mike m oz

An NNA replacement for Pietro Moras's Motivo4 Automatic Hatch Pattern Generator, previously available from Vectordepot. Creating complex hatches through the Hatch dialog box is quite difficult. Being able to draw a pattern and then have this translated into a hatch which could be applied associatevely would be a real boon.

Jonathon this a new one on me. Are you saying that if you have ctreated a Class of 'Door' it somehow conflicts with the door PIO? OR Are you suggesting that the program spontaneously creates a class of 'Door' which then prevents the PIO from working properly? If the Class 'Door' is renamed by the user will the problem go away, oe does one actully need to delete the Class and start again with a new Class for the doors not named 'Door'?

If what you say is true then as the 'colour picker' and 'Coloursync' are provided by Apple as part of the OS isn't it an Apple issue rather than a NNA one?

Having class and layer pallettes like you mention would be handy, but many users would start running out of screen territory to have them in. Some of what you are chasing is available from third party developers. Checkout the following: Manuel Garcia de Paredes free "Toggle Layers" and "Toggle Classes" mac only plug-ins at VectorBITS http://www.vectorbits.com/ Alexandre Villares' (US$36) "VP Tools" at Vector Plug-ins http://www.vectorplugins.com/ Katerina Panagiotakis' (US$50) "Class Utilities" in the Market section at VectorDepot http://vectordepot.com/market.shtml Petri Sakkinen's (US$10) "Class Struggle (Class Color Utilites)" in the same location may also be worth looking at. Hope this helps.

You can also use the small left and right arrows in the bottom LH corner of the drawing pane to go between recent views. All of the keyboard shortcuts are listed in Appendix A of the VectorWorks manual. They is also a section in the Online Help titled ' Keyboard Shortcuts"

On my Mac when you edit a colour on the Colour Pallette choosing the Slider Colour Picker provides options for Greyscale, RGB, CYMK and HSB sliders. If you have particular colours you want to use then you can create your own custom Colour Pallette. If you assign the colour to each cell using the CYMK sliders you should end up with colours that will print as you want them. You need to be mindful however that it is difficult to match screen colours to print colours, and different printers will produce different results. For this reason my ad agency graphic artist friend sends all of his work to the printshops in PDF format - it provides the most consistant and accurate results, and reduces his risk of a botched print run which could cost him thousands of dollars. [ 02-11-2005, 07:54 AM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

Could it be that when you created the symbol your class was set to None. Then the symbol would have the class of none, notwithstanding that the object inside it has a different class. When I tried it with the Class set to the Class of the object it works fine.

I've had several reports of VW running better on PC's. One of these is from a VW mac using architect - he lives here in Perth, but does most of his work in London so flies back and forward on a regular basis. The office he deals with in London has a mix of platforms and he reports that VW does appear to run better on their PC'S - substantially so. He is quite frustrated by the performance on his Mac and dreads the thought of being forced into switching to a PC. I like many others hope that Apples 'Tiger' release does in fact overcome the current problems with handles, OIP delays, OIP hibernations and the OpenGL rendering issues. If it doesn't more of us may have to consider the switch.

The reason it has no top and bottom is because you extruded lines only - this creates a 'pipe' type object. ie sides only. You should either draw your base shape using the polygon tool, or use the Compose Command to convert your lines into a polygon. Like Katie I am also curious as to why you then want to convert it into polygons. If you are trying to achieve assymetrical sloped sides use 2 polygons and Multiple Extrude. If the 3D shape is sculpted use Solid Subtraction or Solid Addition to achieve what you want. I have just realised why you may want to convert it to polygons - is it because you are trying to apply different colours or textures to the different surfaces? If so can I suggest that you leave it grouped so it is still one object. This will lessen the likelihood of you accidentally displacing one element. You can then enter the group and apply your different colours or textures. You won't be able to render inside the group to see what you are doing though. However if you apply your finishes using classes you will then have a quick and easy way of fine tuning the appearance without having to re-enter the goup..

