Paolo

I am trying to develop an SVG reader in Vectorscript, but I am at a stake because of the impossibility to manage functions or procedures that calculate and return strings that may have more than 255 chars. Having to do with SVG commands like this… <path fill="none" stroke="#000000" stroke-width="0.238" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-miterlimit="10" stroke-dasharray="1,1" d=" M47.506,645.356c0.099,0,0.197-0.049,0.296-0.049c0.098,0,0.196-0.05,0.295-0.099s0.197-0.049,0.296-0.099 c0.098-0.049,0.196-0.099,0.246-0.147c0.098-0.049,0.196-0.099,0.246-0.147c0.098-0.05,0.147-0.099,0.246-0.148 c0.099-0.049,0.147-0.147,0.246-0.196c0.049-0.05,0.147-0.148,0.196-0.197c0.05-0.049,0.148-0.147,0.197-0.246 s0.099-0.147,0.197-0.246c0.049-0.099,0.098-0.147,0.147-0.246c0.049-0.099,0.099-0.197,0.147-0.295 c0.05-0.148,0.147-0.296,0.197-0.493c0.049-0.147,0.099-0.295,0.196-0.492c0.05-0.147,0.099-0.345,0.148-0.492 c0.049-0.196,0.147-0.442,0.196-0.64c0-0.05,0.05-0.147,0.05-0.197c0-0.049,0.049-0.147,0.049-0.197 c0-0.049,0.05-0.147,0.05-0.196c0-0.05,0.049-0.147,0.049-0.197c0-0.049,0-0.049,0-0.099c0-0.049,0-0.049,0-0.098 c0-0.05,0-0.05,0-0.099c0-0.05,0-0.05-0.049-0.099c0-0.049-0.05-0.049-0.05-0.049l-0.049-0.05l-0.05-0.049 c-0.049,0-0.049-0.05-0.099-0.05c-0.049,0-0.049,0-0.098,0c-0.05,0-0.05,0-0.099,0c-0.05,0-0.05,0-0.099,0s-0.049,0-0.099,0.05 c-0.049,0-0.049,0.049-0.099,0.049l-0.049,0.05l-0.049,0.049c0,0-0.05,0.049-0.05,0.099c0,0.049-0.049,0.099-0.049,0.147 s-0.05,0.099-0.05,0.147c0,0.05-0.049,0.099-0.049,0.148c0,0.049-0.049,0.098-0.049,0.147c-0.05,0.099-0.099,0.246-0.197,0.345 c-0.05,0.099-0.099,0.246-0.197,0.345c-0.099,0.147-0.147,0.246-0.246,0.394s-0.147,0.246-0.246,0.394s-0.197,0.246-0.246,0.345 s-0.147,0.147-0.197,0.246c-0.049,0.099-0.147,0.147-0.196,0.197c-0.05,0.049-0.147,0.147-0.197,0.196 c-0.049,0.05-0.147,0.148-0.246,0.197s-0.147,0.099-0.246,0.147c-0.099,0.05-0.147,0.099-0.246,0.148 c-0.099,0.049-0.197,0.098-0.246,0.147c-0.099,0.049-0.197,0.099-0.296,0.147c-0.147,0.049-0.295,0.099-0.442,0.147 c-0.147,0.05-0.296,0.099-0.443,0.148c-0.147,0.049-0.295,0.098-0.443,0.147c-0.098,0.049-0.196,0.049-0.295,0.099 c-0.099,0-0.197,0.049-0.296,0.049c-0.049,0-0.147,0.049-0.196,0.049c-0.05,0-0.147,0-0.197,0.05c-0.049,0-0.147,0-0.196,0.049 c-0.05,0-0.148,0-0.197,0.05c-0.05,0-0.05,0-0.099,0s-0.049,0-0.099,0.049c-0.049,0-0.049,0.049-0.049,0.049l-0.05,0.05 l-0.049,0.049c0,0.05-0.049,0.05-0.049,0.099s0,0.049,0,0.099c0,0.049,0,0.049,0,0.099c0,0.049,0,0.049,0,0.098 c0,0.05,0,0.05,0.049,0.099c0,0.05,0.049,0.05,0.049,0.099l0.05,0.049l0.049,0.05c0,0,0.05,0.049,0.099,0.049s0.049,0,0.099,0.05 c0.049,0,0.049,0,0.099,0c0.049,0,0.099,0,0.147,0s0.099,0,0.147,0c0.05,0,0.099,0,0.147,0c0.05,0,0.099,0,0.148,0 c0.147,0,0.295,0,0.442,0c0.148,0,0.296,0,0.443,0s0.345,0,0.492-0.05c0.147,0,0.345-0.049,0.492-0.049 C47.161,645.406,47.359,645.406,47.506,645.356z”/> … that goes very beyond the 255 chars strings limit, I had necessarily to substitute functions returning strings into functions returning dynarray[]of char, but this is FORBIDDEN. So I tried with procedures returning dynarray[]of char as VAR (this is allowed) but I found strange behaviors. For example, the following script takes the constant string (this is a short string, just for instance). The first procedure extracts the substring starting from 'points="' and the subsequent '"'. The second procedure replaces the commas with spaces. Both procedure uses the same VAR s:string declared. procedure test; const polygon = '<polygon points="35.938,135.145 36.233,140.511 36.971,140.511 36.971,135.145 "/>’; {this is just an example of SVG line, this is < 256 chars, but this is a special case} var s: dynarray[]of char; {declare the VAR I'll use later as value returned from procedures} {*********************** scanPolyPoints **********************} {return the substring between 'points="' and '"', I'll split these points later} procedure scanPolyPoints(parameter: string; line: DYNARRAY[] OF CHAR; var r:DYNARRAY[] OF CHAR); var index1, index2: integer; temp: DYNARRAY[] OF CHAR; begin {search the position of 'parameter='} index1 := Pos(parameter, line)+1+len(parameter); temp := copy(line, index1, len(line)-index1); {remaining string} {search the position of '"' in the remaining string} index2 := Pos('"', temp); temp := copy(temp, 1, index2-1); {here I have only the string composed by points} r := temp; {set the answer r} end; {*********************** replaceCommas **********************} {substitute each comma with a space and each minus signs with ' -'} {in the SVG (generated by Adobe Illustrator), the path numbers are separated by a ',' or by '-' or by a space} {whenever you find a '-', the ',' is omitted!} procedure replaceCommas(source:dynarray[]of char; var dest: dynarray[]of char); var i:integer; temp: string; begin temp := ''; for i:=1 to len(source) do begin if source[i] = ',' then temp:=Concat(temp,' ') else if source[i] = '-' then temp:=Concat(temp,' -') else temp:=Concat(temp,source[i]) end; dest := temp; end; begin s := ''; {init} writeln(polygon); {write the input string to the standard output} scanPolyPoints(' points=', polygon, s); {first procedure} writeln(s); {write the resulting "s" string to the standard output} {Now I use the variable s both as parameter and resulting var} replaceCommas(s, s); {second procedure, commas should be replaced by spaces} writeln(s); {but NO! It's unchanged} {test it with a constant string as parameter…} replaceCommas('.,.,.,.,.,.,.,', s); writeln(s); {…it works!} end; run(test); The resulting output is the following: <polygon points="35.938,135.145 36.233,140.511 36.971,140.511 36.971,135.145 "/> 35.938,135.145 36.233,140.511 36.971,140.511 36.971,135.145 35.938,135.145 36.233,140.511 36.971,140.511 36.971,135.145 . . . . . . . As you can see, the first procedure works (line 2), the second no (line 3 has still commas in place!). While the constant string has the commas removed (line 4). Where is the problem and, most of all, is there a solution? Thank you for any help. Paolo Marcuccetti

