line-weight

^ yes, that's the kind of thing I get (from top/plan views too), either with convert to polygons or convert to lines. All those ghost lines and the more complicated the geometry the more of them there are.

Yes, that's an alternative approach and the one I'd prefer generally I think, because it is more non-destructive, ie. makes later edits less work. But there are some situations where I'd like just to convert that viewport into a load of lines. I thought it would be a straightforward thing to do.

Say I've got a viewport, with a top/plan view floorplan in it, generated partly or completely from a 3D model, but it's not quite how I want it. There are some lines that I want to remove or add, say. Is there a way of just making that viewport into a bunch of 2D line geometry that looks exactly the same? So linetypes stay the same, etc? If I do "convert to lines" I get a load of extra geometry I don't want - dotted lines marking out the triangular facets of the 3d objects. These aren't there in the viewport. Is there a way of preventing this?

Heliodon as document setting makes sense to me too. It's counterintuitive to have it as an object which you have to place in the drawing. Given that it doesn't make any difference where you place it, it's weird to have to place it "somewhere".

Ok, thanks for the clarification. Hopefully it's something that can be fixed soon because it seems a fairly fundamental limitation. Meanwhile the issue of not being able to map components (walls or floors) at least has a kind of workaround (textures assigned by object instead) but is quite annoying because it breaks the tidiness of assigning texture by class (ie using "material" classes).

Good. Is it correct that mapping can't be adjusted on slab objects though - even "by object" rather than by component?

That would be good. I now use it as my primary editing mode whilst working in 3D. (that Sketchup was built around this way of working is one of the reasons it was so successful, I think)

It does seem a bit that way. Walls and floors - two of the most fundamental elements in any building, and two elements which frequently have repeating-pattern materials. Yet the BIM objects VW provides don't allow us to map textures to them properly. *sigh*

Seems to confirm what I said above - the mapping on walls can be controlled if textures are applied by object, but not if they are applied by component.

I've had a go with a wall object. I can adjust the mapping if I set the texture "by object", either using the attribute mapping tool or the controls in the OIP. But if I set the texture "by component", I can't seem to adjust the mapping at all. Can you give any more detail how you managed this?

Good point.

Yes, sounds like what I want to do would require duplicated objects turned on/off according to render type. I guess OpenGL is mainly intended as a mode for fast editing/viewing in 3D (for which it works very well). A shame there isn't just a little bit more control to make it more useful as a mode for initial presentation images (and live walkarounds) without duplicating work.

+1 for this. It would be useful to be able to save views of different parts of a building with the heliodon settings adjusted for each to give desired results for renderings, instead of having to change the heliodon settings manually each time you switch between views.

I too am struggling with this. Is it impossible to control the mapping of a texture on a "slab" object? If I look in the Render Pane of the OIP I don't see where there's an option to rotate or otherwise control the mapping (see attached screenshot). It doesn't seem to matter whether I set the texture by object or by component.

What I want is (for example): 1) In OpenGL rendering, the object has an image mapped onto it. 2) In Renderworks, the objects's surface texture is made from a solid colour in the "colour" shader plus an image in the "bump" shader.

Is it impossible to control a texture appearance in OpenGL independently of its appearance in a Renderworks rendering? As far as I understand, the surface appearance of an object in OpenGL is determined by whatever is chosen under the "colour" shader in the texture settings. So, if a solid colour is chosen, then it's that colour in OpenGL. If an image is chosen, then that image is tiled onto it in OpenGL. It seems that this means I can't adjust how something looks in OpenGL without also changing its appearance in RW. For example, say I set up the texture with a solid colour shader, but then use image files in the bump/reflectivity shaders to give it a repeated-pattern appearance in RW: I can't also set it up with a repeated-pattern appearance in OpenGL because OpenGL pulls its appearance from the colour shader, which is set as a solid colour. Is that correct?

I'm a mac user and it's '=' key for mirror for me too. Agreed that "lock horizon" is good (essential even). I used to use Flyover mode 90% of the time but now I'm using the 3Dconnexion, I use walkthrough mode nearly all the time.

