MikeB

I?m having a screen regen dilemma. I have drawn some bricks and concrete blocks in plan using poly lines. If I use associative hatch my screen regen time is excruciatingly long. If I use static hatch screen regen is instant but it inflates the file size. I normally use and prefer using associative hatch but it is really awful in this situation. Am I doing something wrong, or is this just how it works. I have a G4 400 with 256 mb ram, and a 16 mb vidio card. Thanks

Thanks, worked great. It seems like the ability to convert a worksheet into text should be built into VW.

Is it possible to export a worksheet with a dxf file? I tried to but the work sheet is gone when you open the DXF. Is there a way to explode a worksheet so it is lines and text, I know convert to lines, or convert to polygons dosent work. any help is appreciated

I'm having a referencing problem. Heres the situation. I have a base sheet file that I reference into all of my drawing files, so when I need to change the date on the set or the name of the project I change it in one place and the entire set is updated automatically. Now this works great, huge time saver and it eliminates inconsistancies. I also have a list of coded notes in the base sheet file in a seperate layer that I reference into drawings when they are revelent. Each coded note has a plug-in-object in front of it that I made to draw an oval and place a piece of text in the center. I use this plug in so I can change the # and change the shape of the object for lots of different markers (wall types, window types, ect.) from the info palette. Again a huge time saver. Now heres the problem, When I save a drawing file which has the coded notes referenced into it with the active layer at say 1/8th scale, and then I open the base sheet file and modify the coded notes and save the base sheet file, and then I reopen the drawing file, the plug-in -object takes on the scale of the 1/8" active layer and not the layer it is in when referenced (1 to 1). Now these objects are still in the refereced layer (still at 1 to 1) but they drawn at the wrong size ( they are enormous). To fix the problem I have to change the active layer to the referenced layer the objects are in and then manually update the reference. This is a huge pain Is this a bug, or am I doing something wrong? Thanks for any help.

I also notice that you cannot import a saved sheet even though you can see them in the resources palette. It would be great if you could.

Yes, use the export as image file command in the File menu. Good Luck

I had a G4 W/ OS 9 for @ 6 months, It was hairy at first but things seem fairly stable now. I think VW 8.5 solved some problems, and if you are getting new hardware just make sure you have the latest extension, particularly for your vidio card. Good Luck

I had a G4 W/ OS 9 for @ 6 months, It was hairy at first but things seem fairly stable now. I think VW 8.5.1 solved some problems, and if you are getting new hardware just make sure you have the latest extension, particularly for your vidio card. Good Luck

I had a G4 W/ OS 9 for @ 6 months, It was hairy at first but things seem fairly stable now. I think VW 8.5.1 solved some problems, and if you are getting new hardware just make sure you have the latest extension, particularly for your vidio card. Good Luck

Probably the easiest way to do this is to edit the symbols in the VW directory so they have the class structure you want. By editing the origional version of the symbol, when you import it into your future drawings they will retain the class structure you set up. If you ever wanted to restore the origional class structure of these symbols you could simply pull the symbols off the installation disk and drop them into the appropriate directory. Hope this helps Good Luck [This message has been edited by MikeB (edited 09-25-2000).]

This is just a suggestion, but if you only want them to print the drawing you could give them a .plt (plot) file in HP GL-2 format. you can download the driver from hp on a PC, install it as another printer, and use the "print to file" option. For a mac you need "mac plot" or equal to generate the plot file. This should work for B&W but for color you may need a postscript printer, On a mac you need a RIP driver which you may be able to get from HP for their large format color plotters, on a PC I think you can use the Apple Laserwriter NTX driver which can be installed from the system. I hope all this helps, Keep in mind when you export a dwg all your layers are automatically converted to the same scale. This may explain why your text is all over. Are you on a mac or PC? Good Luck

We downloaded the print to pdf utility from versiontracker.com and it works great, no problems with scale, its free so give it a try. Good luck

The only thing that immediately comes to mind is you memory allocations. when rendering you need to keep your VW allocation low to keep enough free ram for the system to use to render. Check to see if your allocations for VW, and Quicktime are the same on both machines. Good Luck

I've noticed on a PC you can use the arrow keys to navagate between yes and no, but on a mac you can't. I guess this is a system thing, but I agree, it would be very useful to be able to toggle between yes and no on a mac.