Give a try with "Moulding plugins", a set of tools I developed sometime ago for the Vectordepot Market (now shut off). Start here: https://fitplot.it/vwplugins/mouldings.html The tools are all updated for Vectorworks 2018. I have decided to share these plugins free of charge, but if you find it useful in your work, well, a little PayPal contribution is welcome.

I am proud to announce that some of my plugins and scripts (previously hosted on Vectordepot) are made available for download here: https://fitplot.it/vwplugins/ These are a few items developed by me (Paolo Marcuccetti) in the past years, updated and working with VW2018. I give these softwares free for download and usage, not for distribution. If you find these softwares useful in your work, please consider a little paypal donation. You'll find instructions on site. Contributions will be used to keep the site updated, to bring in new contents and to give any technical assistance. Paolo Marcuccetti

The above mentioned FitPlot site has changed to www.fitplot.it The application is available (Mac only) through the Mac Apple Store ($18.99), last update (4.8) has been released 2013 november

The OSx printing system it's hard to override, Apple takes care of its own user interfaces. For a quick print, Benson's way is the more straight. If your work is organized in (many) sheet layers and not just one design layer, you may find useful to print to PDF, then use a simple app like this: http://digilander.libero.it/kiaradot/fitplot here you can easily compose all your sheets in the plotter layout (packing tool). You can print also a portion of the PDF (if you have a small printer) or get a "mosaic" of the whole drawing (with overlaps). It's also easy to resize (rescale) the PDF for different scale needs.

