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line-weight

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  1. To be clear, when I say horizontal section I mean literally a horizontal section - not one involving any hybrids or 2d symbols. So if a door is modelled correctly in 3d, it will be correct in my plan. However you're quite right, this sets me up with lots of annotation, for example door swing lines. This may seem crazy and would be for larger projects, but for the smaller type of projects I do (lots of non standard detail) I've decided it's the "least terrible" option for now. It's less time consuming for me, than fighting with plugin tools. Unlike you I don't have to worry so much about IFC and so on - I just need clear accurate construction drawings. I hope that some day the time will come that I don't have to have this kind of home-brew solution.
  2. That's a great example of a real world situation that VW can't currently deal with properly. My solution here would be probably be to create the inner insulation layer either as a separate wall, or as directly modelled solids. I then make my floorplans as horizontal sections to allow me to make the cut plane where I want it, and for it not to section that inner insulation layer. For the dashed "something overhead" line, I would add this manually as an annotation in the sheet layer viewport. I've not yet found a reliable way for VW to automatically give me dashed "overhead" lines in the right places. So I give up on that and do it manually. Of course, this means I have to keep on top of any updates by adjusting the viewport annotation as necessary. Very interesting that you have written your own code to produce window and door plugins (I see a door frame with a stop on it - hooray!). If individual users are writing their own code to make usable doors and windows it makes it even more ridiculous that VW still cannot supply us with this as a basic and fundamental part of the programme we pay for.
  3. You could effectively have tags, by allowing objects to be assigned to more than one class. Would there have to be some kind of hierarchy though? (Tag/class A says "visible", Tag/class B says "invisible" - which one does VW go with) This is effectively what many of us do with container objects... container has one class, things inside it have others.
  4. I'm still testing this - but it might be that duplicating the troublesome saved view, and then deleting the original, might be a workaround.
  5. Thank you for your reply. Good to know it's already been recognised as a bug, and fixed.
  6. ^^^this VW urgently needs to have a decent sized group of people who are currently practicing architects regularly producing construction drawings for real jobs working closely with their software designers, giving detailed feedback. The focus and direction of things does not give me the impression that this is already the case.
  7. This is a problem I'm experiencing in a VW2018 file. If this is a problem that fails to replicate in later versions, I suppose there will not be much interest in fixing it, but in case it does: - The attached file is a stripped-down version of a working file (which is quite complex with a large number of classes and saved views). I've deleted all the geometry but the problem can still be seen. To replicate: 1) Open the organisation dialogue 2) Select the "classes" tab and the "visibilities" (rather than "details") button 3) I've numbered saved views SV 1 through SV 4. And there are 4 classes named CLASS A through CLASS D. 4) You will see that CLASS A is visible in all saved views, and classes B, C and D are not visible in any saved view. 5) Try setting CLASS B to be visible in all saved views (by selecting CLASS B in the left-most pane, and changing the settings in the saved view pane at far right). 6) Now select CLASS A in the left-most pane. 7) Now select CLASS B again, in the left most pane. 8 ) My result here is that VW has retained the "CLASS B = visible" settings for SV 3 and SV 4, but it has reverted this setting for SV 1 and SV 2, which have CLASS B as invisible. It seems that VW does not want to remember changed settings for SV 1 and SV 2, but it will do for SV 3 and SV 4. I can't figure out anything about SV 1 and 2 that is different. Any ideas why this is happening? classvis_test copy.vwx
  8. Can anyone who's used vw2021 for a bit confirm: (a) has the issue with the buggy redraws been fixed? (b) have you successfully used the new "smart options display" across multiple panes/screens and have you found that it makes a multiple-pane setup more usable?
  9. Also I'd rather have a window tool that was based on, say, German standards, than one that is based on no standards whatsoever, and in fact hardly bears any similarity to the way that windows are physically constructed and installed anywhere in the world. Or maybe there is some country somewhere, where they put the external windowsill on the inside, because it rains inside their houses, or something.
  10. Is another thing where there's a useful tool that you're only allowed to have if you are in a certain region?
  11. I was hoping that the new "material" resource was something that I could apply to an object or component, which would then define how it appeared when rendered/drawn in elevation/drawn in section. As well as containing data about the material itself. And that this would replace my current method of using class to control these things. Reading the above, it doesn't sound like this is the case. It sounds like it doesn't release me from using class to define these things, but somehow operates in parallel and not consistently. It sounds a bit of a mess. It seems particularly odd that it can't control appearance in a section cut, because in fact a section detail usually has the purpose of distinguishing different materials - hence all the different section hatches that are conventionally used in construction drawings. Materials are only sometimes indicated in elevation views, and often by a note rather than a fill.
