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There's a thread here collecting together many issues with door & window objects: https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/64381-window-and-door-tool-maturity/

You've reminded me to update the "no new features" thread title to the 2027 edition. Not long until it can celebrate its 10th birthday.

By this logic, I don't "need" the stair tool. 75% of the time I end up drawing stairs manually because the stair tool can't do what I want it to. So it's not "required" but if we had a stair tool that did what I want it to, then I'd use it and I'd save time doing so. There are a bunch of tools that if they worked properly could potentially save me lots of time - really lots of time, at least tens of hours a year - and time is money. One person's Shiny Object might be another's Huge Time Saver. As I see it the problem is more about New Things being introduced while last year's New Things still don't work properly and so we end up with a load of Potentially Really Useful But They Still Don't Work Properly Things.

Although... I'd say that's true for VW as well to some extent, but of course for an existing user that investment has already been made.

Another way... - Place the 3d symbol (from the VW libraries or wherever) into a drawing - Right-click the symbol and choose "edit 2d components" - In the component edit dialogue that appears, choose (for example) "left" - This will show you the "left" 2d component which will most likely be empty - right-click in the drawing area* and choose "generate 2d from 3d component" and choose hidden line, and it'll create the 2d view for you as a group which you can then copy & paste. *is there some other, more intuitive way to get to this command? Right clicking in a blank drawing area is hardly easily discoverable.

Thanks for all these, interesting to look at. What I'd be really interested to see would be a video showing what a proper set of 2d architectural construction drawings looks like in Rhino. That's one of the strengths of VW of course. Probably rhino is a nicer environment to actually do 3d modelling but what about the nuts & bolts of putting a proper set of 2d drawings together, and then managing them. For example in one of those videos I watched them show how to add a title & scale to a viewport... manually, by typing out the scale as a text block. Does this mean there's not the equivalent of VW's drawing label object (and all the associated drawing coordination tied to it)?

My understanding is that a vss renewal in October 2024 runs for a year and therefore entitles you to a VW2026 perpetual licence when it's released in september 2025. I think what you're saying is that if you're switching to the subscription model then you might as well wait until september 2026 and start it running from then. However... I think that if you're on vss then the offer to "switch" gets you onto the subscription track at a reduced cost compared to the list price (because it's being offered at "only" 8% increase or whatever). I am assuming that if you simply let the VSS lapse and then enter into the subscription arrangement at some later date of your choosing, you sacrifice that discount on the list price. I'd quite like to have that clarified though. It's all complicated somewhat by the uncertainty about whether the list price is the "real" price that you get offered if you make enquiries and are presented with some set of complicated discounts. And if you do, what will they be and will they change. This I have to say I find rather irritating. It seems like there's a constant obfuscation of the real price, presumably to make transparent comparisons with the competition difficult. It's not only VW that does this of course.

I've tried it in 2025 and 2026. The colour scale settings except for "original" work fine, because they colour according to elevation. What doesn't work is displaying the points with their original image colours so that different surfaces and materials are visible. They are all just shown as black.

If any .e57 file *should* import fine with colour info then I am wondering if I should report this as a bug. There is no real way for me to know if the problem is to do with how it was exported. But the fact that it opens fine in the CloudCompare software suggests that the problem might be with VW.

It would be useful if the VW Help documentation gave some guidance on what the best format is, for importing into VW. I'd then request specifically that format from surveyors.

Some clues may be in this post, from someone having the same problem in Rhino: https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/e57-point-cloud-loaded-in-rhino-loses-colors/85387 I've tried doing what is suggested there, altering in Cloud Compare. Only with partial success (I manage to get a kind of grayscale image). For now I've asked the person who sent me the file if they can try a different format.

It's in class "none" but attributes are not by class. The point cloud object does have a black pen attribute, but changing this makes no difference. If I understand correctly though, the pen attribute should not be relevant as long as I have "original" ticked under color scale in the OIP?

Have just double checked and no, I don't have this preference on.

I have been sent a point cloud in .e57 format, which I can successfully import into Vectorworks, but it shows up all as black points. I know that the file must contain colour information, because I tried opening it in cloudcompare and the colour info was there. Is there any way I can get it into VW with the colour info?

Have to say I've never been quite clear about what it means to be on the "3d plane". After all, a plane is by definition 2d. Does it actually mean "not on the layer plane"?

I feel like this is something that sometimes happens to me - the selection handles get rotated like this, and I am not sure how or why (cannot replicate it trying just now). @xambo perhaps you can post an explanation of what fixed it.

Is it not the case that what you are looking at here is the selection box/handles rather than underlying vertices?

This doesn't answer my question though - what would "constructive feedback" look like, on this particular topic? There's a difference between negative criticism and non-constructive feedback. For me, criticising or objecting to a company's commercial strategy doesn't amount to criticism of the company's employees or the hard work they do, within the limits of the resources they are given.

This is not true at all. It's certainly not true for computing power. And it's not universally true for software either.

How would you define "constructive feedback" as far as the issues discussed in this thread are concerned? A lot of us posting on this thread spend many hours (at our own expense) offering constructive feedback on the functionality of Vectorworks. But this thread is about a fundamental change in pricing and licencing strategy, which in the medium to longer term is going to make Vectorworks substantially more expensive to use for most users, many of whom have invested decades in learning a package that has for a long time been placed at the more affordable end of the market, something that is significant for smaller-scale users.

The implication is that by not following the proper and righteous path, in year two we risk being bumped up to full subscription cost, so basically the price roughly doubled in one go. I wonder if they'd actually try that? I reckon probably not because many people's response would be simply to say no thanks, I'll stay with my last permitted perpetual licence, perhaps for at least 2 or 3 years. They'll be doing a weighing up of the VSS punishment premium (16% this time around) each year I reckon. If they make it too low, not enough people will switch. If they make it too high, people will just stall on their perpetual licence for X years. The ownership of a perpetual licence is the only negotiating lever (other than switching to other software) that users have. Once you don't have that, you really are captive.

Try reading the last few pages of this thread!

No, regular section viewports.

The last time I tried using it on a real project, I found that it also failed to hide other objects like extrudes & walls. That made it effectively unusable in section VPs. However: checking now (current version of VW2025), those objects appear to be ok. So it must have been fixed in an update at some point inbetween. However, it's still the case that there is a problem with door leafs.

I've just double checked in VW2025 update 7 (using the sample file I posted in the other thread) and door leaf cut planes still seem to be failing to hide.