Thank you, Peter, for your precious suggestion. However I agree with DWorks, a section fill (or even line) property (properties) in the class setup dialog would be the more "natural" place to set this.

I have tried, but even in VW2011 this still misses. In Viewport section, advanced properties, tab attributes, my best options to achieve what I want are: separated transversal sections radio button on then you have to choose between 1. using object class attributes 2. choose from the classes in the popup (Section Style is proposed) The 1 uses the same class that in plan view (not right!) the 2 uses one class for all (not right too!) If there is a way, please post it...

It would be a good thing to have a "section fill" class attribute. Currently, in section view, we have two fill choices: 1. Using section class (one class for different elements) 2. Using element class (each element has its inherited fill class) Fills/hatches in section may differ from fills / hatches in plan views, usually you should have different diagonal hatches, exclusive for each class/material. Since options 1 and 2 does not this completely, I have to make this final step by hand, so it would be appreciated to see this feature implemented in a future release...

There is some new on this subject here: Mouldings plugins on Vectordepot Seems promising...

Thank for your answer, Raymond, Ok to scale the line from midpoint, but the problem is elsewhere. LineLineIntersection is good for polygons, not for polyline with curved strokes, as far as I know, Split2DObjectByLine is the natural way, but it sometimes fails ( read here in the VectorScript Function Reference, annotated version) . Paolo

I need to get the first intersection point (if any) of a polyline with a given line (extended if needed) via VectorScript. I have tried to use the Split2DObjectByLine procedure, but it seems not reliable. Here's the script. To test it, draw a polyline, then a line, run the script and select first the poly then the line. A point should be placed at their intersection. Not always it works. Sometimes it even crashes VectorWorks : procedure lineToPoly; VAR polyHandle: handle; lineHandle: handle; punto :Point; function intersectionLinePoly(lineH, polyH: Handle): Point; VAR tmpPolyH, tmpLineH : handle; begPt : point; endPt: point; resultHandle, temp_h: handle; BEGIN {faccio copia della linea} tmpPolyH := CreateDuplicateObject(polyH, NIL); tmpLineH := CreateDuplicateObject(lineH, NIL); GetSegPt1(tmpLineH, begPt.x, begPt.y); HScale2D(tmpLineH, begPt.x, begPt.y, 10,10,false); GetSegPt2(tmpLineH, endPt.x, endPt.y); Split2DObjectByLine(tmpPolyH, begPt.x, begPt.y, endPt.x, endPt.y, resultHandle); IF resultHandle <> NIL THEN BEGIN GetPolyPt(resultHandle, getVertNum(resultHandle), intersectionLinePoly.x, intersectionLinePoly.y); END; delObject(tmpLineH); delObject(tmpPolyH); END; begin GetPt(punto.x, punto.y); polyHandle:= PickObject(punto.x, punto.y); GetPt(punto.x, punto.y); lineHandle:= PickObject(punto.x, punto.y); punto := intersectionLinePoly(lineHandle, polyHandle); if not ((punto.x = 0) and (punto.y = 0)) then locus(punto.x, punto.y); end; run(lineToPoly); Is there a more reliable way to get this? Thank you in advance for your help.

Try this: http://www.vectordepot.com/market/vm-034_adobe_illustrator_im.html

Can I invert a NURBS curve direction with VectorScript? With polys it is easy, with a "downto for cycle" through all components points, you can get another poly assigning point in the inverted order, but with NURBS? Thank you for your help. Paolo

I have the same Designjet HP 500PS and the same problem that I solved. To get exact A0, A1, A2, A3 I have create my custom equivalent formats including the margins that are (for the HP 500PS) 1.7 cm (top and bottom) and 0.5 cm (left and right). For example A3 Horizontal trimmed is 42x29.7 cm, including margins is 43x33.1 cm. Doing this way it works. Another way is to print to PDF and using a simple layout program like this (Mac only): http://digilander.libero.it/kiaradot/fitplot/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/fitPlot%20help/index.htm The advantage is that you may print more drawing at once optimizing paper waste and having the margins under control.