I haveupgraded to OS X 10.3.8 withot any apparent issues.

You have to open the library drawing and actually delete the symbo(s) you don't want from that drawing. Then save and close it. You can open the library drawing from the browser by selecting the required library drawing from the list, and then selecting 'Open Current Favourite' from the top ciurcular button sub-list. Be careful though as once the symbol is deleted it is gone forever.

So that is where I went wrong I was playing with a stair that was already in the file and that already had all four components. I will try it again to see what happens - yes it does appear to work as long as you choose the component finish after you have created the component. I assume the logic for this is to prevent unwanted classes being created - wouldn't it be better and less confusing for users though if you could do it in either order. Additional unwanted classes is less of an issue for me than having the problem of a class apparently not being created because I didn't do things in the right order. I am an architect and like most of my kind we do not do things in an absolutely logical linear fashion. if you are interested look at the Myers-Briggs characteristics of architects vs engineers - it illustrates our different ways of working and thus why the traditional tension between our two professions occurs. Now all I need to do is test it once I have renamed the four separate components with class pop-up names that are meaninful. If I don't repost it worked. The better solution for me though would be for the PIO's to come with meaningful class names in the pop-up lists. [ 02-09-2005, 08:24 PM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

Jonathon I have tried this on the Circular Stair PIO - this was after I had problems with not being able to have it recognise the selected finish for the stringers. The circular stair has only 4 components which you can apply finishes to - each with a pop-up list of None and Style-1 through to Style-15. After I had finished being 'clever' (or so I thought) renaming the choices I discovered that it would only recognise selections from the first pop-up list, and therefore add these to the Classes list in the document. From this I assume that each of the pop-ups for the NNA PIO's have to have the same list to select from, OR to put it another way that you are still restricted to generic names rather than names which actually communicate something about the component and improve the understanding of users I will admit I haven't tested it on any of their other pop-ups, but if it is the case across the board then it is absolutely useless.

If you do your hatches manually so they are independent groups of lines you could then assign them to unique classes and switch these off when you want. If you use associative hatches the problem is a little more difficult - the best way is to draw a polygon with zero thickness lines and apply the hatch to this rather than to the object itself. Once again you could assign these hatches to unique classes and switch them off when you want. With both of these strategies making changes would become tedious and increase the likelihood of a mismatch between the hatch and the object ocurring. Therefore they are not ideal. VW really slows down when there are lots of hatches or complicated hatches like stonework. For me you are better of trying to avoid them wherever possible. I tend to use fills where possible, and even the bitmap patterns on odd occassions. Being mindful of the actual print scale of what you are drawing can mean that fills and bitmap patterns can be used as substitutes without compromising the 'communication'. Apart from wall components for the remaining situations you can deal with most of them using the classes' graphic attributes. This makes changing the appearance from a fill or bitmap pattern to a hatch at the last moment really easy - just change the fill part of the class definition. It would be nice though to have the option of turning off the hatches globally so that the drawing process could be tackled more quickly. PS - don't disregard the fact that you can turn off wall cavities (ie. components of the wall) at a defined scale in the Drawings Preferences. This does provide the capability of at least removing wall hatches whilst you are working on the drawing. This does translate through to the Viewports. By changing the threshold scale you can then make the cavities reappear for the final output or printing.

Travis I am not that much into programming so i generally try and nut out ways of doing things. sometimes it's fun. This one sounds to me like providing this capability should be added to the wish list.

Travis I know its not a perfect method - it could be refined by included a locus in each symbol at the centre of the arc so that each letter could be rotated by small increments to get the spacing and kerning correct. You could also map the text onto a transparent 3D surface via RenderWorks if you wished. Unfortunately the Arc Text tool is 2D only and therefore will not do what directive0 wants. I have a vague recollection that Julian Carr at OzCAD had a tool at one stage which would wrap text onto a cylinder - try contacting him to see if that is the case, and if so if it is still available.