Good news!

For the past few weeks I've been using a 3dconnexion "spacepilot" - it's not really fully supported any more so it's really just the knob bit that works, not any of the shortcut buttons (except for one that switched between flyover/walkthrough in a not entirely convenient way). Even with those limitations, I've found it makes a huge difference to the ease and speed with which I can work in 3d, quite transformative in fact, in the way I can use VW. I'd really recommend to anyone else who wants to work more effectively in 3D. And I hope VW and 3dconnexion can soon find a way to let us use these things with their full functionality.

Does that mean you can set the buttons to shortcuts within Vectorworks? Or only the apps that are fully supported (Sketchup, Maya, etc?

There's doesn't need to be a conflict between "clear" and "simple" drawings. My issues are not to do with being prevented by the VW system from doing elaborate drawings. I am prevented from doing somple, clear drawings, without my intervention. It's as simple as the matter of where a section line should and shouldn't be shown. I'm less troubled by the fact that maybe multi-component walls might not join completely correctly than the fact that when I try and produce a straightforward GA drawing with no wall components shown, there are lines in lots of places they shouldn't be, which make the drawings confusing. Likewise, basic stuff like the fact that a vertical section through a staircase created from the stair tool is a mess, again reducing the clarity of the drawing. Regarding Palladio - those days, they were dealing with hugely less technically complicated building technology than we do now.

I think you might be right to an extent. There might be an argument for changing some conventions. But in the main the issues are to do with legibility. For example, if VW gives me a floorplan with a thick "cutting plane" line at a location where two objects abut each other, but it doesn't merge them, that is not a drawing convention issue. That's simply a line that shouldn't be there, because it has nothing to do with how the real building will be constructed. But as regards the issue of 2D drafting slowing us down - yes. I've seen it suggested here in another thread that maybe we'll eventually largely do away with 2D drawings altogether. We won't give the builder a pile of sheets of paper but a properly constructed 3d model from which they can extract all the information they need. I think I'd welcome that, to be honest. It would probably result in better design.

Ok, but I think it should be feasible for a computer (given good enough 3d information, and programmed well enough) to produce decent 2D drawings. Thus doing what someone with a pencil could do in a day in, say, 10 seconds. There's still a role for a human, of course, to decide where to add annotations, or pull out certain sections in more detail and so on. That would be much more difficult to automate. If you mean that aspect of the job as one where complexity would mushroom, then yes I agree with you. Personally I'd like to focus my time on doing the design bit of the job, and also the bit where I decide what information is to be presented and how. And not spend the hours doing what is essentially just geometric projection - a skill, but quite a tedious one really. Ideally the computer takes that workload from me - I build in 3d; it produces the correct 2D geometry and then I organise that into a format good for whatever purpose is needed. I think VW kind of pretends it can do that (if you watch the promo videos and go through the tutorials), but the reality at the moment is that it can't (expect in certain limited circumstances), without significant manual intervention. That said, it's a lot better than it used to be, to the extent where I think it's just about worth starting to rearrange my workflow in the hope that things will continue to improve in that direction.

Can you give an example of what you mean? If you mean by "2D drafter" what you can generate in top/plan view using, using, say, the window and wall tools I don't find it very intelligent or flexible at all. It struggles to cope with things like two windows above one another in the same story, for example, and as far as I know I don't have any control over what height walls are cut at. If you mean by "2D drafter", a human drawing it manually, then the top/plan view approach has no advantage over a horizontal section cut because in either case, some manual intervention is required.

I'm on VW2012 so I can't comment specifically on how auto hybrid's work. Revit controls views via a View Range. You can select the height of the cutting plane and the top and bottom height limits of the view. If I remember correctly (last time I used Revit was 2010, other than the demo I have) objects within the view i.e. furniture can be excluded from the section, shown in section at the specified cutting plane, or shown in a top view. Revit View Range We need something like that, basically.