  12. It's not quite as bad as it looks as it's a heavily refurbed mac pro. But the issues I'm talking about are not performance issues. I'm talking about core functionality and tools that don't work. These aren't anything to do with my machine or OS. I'm talking about the amount of time I have to spend modelling things like windows and stairs from scratch because the VW tools can't produce them properly. And a multitude of smaller things that would be useful if they worked, but they don't. They just don't work, and no-one is fixing them.
  13. Doesn't look very promising for doors, windows, stairs and structural members.
  14. I have used vw2019 a bit (doing some external work, on another company's license, but on the same machine) and 95% of the things that waste my time in vw2018 are still there. As I believe they are in 2020, and I'm expecting in 2021 too, but let's see.
  15. How many users are actually saying that though? I think that most users are frustrated not by a lack of new tools, but the ever increasing number of old (core functionality) tools that have had major problems for years, and don't get fixed. I've not upgraded since vw2018, because each year I see evidence of some new things that might be nice, but no evidence of the things that repeatedly cost me time and productivity being addressed. The new things wouldn't really improve my productivity enough to offset the cost of the upgrade. Yet, there are a few things which, if they could be fixed, would massively affect my productivity. Then I'd happily pay for the upgrade - they'd pay for themselves in a few weeks. What's particularly frustrating is that this forum is full of people who are willing to spend quite a lot of their own time identifying problems and suggesting and discussing improvements. And a lot of the time I get the feeling this resource is just ignored. Even the number of threads where someone writes out a detailed account of a problem, and there's no response from anyone at VW at all. Even if someone were just to say, thanks, we've looked at this and are aware of it, and we're doing something about it. Which is kind of what JimW used to do. For some reason the VW management have decided not to appoint anyone to fill JimW's shoes. They don't seem to get it. There are now things where previously I might have written up a thread here, in a constructive spirit, that I can't be bothered any more because it just seems like a waste of time. Most people, by definition, who contribute to these forums, are designers by profession. They understand that fixes are not often easy, they understand that there will be many complexities beneath the surface that make a seemingly simple problem difficult to solve. The way to avoid the pitchforks is to engage with users. The comments about 'roadmaps' are right - most people will be pretty tolerant of issues if they feel that something is happening in the background, that we'll get there eventually. One of the most baffling things to me is the situation with the door/window tools - we know there are plugins available in certain countries that are better than the stock tools. We don't know why these things can't be provided to all users. Unless I've missed something, I've never seen anyone from VW explain why this bizarre situation exists. So the conclusion many people will go away with is that they just aren't that bothered. Maybe they just don't realise that most architects spend quite a lot of time fiddling around with doors and windows (and stairs) and not that much time exporting excel spreadsheets?
  16. It's also unhelpful when it tries to be too clever - I duplicate something like walls-500 and it creates walls-501 (I'm much more likely to actually want it to be walls-1000 or walls-300 or suchlike). I'd prefer it to append something like _duplicate. As per the other thread, ideally we'd simply be asked what we want to call it at the time.
  17. It seems like there is no point asking, or saying please. Lots of people have been asking for this, for many years. Every year, VW chooses to ignore this. I honestly don't understand why. It's a joke that it's marketed as "BIM ready" when (just for example) it's been putting windowsills on back to front for at least five years.
  18. Good luck in getting any response from VW on this. It really is a mystery how they can justify continuing to serve up the existing, deficient tools, when better versions have already been written but for some reason, we are not allowed to have them. Perhaps VW2021 will be released with proper door and window tools. In some parallel universe.
  19. I'll be very interested to see how this works too. At the moment I use material "classes" throughout my drawings, something that works OK but is a bit "homebrew" and it always worries me that setting up drawings with my own systems makes them less future proof and more difficult to share information with others. If (and only if) the "material" resource concept has been well thought through, then it will be very welcome, rather than something that just adds another layer of complexity to drawing setup.
  20. I think it works on certain viewports only on a sheet layer - it'll work on a top/plan viewport but not a section viewport for example (which is annoying if you use a lot of section viewports, because they can never have automatically updated/coordinated section lines on them).
  21. I also have a "safe saves" folder where I manually save a copy every day, or before significant changes. Then I have autosaved backups running too, which generally cover the past few hours' work. And then I have Time Machine running too. But really VW's backup autosave should work like the OP suggests: increasing time interval between backups as you go back in time. As it is, you have to rely entirely on manual processes to retrieve versions from longer ago, which is not ideal.
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