Just a thought on a way you can do this. - Create the individual letters as Robert suggests above. - Turn each letter into a symbol. - Select the first symbol and with Circular Array space them out around your circle. This will get their orientation correct. (Work out your angle by dividing the arc you want to the centres of the first and last letters by the number of spaces). - Use Symbol Replace on the OIP to get the correct letters in the correct locations. If you then need to adjust the letter sizes you can do it by scaling each letter symbol individually. There is an Arc Text plug-in on the VectorDepot site developed by Charles Chandler which 'Draws text in a an arc shape'. I have never tried it so don't know if it will do exactly what you want - it may be worth you downloading it and giving it a go though.

This is covered in the online VectorWorks Help for the Architecty version. Do a search for the topic: Controlling the View of Windows and Doors

Diana Windoor has the options of selecting whether the trims are applied to any of the head, stiles or sill - but unfortunately it allows for only one size. What you can do however is turn your PIO into a symbol and then add the thicker trim to that portion in by editing the symbol and insderting it manually.

Have a look at Ozcad's Windoor 11 plug in. www.ozcad.com.au It will allow you to model sills on both doors and windows which project out from the wall and project past the wall opening on each side, exactly as timber sills do in real life.

You could create the door approximately as you want it using the door PIO and then convert it into a 3D object which you can edit. Then add a 2D representation in Top Plan View and convert the whole into a Hybrid 2D/3D symbol. Alternatively have a look at Ozcad's Windoor 11 plug in. www.ozcad.com.au With this you can select a panelled door and by selecting 3 panels you will obtain a single panel over two smaller panels.

You can achieve what you want, and much more, with Ozcad's WinDoor 11 plug-in. www.ozcad.com.au Click on Products / Add-0ns / WinDoor - there are downoadable QuickTime movies which will show you what it can do and how to do them.

Diana, you can use the stair PIO to partially achieve what you want: OPTION A - Use the stair tool to make the stair. - Assign a class 'finish' to the stringers and then make that class invisible in the Class Dialog box. - Model your required stringers in 3D - Group the stair object and the stringers you have made to form one object OPTION B - Use the stair tool to make the stair. - Assign the required class 'finishes' to the components - Set the Stringer Width and set the Offset to the -ve value of the width (This puts them outside of the treads). - Go to Top/Plan view and copy the stair - Go to a 3D view and convert the PIO to a group (Organise Menu) - Edit the Group and delete one of the stringers. - Select the other stringer and double click on it, This will takle you into the mode which will allow you to edit its 2D shaoe. - Reshape it using the 2D Reshape Polygon Tool into the shape you want (You could also use Decompose and Compose) - Exit the group which will then give you one stringer as you want it. - Mirror Duplicate this stringer around the centre of the treads to get the other stringer. - Exit Group and go back to Top Plan View - Paste in Place the stair previously copied and uncheck the Create 3D box on the OIP so that you get only the 2D view of the stair - Add any additional 2D linework you require - Select both the 3D object and the 2D objects and linework - Use Create Symbol on the Organise Menu to create a new hybrid symbol of the stair with separate 2D and 3D views. Both methods have the drawback of producing static rather than parametric objects, but there isn't a lot you can do about this.

You are asking for a degree of refinement which is so unusual that it is unlikely to ever be provided within the standard PIO's. Your options are to develop your own PIO's, OR To add your own trims manually - It isn't that hard once you get used to the concept of being in the correct 2D view when you draw the required 2D shape and extrude it. In the good old days of MiniCAD 4, when I started, you had to model it all yourself - it meant you could do almost anything, but boy was it time consuming.

Many programming languages do not handle 0 as a variable value well. Try making your initial tapered extrude variable value something small like 1 mm, expressed appropriately for your default units setting, and see if this makes a difference. This will to all intents and purposes look the same for your purposes. Also try expressing your units without the unit identifier - set them appropriately for your default units settings.