Your suggestion has been the key! Thank you! Here's a procedure to increase all the extruded object in a selection of a user given value: [font:Courier New]procedure increaseExtr; {the goal is to increase extruded objects in the selection of a user requested value} var oggetto:HANDLE; increaseValue : REAL; FUNCTION increase(h:HANDLE):BOOLEAN; var height,width,depth:REAL; xRot, yRot, zRot:REAL; p0X, p0Y, p0Z: REAL; p1X, p1Y, p1Z: REAL; result, isMirroredXY: BOOLEAN; begin {check if the obj is an extrusion} if (GetType(h) = 24) then BEGIN result := Get3DOrientation(h, xRot, yRot, zRot, isMirroredXY); Get3DCntr(h, p0X, p0Y, p0Z); SetRot3D(h, 0,0,0 , 0,0,0); {here depth = extrusion value} Get3DInfo(h, height,width,depth); {I increase the depth} Set3DInfo(h, height,width,depth+increaseValue); Set3DRot(h, xRot, yRot, zRot , 0,0,0); Get3DCntr(h, p1X, p1Y, p1Z); {move of the misplacement p0-p1} Move3DObj(h, p0X-p1X, p0Y-p1Y, p0Z-p1Z); Get3DCntr(h, p1X, p1Y, p1Z); END; increase := FALSE; end; begin {ask the value to increase} increaseValue := RealDialog('Increase extrusions in the selection of this value','10'); {apply to the selected set of objects} ForEachObjectInList(increase, 2, 0, oggetto); end; run(increaseExtr);[/font]

Hi all, Is it possible to get the extrusion value of an extruded object in VectorScript? I have checked the VectorScript Reference but found nothing appropriate. Thanks for your help!

There is a plugin to import .ai or .art files (it imports in VW just the paths, not fills, texts and other graphic attributes) at vectordepot: http://www.vectordepot.com/plug-ins/ There it is a demo and a complete version in the market section.

Go to VectorDepot and browse for a program called Logex. Logex reads and analyze the VectorWorks log file extracting from it all saved drawings on which you have spent more than 1 minute. A typical output could be this: fileX 23/05/2006 20:39 00:33 fileY 23/05/2006 20:42 00:11 Untitled 1 23/05/2006 20:42 00:01 fileZ 23/05/2006 20:42 00:25 Once saved, the output is a text file with each line representing an event (drawing) record. The record fields are: the name of file (drawing) the when (date of event) the time spent for that file Fields are TAB separated, so the file is ready to be used in a database or in a worksheet for further statistics. Logex analyze the integrity of the VectorWorks log and check if there are errors (due to VectorWorks crashes or possible deactivations / activations of report from the VectorWorks general preferences). Errors are classified by a color syntax that may be helping for the correction work. Presently logex is available only on Mac OSX? 10.3.9 or more, any version of VectorWorks? (version 12 with some limitations due to a known bug in the "saved as?" lines produced in the report). There is no way for Windows users. Logex is available in Italian and English localization.

I have worked on the problem and went out with a plugin that is able to import paths from files saved as .ai or .art from Illustrator?, FreeHand? and other vectorial programs. The importer is avaliable here: VectorDepot There is a free evaluation copy too (limited in the number of entities it can import). Waiting for a true usable quadratic bezier tool in VectorWorks, this can be a workaround for all of those users that can draw their artworks with other programs.

At Vector Depot there is a set of script to help generate and dimension exploded isometric view. It has an isometric dimensioning tool that uses islandmon algorithm. http://www.vectordepot.com/market/vm-017_explosion_tools.html It works only on isometric views (snapping on 3D edges along XY or Z planes). It's a workaround waiting for a native 3D dimensioning from NNA.

Try this too FitPlot It is useful to send PDFs to the plotter framing them into the plotter sheet area.

I'have tried this little experiment : Made a Bezier shape in FreeHand (5 points, 2 nibs and 1 bezier point with 2 handle points). Exported as .ai (even .ps or .eps should work). Opened in Textwrangler (or similar text editor). Found the clearly visible sequence of 5 points. Opened Vectorworks and created a similar shape (polyline tool) with this sequence: angle point, bezier point, angle point, bezier point, angle point. Modified each point coordinate according with values of the .ai file. The obtained curve should now be the same as in FreeHand, but a superimposition of the two shapes (proportionally rescaled) reveals a mild difference. Conclusion: bezier's algorithm used by the two programs are different!

Or, at least, I wish an Illustrator / Freehand importing tool. I currently use Freehand beziers for logos and free forms, then I export in Illustrator format. I import it in Cinema4D (a very old version I use just for this) and export from there as dxf. When I open the dxf in Vectorworks, alas, the bezier lines are all converted into polygons (segmented in thousands pieces). I suspect there is no satisfactory algorithm to convert true beziers (such used in Illustrator, Freehand, Photoshop) into the native bicubic spline engine of Vectorworks.

VectorDepot has published an instruction / explaination file about "openings" plugins set (including the wall niche option). The link is here: Opening plugin (wall niche) readMe

I agree with you, Robert, the name "Openings" for the plugin's set may be confusing, but niche is an option available in a general, very customizable, opening in the wall. here's th info panel of the plugin and same image respectively in plan view, dashed line and openGL renderings. Hope now it's clear.