CarlJdP

UPDATE I have just heard from a 3rd party Vectorworks trainer that the demo version does not allow you to save or to export.

The company I work at does Vectorworks training in South Africa (external qualified Vectorworks Trainer). I just need some more information of the trial version which I can pass along to future students / clients. What a I can currently extrapolate from the Vectorworks.net website is that: - *A demo version* can be requested and downloaded once your request has been approved. - It expires after 30 days. Just a few questions I have to clarify for myself: 1) Which Vectorworks package is included in the demo version? I noticed that you can select a field in which you are interested in in your request information, does this limit you to that particular package? or can you download the full Designer package as Demo? 2) Does the Demo Version include Renderworks? 3) What limitations are imposed on the Demo Version 4) Would there be cases where your Demo Version request will be denied? 5) One question I continually get from students and future clients still is whether they can just request a new Demo Version after their current one has expired?

The company I work at is also a distributor for ESP Vision & MA Lighting products - so when I need to simulate/control all of these lights (especially pixel-mapping effects from a media server say like Avolites AI) then I will use ESP for that. MA-3D also works very good, sometimes better at light, ambient & atmosphere control. And it's FREE! These programs work very good if it's real-time visualization you are after, providing you have the graphics hardware to make it happen. The main problem with these solutions is the lack of indirect lighting - resulting in a VERY flat rendered image. BUT, it's by far the best solution to demonstrate pixel-mapped concepts. Usually we will do realistic pre-rendered images , even short videos in VW, and then show the client the lighting FX (in lower quality but in real-time) in MA 3D.

A further observation: The missed-clicks seems to occur more when: - left click > drag to select - middle click > drag to pan As if the click is mostly missed when the mouse pointer has started moving before you initiate the action. (I'm sure I can't be the only one who starts moving the pointer before i click for click-and-drag selecting objects?) A work-around that seems to 'work' for now, is starting the action with the mouse in a static position, waiting for a moment, then commencing the drag - although this seems to work, it severely interrupts the fluency of the drawing process

I've noticed a decrease in missed-clicks when I enable the click-and-drag option in VW preferences. Yet this doesn't completely alleviate the problem. I also some times have to click on the exit button multiple times before it responds.

Yes I import DWG(s) directly into my VW file Yes I use symbols when ever I can where there are multiples of the same light, although it is not always possible where a lot of lights need unique properties. I'm looking at the UnReal Engine 4.9.2 for future renders because of their real-time rendering quality, better material configurations, and best of all it supports an unlimited nr of light sources. All which can be rendered in realtime, as opposed to VW's 8 sources in realtime openGL. Oh and it's free =D

I switched back to using just 1 display for 1 week and experienced the same problem - so i'm back on 2 screens now.

I work at a company that sells and distributes Stage and Architectural lighting equipment and solutions. We use Vectorworks to visualize to the client what they are paying for - and sometimes, that involves using A LOT of light sources: The Usual Scene: - Imported DWG model - Night Scene outdoor - 1 Directional light source for moon light - a few point sources to simulate light from inside the building or from the street - 10's or 100's of IES light sources based on our products Current Limitations: - OpenGL can only handle 8 light sources, so I need to render out before I can see whats happening in my scene. - I'm using glow textures emitting light (instead of area / line lights), so I need to turn on indirect lighting - increasing render time exponentially. This severely impairs my workflow: adjusting > 5-10 min render > adjusting > 5-10 min render all day long Custom Renderworks Style: - Type: Realistic - Options: Anti-Aliasing off; Blurriness off; - Quality: All low; Indirect lighting medium; 1 bounce - Environment & Ambient lighting off; - Plain image background Techniques I'm already using to shorten rendering times: - Keeping poly's as low as possible. - Using glow textures instead of line / area lights to simulate neon / LED strip lighting - Reducing document & non-final viewport resolutions down to 50 DPI - Rather using the Render Bitmap Tool to preview only part of the model - Absolutely no displacement mapping! - All layers and classes I don't need is turned off. Any advice would be greatly appreciated =) Is there any hope for network rendering in the near future? How come that's standard with C4D but not with Renderworks? Isn't it the same render engine?