Ill try to increase the pixel dimension again, its been awhile since I tried it last. Does anyone know if there is a max # of pixels you can export, I posted this earlier but got no response, it seems to be around 6 million. I know if I get the pixel dimension too high when I hit "OK" in the export dialogue, the screen kind of blinks and the image is exported instsantly as all black(no picture). Just thought I'd ask again

Keep in mind if you increase your resolution to 300 dpi you are not getting a higher resolution image, you are getting the same number of pixels in a smaller physical area when printed. The two numbers at the top left of the export dialogue box are the size of the exported image in pixels. If you dont increase the number of pixels you aren't getting any more information by increasing the dpi, you are expressing the same information in less physical space when printed. say you have an image that is 1000 x 1000 pixels. at 100 dpi it is 10" x 10", at 200 dpi it is 5" x 5". I've also found that increaseing the pixel size in the export dialogue dosen't work(usually causes a crash on mac and pc), you have to increase the size of your perspective marque so the image in physically larger in the file. I hope this makes sense, It's not explained anywhere in the VW or RW documentation, but it is critical to understand if you want really high resolution images. Good Luck

Check your class visibility. You may be creating doors, but the "door-main" class may be invisible causing them to vanish upon insertion. Just a quess. Good Luck

Thanks Daniel, We bought the essentialls and it works perfect. For anyone interested there are several great tools in the Essentials Package.

I was wondering if any one has a solution for this problem. The State of Kentucky is requiring us to submit digital information at the end of the CD phase of our projects with them, It is specified that it must be in Autocad V14 formatt. Seems simple but if you have a VW file with a 1" to 1" base sheet and an 1/8th scale plan and some 1 1/2" details for example, if you export as a dwg all the layer are switched to one to one, making the base sheet tiny in comparison to the plan, and essentially making the file impossible to plot in auto cad. Has anyone seen a script or a utility designed to scale all the objects in a drawing to 1 to 1 while preserving the appearance of the file ( actually changing the size of objects to perserve the look of the sheet)? Or does anyone know of another solution? Thanks

Your Origion is most likely not the same in both files. It is important to know that when you move the printable area it completely screws up your ability to past in place. There has been lots of discussion about this in the forum but I have never seen a formal response from anyone at nemetschek. Its a real pain in the ass. What you have to do is set your origion in the same location in both files and then never move your printable area. If you do there is no way to put it back in precisely the same place. (except revert to saved if you havent saved the file since you moved the printable area) To see where your origion is, turn on your rulers in your VW preferences and find 0,0. Or create a line with the end point of 0,0. Either way works fine Good Luck

To print my renderings I will render the image and then export as image file. In the export dialogue box the dimensions of the image in pixels is listed and you can adjust this #, I have noticed that there seems to be an upper limit of @ 6,000,000 pixels that Vectorworks is able to export. Is this correct or is there a way to export more than that. I've found that the only way to reliabliy controll the resolution of the exported image is to increase the # of pixels exported. So in trying to get the most out of VW in terms of resolution I noticed this apparent limit. Thanks

Use your saved sheets at the bottom left hand cormer of the window. I think there is a good explantion of how to use them in the VW manual. It will save your layer and class visibility as well as your perspective setting and view angle. But watch out if you add new layers or classes, they will default to invisible in previously created saved sheets and you'll think your information is disappearing. You can fix it by editing your sheets visibility settings. Good Luck Michael Becherer Omni Architects

Ed I can relate to your frustration, We've had Renderworks almost since its release and it's been a trial and error process but we finally have a firm understanding of it. The manual only gives the basics of how the program works, not what techniques to use to sucessfully render an image. The best suggestion I can give that has worked for me is using this BB for information. We have several of our renderings posted at www.omniarchitects.com please take a look and If you have any questions I'll try to help if I can. I do believe that renderworks is an excellent tool for developing renderings. We have been very satisified and feel it has increased our ability to communicate with clients and others. But again it take some tinkering to fiqure it out. Good luck Mike Becherer Omni Architects

Go to your "page" menu and select "set print area". Make sure this says "one page" and not "other". We use mac's and sometimes the print area dialogue changes mysteriously to "other" and causes the computer to crash. Good Luck

Never mind, the units are in Square Inches so you have to divide the total by 144 to get square feet.