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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.

Going to resign myself to the answer being "no" and get on with editing my c. 150 data visualisations manually, one by one. My feeling is that any time there is a list of things of the same type that can be edited, there should be an option to multiple-select them, and then batch-edit any settings that they all have in common. Maybe there is some reason this can't be done in this scenario.

This is of no help to you, but I often find that "display criteria" panel in Data Vis very confusing. Most of the time I just use it set to "all objects". So will be interested to see what the answer is here. Am I right in thinking that the other way you could do this is under "object criteria" to say 1. All criteria in this set 2. Wall style is [wall style name] Then under "display criteria", choose "all objects"?

I have a large number of data visualisations. In each of them, I want to change from this: to this: Is there any way of effecting this change to all of them at once, or do I have to go through all individually, one by one?

This is a non-architectural project... a personal interest one that involves mapping & explaining the development of the railways of south London. A bit niche!

@Jeff Prince thanks for the pointers you gave me above. Once I started fiddling a bit with QGIS I got drawn in, and ended up producing much of the mapping imagery I wanted in there, instead of trying to import something 3d into Vectorworks. It took me a little while to understand how things work, but it's kind of addictive once you get into it, especially with all the freely available mapping data that can be used. Here's what I've produced so far, which is a representation of the terrain underlying south London. I would not have been able to do this inside VW.

I don't think there is. This is one of the multiple inconsistencies that appear when you attempt to set everything up for graphical consistency across files.

Ok. Thanks. If I wanted to make a VW site model object (to then fiddle around with the various 2d visualisation options it offers) I guess I'd have to import as contours and then make them site model source data?

Not really! So a way of doing stuff in VW, even if it's more clunky, might be more efficient for me, rather than trying to figure out the finer points of QGIS. If I import to VW as OBJ what do I actually get - a kind of mesh?

@Jeff Prince a sort-of related question. I want to use the data that's freely available here: https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open/Terrain50 and produce a kind of shaded terrain map. It doesn't necessarily have to be in 3d, because I will only show it as a top-down map image. I want to create a map that only shows the terrain topography. It doesn't need to show anything like roads etc. The purpose of it is to visually convey the land elevation, and primarily to highlight where steep terrain is. I started out thinking that I could try and import the data to VW in such a way that I have a 3d terrain model, then simply try lighting it from the side to try and get the effect that I want. That's because I am familiar with VW but not really with GIS applications. I have messed a little bit with QGIS so far. Is trying to bring it into VW wrong-headed? Should I just be trying to do it all within QGIS instead?

Most of the time, at the moment I just use shaded view for this. It has its limitations but it saves a huge amount of time and avoids the problem that arises when renders are "too" realistic, that the client takes every detail literally even when the design is at a preliminary stage.

The fact this issue's been left unfixed for so long has led me to give up on TM. Glad I didn't invest too much time into learning it.

Of your 4 red rectangles... I make use of the middle two. The top and bottom ones I don't use, because I don't think they have any useful application (as currently implemented).

Yes, the way this "profile line" is applied doesn't make sense. Here's a thread that mentions this issue. Please consider voting it up!

Perhaps time would be better invested in improving the contents and accessibility of the Help system, before developing an AI assistant to help navigate it, though. When something is not adequately explained in the Help, the solution should be to make sure that it is, rather than creating some kind of AI assisted system that looks elsewhere, amongst sources that may or may not be reliable.

This is constantly catching me out. Wherever I want to edit a field in dialogue boxes like this one: I press the little pencil icon to let me change the value, and get this far: What I often do is then click straight on the "OK" button at bottom right but this doesn't retain the value that I've just changed. To retain the changed value you have to type that value, then press return, then press the OK button. Is there a reason that pressing return is necessary? If this could be made to work such that typing the new value then pressing the OK button worked, it would save a lot of confusion! I know what I'm supposed to do but so often, the presence of that blue OK button waiting to be pressed leads me to do that, and then at some point I wonder why something's not working, and it's because what I thought I'd changed, I actually hadn't.

If an AI assistant could help someone like me (with very limited coding knowledge) write scripts or build marionette objects that would be very useful indeed.

Does it work if you assign the "2D treads" to a class which is set to show the desired surface hatch?

This would be rather useful for wall styles too, covering the common scenario where there is a basic wall core type that has different internal and external finishes in different places.

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

Beware that this may cause 2d components to disappear elsewhere in the drawing, where you don't want them to disappear.

@MMGD I don't know if things have changed in the past couple of years since I was looking at this last, but there are a few things to look out for as far as external monitors (specifically their resolution/size) are concerned, when you're dealing with MacOS. I found this article helpful the last time I was working out what monitor to get. https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays2/