As I understand Revit can export materials with DWG [1] , yet when I import all textures are missing. Or does feature that only work with 3ds and the like? We regularly receive files from a lot of different external companies to do architectural lighting renders/proposals for in Vectorworks. Currently when I receive a Revit file, I export to DWG (with the 30day trial Revit), import to VW2015, then I spend atleast3 days creating and matching up materials to the original renders produced with Revit by a 3rd party. Is there a better way to get a Revit model into Vectorworks?

I'm so glad I'm not the only one! I've been getting on average 5 VW2015 crashes per day for months now. I even tried a format and reinstall - no difference. @JimW - I can't use another modelling program, I do need to solve this problem as we are a sub-distributor of WV in South Africa, and I need to be able to offer support to our end-users. Unfortunately thus far I haven't been able to find a VW tech support center that supports VW serial numbers sold in Africa.

I created some text, converted it to polylines, then clipped it from a oval which resulted in the following: -The background oval is a closed filled POLYLINE with 'text' holes cut into it. It exports to PDF just fine. -The inner shapes of some letters like 'D' and 'R' are now POLYGONs. It exports to PDF with jagged edges, looks un-anti-aliased. See link below Result after export to PDF So what is the difference between a closed filled polyline and a polygon? Can I convert a polygon to a polyline to avoid those jagged edges? How do I do that?

Another Menu Issue I've noticed (VW 2015) File > Open recent > File names are cut off after a certain amount of letters, for instance, if I have files called 'The Grand Lux Hotel V1-0' and so on, I would never be able to see which version of the file i'm opening from recent files..

Yes. Using 2 displays most of the time. Sometimes 3. All connected to my nVidia GTX 780 I use the latest drivers from nVidia - not Win update drivers, as since the launch of Win 10, Window's nVidia drivers have been known to cause a lot of blue screens 2 Displays definitely allows for a more efficient workspace - having the main window on one display and all my pallets of the second display. For almost a year now I've experienced some strange and unexpected crashes on VW 2015. I have a very looong list of actions causing crashes - on average 5 crashes per day. I had the problem originally on Win 7, but not even a clean install of Win8.1 Pro and re-installing VW solved the problem. I have also tried the option on my video card to span one video output over 2 physical displays. Resulting in windows seeing only one (very very widescreen) display connected to the computer - where the graphics card takes care of splitting the output. So success - still having crashes. Does this have something to do with the fact that VW only started supporting hi-res displays from VW 2016? Strangely, Vectorworks staff themselves recommended to me that I use only one display to see if the crashes go away.. Unfortunately the nature and variety of my work doesn't allow me the luxury of disconnecting all other displays each time I need to start up VW.

For a few months now my VW2015 is not registering all mouse clicks. I have tried different mice, same problem. All drivers are installed and VW is up to date. It is most noticeable when: -trying to select objects one-by-one -trying to select objects with the selection rectangle -panning with the middle mouse button. -trying to click the exit group / exit symbol / exit viewport crop / exit viewport annotations buttons - usually works after about 3 clicks -just after a group / symbol / viewport edit has been exited -switching design layers / classes on and off through the Navigation pallet - sometimes requires 2 clicks almost as if window focus has to be moved from the VW window to the Nav pallet It seems that VW works fine for about 6-10 clicks and then misses the next 2 - 3 clicks, and then the cycle repeats. I have also tested these mouse functions/buttons extensively in other applications without any problems. The 'missed' clicks only occur in VW. Restarting the computer or VW does not help. I have ensured there are no viruses, malware or spyware on the computer. I have checked recently installed software - nothing questionable found. System: Asus Z87-Deluxe, i7 4770 stable @ 4.1Ghz, 16GB DDR3, PCI-E SSD 512GB nVidia GTX 780 3GB Windows 8.1 Pro Vectorworks 2015 Designer with Renderworks Mouse: standard Microsoft wired usb Desktop 3 button wheel mouse (multiple mice tried, same results)

I'm having the same problem although I have changed the setting in the nVidia Control Panel to use the graphics card for Vectorworks.exe. I have also aplied these settings http://kbase.vectorworks.net/questions/1207/Improve+OpenGL+and+Wireframe+performance+-+Windows+only+-+Nvidia+graphics+only I will send my DxDiag as suggested by JimW.