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Persevere with Horizontal Sections - they are not very actively promoted by VW, and I don't think a lot of people use them at this stage but as I understand it they will increasingly become the future of how VW works. Neither the "top/plan" nor horizontal section approaches produce ideal results - they each have their pros and cons depending on what your priorities are. By the way, in your OP, I think one of the problems with your stairs is caused by the arrow having a solid fill.

It's crazy that those stupid "ceiling main" and "sills" classes are still used by default. The names make not the slightest bit of sense for any current day user and I'm sure that pretty much everyone gets baffled by them at some point. Even if they don't mess up your drawing they probably sit there messing up your class list, because you're not quite sure whether it's safe to delete them.

Have you just got used to & accepted the two click route now?

I don't really like detached palettes but I could give Saved Views its own section in one of my sidebars I guess, separate from the rest of "Navigation". Not very efficient use of space though.

It's not really ideal because most of the time I have the Navigation palette showing "saved views", which I use all the time. Double clicking the classes or layers tabs means that I then have to switch it back to saved views.

So, am currently moving from 2023 to 2025 (skipping 2024) so am starting to use the "new" interface for the first time in real life. The main thing that's bothering me so far is: It's long been my habit, if i want to do stuff within layer or class settings, that I get to the relevant tab of the "organisation" dialogue with a single button press here or here: But now this seems to require two clicks - one on the button, then another on the top item in the dropdown menu that now appears. Maybe I'll just get used to it but this feels like it adds a lot of friction to a process that I used to do without even thinking about it. Especially with classes, I am quite frequently wanting to go in there and adjust things. Is there some other one-click method of getting to that dialogue that I'm missing?

I don't plan to try that other method in VW2025 - but I hope to continue using the one using the clip cube & flipped viewport, because it worked fairly well in VW2023.

By the "other method" do you mean the one where you flip a HSVP?

I haven't noticed that particular issue - however, to make my RCPs I haven't been using the method described in the post that you quote (because it's too much fuss having to set all the classes individually). Instead I have been using the slightly unofficial method suggested by @Matt Panzer in this post. For what it's worth, that method seems to have worked ok. So far I have successfully used it in working drawings for one project in VW2023. I've just started migrating to VW2025 and haven't really tested in that version yet.

Aha! Thanks. I didn't know they lived there.

Supposedly I have this installed via "partner products" but I see no way of actually using it. Is this something dead that needs to be removed from "partner products"?

When you go "into the layer via the viewport" do you mean via this dialogue? If so, do you have "display using Viewport Attributes" ticked or unticked?

Yup, VW's flexibility is one of it's greatest strengths, while many of its built-in tools are its greatest weaknesses. Giving us the ability to build our own parametric objects would exploit that strength and help bypass those weaknesses.

That's strange, if I open it in VW2025 (latest public release) I get the same as the OP even after updating the VP.

Well, something strange is going on there! Hidden line is not rendering those objects properly. It's as if they are inside out somehow. Is it something to do with "face normals" (if so, I don't know if anything can be done)? I wondered if it was to do with those solids being made from an enormous number of additions/subtractions. Sometimes converting to a generic solid sorts this out, but it doesn't seem to work in your case. If it were me I'd just rebuilt them. I don't think it's anything obvious that you are doing wrong.

You're more likely to get an answer if you post a file that we can look at.

By bridged layers I mean layers where there is insulation but it is interrupted by things like framing - typical example being a stud wall with insulation between the studs. In that case the U-value calculator needs to know the size & material of the studs, and the spacing between them, so as to give an overall value for that layer of the construction. Also (in theory at least) U-value calculations produced for building regs in the UK are supposed to be done according to a certain BS, which the ones from the manufacturers (and a few free online ones) at least claim to do. My guess is the VW calculation doesn't comply with that, although whether that really matters in practice I don't know.

I didn't know this was possible within VW. Does it deal properly with bridged layers and can it do condensation risk calculations too? Is it possible to post an example of the kind of output it gives?

Being able to do this would absolutely be useful. There are lots of situations where I just want something relatively simple but the built-in PIOs don't match my needs. For me, it would be great if it were possible in 3d too although I can see that this could become complex.

This is something I always have to remind myself about when I've not fiddled with window settings for a while. It's a truly horrible bit of UI design. "2d visualisation" lets you set classes for how it appears in top/plan but then confuses matters by showing you a "3d preview" suggesting that these settings will affect how it looks in 3d, or in elevational views. Then "3d visualisation" is named so as to suggest that here you can set something equivalent for 3d views, but you can't. And once you eventually find them, the 3d settings are in the section simply called "classes" but with nothing in there to confirm (other than trial and error) that these settings are relevant for 3d appearance.

I actually tried the same thing independently, but without any success!

I've had a look, and also don't understand why it's not working. (is today the day everyone confesses they don't really understand the data vis dialogue?)

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I do find that dialogue fundamentally confusing and it puts me off using Data Vis where I might otherwise use it. I tend to use class over-rides instead, when I can, because I feel like I have a much clearer understanding of what's happening.

So, my DVs are something like this (where X is the value in a record format field): - If X=10, hide object 1 - If X=20, hide object 2 - If X=30, hide object 3 .... - If X=1500, hide object 150 This is done by saying, (eg) under "Object Criteria" find all objects where X=10, then under "Display criteria" I choose Colors: All objects and then in the list below, I have one item that says set pen & fill to "none". 150 DVs in total, and I can apply 1 or more of them to any viewport. I was thinking that I could, instead, do something like: Under "Object Criteria" just choose everything(?), then under "Display Criteria" choose Colors: Objects using Record and then tell it to use the relevant record field and then have my 150 options in that list below ... but I now realise this wouldn't do what I want, because I can't then turn the various options on and off per viewport. I think. But I remain a bit confused about the two parts of that dialogue, the "Object Criteria" and "Display Criteria" because it sort of seems like the top bit filters certain objects and then the bottom bit filters that set again. But I don't think that's exactly what's happening. I suspect that part of the reason it's confusing is the same reason as usual in VW: the terminology is not helpful and it's leading us to think it's doing something different from what's actually happening. I'm not going to try and untangle it all just now though...

Yeah, it's become apparent that maybe I should have set it up more like that at the beginning. However, combining it all now would be more work than editing all the existing ones. It's done now, anyway, only took 45 minutes.