they are nearly always on a sheet layer - either directly on the sheet layer itself, or within the annotations space of a viewport.

I feel that this problem was discussed more recently on another thread - and a few people reported experiencing it - but can't now find it.

To produce "Zaha Hadid" designs you need an enormous budget to pay for all of the bespoke modelling. But even ZH buildings contain many mundane and repetitive elements that are best modelled parametrically. That includes stairs. I am sure you'll find that any ZH building contains a mixture of very bespoke stairs, and rather mundane ones used back of house and for fire exits, etc. The current VW stair tool doesn't really cope well even with those more mundane stairs, but it should do. That's what this thread is about. Anything that can't realistically be generated parametrically is off subject for this thread. It's not about "level of design" - it's about efficient drawing practices in the real world.

In the ideal world though, make this part of wall/roof/floor objects, so all the info is contained in the 3d object and appears in any section of that object. Adding stuff in 2d only, always feels like a workaround to me.

Yes this becomes very annoying behaviour once you are editing a lot of text annotations and so on.

No, I don't think this is possible unfortunately. If it is, I would like to know too! Because of this, I often make set up a few more pages than I think I need, at the beginning, so I have a few spare ones on the right if I later add some more. Alternatively, if you increase the number of pages, doing it in multiples of 2 will add the same at beginning & end and leave the original "first" page aligned with the print area, but then you need to print/export starting at the relevant page number which will no longer be page 1.

I started a thread about this problem back in 2018... https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/57328-problems-editing-text-blocks/#comment-286946

Yes you can. Just make use of this dialogue. It gives you quite a lot of control over what is and isn't saved in any saved view. For example in the screenshot below, it changes the layer visibility but nothing else. VW would barely be usable for me, without making a lot of use of this.

@Pat Stanford have you picked up that these are not really standard worksheets because they get repopulated by the title block manager? Also "title block issue data-1" refers to the most recent issue not the first issue...so the cell that has that as part of its formula has to be shifted to the left each time a new issue is added, if issues are to run left to right which in my experience is conventional.

Using the sample provided by @Nikolay Zhelyazkov, something like this (highlighted in blue):

So is it something that's worth submitting a VE for?

I've been rather slow in getting around to trying this ... but have done so just now. Thanks for the sample file. It does work, however the problem is that it doesn't keep in track when I update the worksheet using the TBmanager to add a new issue - because it has to know to shunt all the calculations one column to the right so that the count for "Issue-data-1" is always underneath the most recently added issue. I think the best I can do is have it somewhere off to the side, with formula =COUNT(((R IN ['Title Block Issue Data-1']))) and that will at least give me the sheet count for the most recent issue at any point in time.

Hm. Yes, I was using VW2023. I just tried opening it in VW2024 and got the same result as you. Which is disappointing as it looks like I won't be able to make use of this trick once I move on from VW2023!

The thing is, it works reliably (and intentionally) for wall objects. And it seems to work (accidentally?) for certain non-wall objects. Which somehow suggests to me that it's possible. Of course, I don't know anything about the technicalities behind it all.

Looking at the design layer in shaded view: 4 objects - top and bottom right are wall objects. Top left is a generic solid, bottom left is an extrude. Both of these are set to "merge with structural objects". Below you can see that the wall objects "merge" with each other as expected. And the top left generic solid merges with the adjacent wall object. But the bottom left extrude doesn't merge with anything. (vwx file attached too) merge.vwx

Would there be any good reason for it to *not* work in shaded view by design? To me, it would be incredibly useful if it reliably gave the same results in shaded as it does in hidden line.

Above I complain that the merging of "structural objects" works in section & in hidden line views but not shaded view. However; a recent (accidental) discovery: If the object that I want to "merge" with a wall object is an extrude, the "merge" doesn't work in shaded view. However, if I convert it to a solid (generic, addition, subtraction etc) then the merge does work in shaded view. Not sure if this means that the extrude failing to merge is in fact a bug?

The limitations of the notes manager are now at the top of my list of things that hold back the efficiency of the whole application, I think. This became very apparent during the recent production of a large-ish (for me) set of construction drawings. It's actually a bigger issue than things like the dysfunctional window/door tools, because I have (to some extent) workarounds for those. Other than doing all notes manually, there isn't really a way to get around all the things the notes manager can't do (or currently does badly). Other than, perhaps, moving all specification type annotation to data tags. It would be useful to have some pointers from VW, if that is the longer term direction of things.

I can see three (not including start and finish).

To me, the keyframe points in that animation are completely noticeable. The change in direction/speed simply is not smooth. It's impossible to avoid with this tool. And for me, the result is animations that just don't look very professional.