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benboggs

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Posts posted by benboggs

    3D contours

    in Site Design

    Posted

    -1 for asking a question....When we purchased VWs one of the items we specifically asked is can we reference in CAD files.  The answer was yes!  However everyone on this forum has told me to NOT import CAD files as they will mess up your drawings.......You need to open them up in a blank VWs drawing, clean them up and then save them as a VWs file then import.  

    • Like 1

    3D contours

    in Site Design

    Posted

    Hello - I have the worst luck searching the forums as everything I search for comes up as no results found or unrelated......anyways....

     

    Here is what I need assistance with:  I imported a survey that was created with AUTOCAD Civil 3D - the survey model was 'smart'.  When the survey imported the contours kept their elevation and are 3D polygons...I need the lines to be dashed - but VWs will not allow me to make them dashed.  I have made the class a dashed linetype.  The issue is when I select the contour lines - it says they are solid and I cannot change them to be by class in the attributes panel.....

     

    Thoughts?

     

    Also on a side note:  There has to be an easier way to import survey files that are created with smart elements in CAD.  What I am finding is that we take these smart CAD survey models, make them dumb and import them into VWs rebuild the model and make the survey smart to work with our site models and then we turn around, export the VWs model out - it becomes dumb again all for our Civil Engineering consultants to bring into Civil 3D to make them smart again for their work.....................I hate to ask this question - but did we make a mistake investing in VWs?  This is a tremendous amount of effort and work between subs and us to make our information work between disciplines.  Maybe my lack of knowledge and using VWs has me frustrated.  And by dumb I mean the built site models/surfaces do not correspond between programs.  

     

    • Like 2

    VW Behavior : Questions I ask to myself while working

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by benboggs

    Whenever I import an xref - or bring in a cad file - I get an UnDo history clear....there have been other instances but honestly I cannot remember what I was doing.. 

     

    Update:  reason why this is a pain - is sometimes I import a CAD file for temp use....but should I need to undo some work - I can't because undo history is cleared.  

    Exporting CAD

    in Troubleshooting

    Posted

    My fault - I can convert 2D poly to 3D ply.....so scratch that.  Initial question still stands as to why site model contours export with 0 elevation.  I even did a test where I drew a 2d poly, converted it to 3d, gave it an elveation of 100' exported and then elevation was 0.  

     

    Thanks

    Exporting CAD

    in Troubleshooting

    Posted · Edited by benboggs

    A little elementary help with exporting to CAD file.....the contours lose their elevation and are all at elevation 0.  I have looked over all the settings/options but for some reason cannot get them to export correctly.  It must be something simple.

     

    EDIT:  Let me take this one step further.  When generating site models - after exporting the drawing set out - even the existing contours have 0 elevation.....I can see this being a huge issue on large sites when I need to send the surveyor a site plan for layout purposes during construction.  

     

    Also - can you assign elevation to polylines?  Reason I ask is when we generate site models (in my limited experience) the contours are choppy and not smooth.  I like to draw nice pretty polylines as a finished product.  We also work in 2D - but like to provide 3D info on contours.  

     

    Thanks

    Resource Manager should be able to access old files

    in Wishes Granted / Issues Resolved

    Posted

    Agree!!!  We had some files/resources set up under 2016 (title blocks and a few other files) and when we upgraded to 2017 we had to open the title blocks up do a save as then close them.  I can't imagine doing this to every single resource we create every year a new VWs upgrade come out.......It would be one of those tedious things that would probably keep me from upgrading to new version every year.  Maybe do an every other year upgrade.  We are starting to compile/create lots of custom things.  We have custom sports field base files, details etc - and I really don't want to have to open up those files and do a save as every year.....    I VOTED THIS UP!

    • Like 1

    Construction Drawing Setups - Xrefs

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I know this is a lengthy subject and various ideas and thoughts....but I just finished having an email exchange with tech support.  We have 3 VWs files, one survey base file (this was cad info imported in and then saved as a VWs file), and 2 other files (one for improvement sheets and one for grading sheets).  We reference the survey into both and the grading and improvement reference each other.  We have them set up this way so as info changes drawing backgrounds update.  

     

    However when working in one of them - the survey shifted off origin for some random reason....messing up whole drawing.  We imported the survey file first and them began working in both files.  Tech guy told me this:  

     

    "If you import a DWG or Shapefile, these files automatically will change the origin of the file. This is why we normally recommend importing into a separate document and then copy the objects into your working files. This prevents these origin changes from effecting your existing files."

     

    My question is this:  if VWs recommends copy and pasting base info then how do we effectively work when background information changes daily?  I don't see it being very effective to have to erase all survey info and then copy the survey base info in if you get an updated survey, or building background or utility background or any other discipline backgrounds......   

     

    I set up the xrefs per tutorial videos and help.  I am a bit stumped on this one......This is not the first time xrefs have caused us issues.  But I reference in MEP files (sometimes 2 or 3 files), architectural and civil consultants.  That's alot of info to manage.  

    Site elevation labels

    in Architecture

    Posted · Edited by benboggs

    I would think your text would need to something in the neighborhood of 12 units tall....my math might be wrong, but if you want text that is 1/4" tall (assumption) and your viewport is 1:48 then your text would need to be 12 units tall........no clue how many pixels etc.  Make sense?  But if your layer scale is 1:48 and your viewport are the same - then how you see the text is how it would appear in your viewport.  at least that is what it does for me.   

     

    You can also (in 2017) set text height to be in page inches(mm).  This is pretty easy way to say you want your text to be 1/4" tall.    

     

    To be honest - I am probably the last person to give advice on here - but when I try to help others it helps me learn as well.  So I apologize if I am complicating things!

    Basic road

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    There are some good VWs channels on youtube - also if you dig deep enough in the service select tutorial videos you can find good info there.  I have just messed around with them and haven't done much beyond that.  .

    Building Outlines

    in Troubleshooting

    Posted

    Questions:  I drew a building outline to represent the school.  I also offset that line and hatched it.  1:  I do not want the inside heavy line - I want the hatch to just end without a line showing.  I tried giving the line a 0 pen and when I went to hatch it made the line the same as the building outline.  2:  Let's say I want to change the hatch to be the entire building (blue).  I cannot delete the inside line to make the hatch fill the space?  3:After it's been hatched and I need to copy the outside building line - looks like the only way is to decompose the whole thing and then delete the inside line and then recompose to create the outside line.  

     

    Looks like you need to save an original copy of the single line in order to be able to do things later down the road?  

     

    Make sense?

    XA Outline test.vwx

    Shared Irrigation Catalog for Workgroups

    in Site Design

    Posted

    I was wondering the same thing as we begin to compile office standards here for 2 seats of VWs.  Right now we are just compiling individual VW files that have symbols we use daily in them and saving those files on our network and making it a favorite file in our resource manager (a file with our standard scale bars, a file with our storm inlet templates etc).  Not sure if that is the easiest way but that is how we do it. 

    VW2017 Publish Time

    in Troubleshooting

    Posted

    My suggestion would be to send the file to tech support to see if they can publish it.  If they can - then an issue on your end - but if they cannot - then a potential bug.  But workarounds to export to older versions seems risky to me.  For example if we have to upgrade our 2016 created resources to new 2017 (at least I have had to do that in order to use title blocks created in 2016) then could there be issues saving to older version to print?   

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