Matt Overton

The more I build BIMish models in Vectorworks the more I find I'm having to recreate slab styles as roof styles and vis versa (sloping ceiling, ramps in slabs,...).Either of those as a wall style is also useful for generating details and the wall tool being the best for laying out lines of shell detail. The problem being I end up with two even three resources to then describe what is effectively intended to be the same system. It would be good if the three separate shell styles could cross-over between all the shell tools.

Will the VR walk thru work with a 3d TV instead of goggles?

Going with the manual approach then ... I guess. I sometimes wonder where the Aided part of Computer Drafting is?

I'll support anything that has the goal that similar things should be unified and consistent.

Is there a way to get the Space and it's label to show room dimensions in the secondary dimension units instead of primary? Our Primary is millimetres and we want to keep that for all general dimensions but want to show the space label as metres on different rounding rules. I know I can change primary but that causes issue with drawing transport and other areas. Changing the area was easy I find it odd if the dimensions can be changed why the answer isn't just us obvious.

working with a tech company at the moment and though web 3D could be good but after trying I do agree not client ready. My fear is in current form it's going to set things back not move them forward. Now being able to render a static lighting set up to a nice dense point cloud could be far more presentable.

A section preview would be handy now walls are far more 3D.

I've found with slab modifiers it's generally more productive to go cut the one you need to modify out of the slab. Fix it in context then reapply the resulting polygon(s) to the slab again. Especially given so many standard edit operations send the slab into error.

Even better if the content of the sheet could be a single viewport that auto split its self across the sheets needed. By split I mean not just tiling across pages but putting break lines on each edge with "refer page xxx" and making sure the next none of the content is lost to page margins.

Yes it's annoying, as you have to ask them to release, but they can't at the moment as they are you know working. So down the track they release a sing out across the office. To the point that the talk in the office is not the project architecture but cad stuff so the boss comments we seem to be having lots of issues with the new software. When 95% of those time the change is not going to effect the work the other person is doing. Most of these cases are like what you say small nuggets of pure data, reference tag updates, class settings or new layers that effect a bunch of veiwports. The sorts of changes we don't need to attend but can't put off without effecting work flow. Why can't the system just inject the new data in to the database and be done with it so neither user has to checkout or release.

Could just get the staff member to put their iPhone in something like this and just use facetime. https://www.amazon.com/Action-Mount-Extender-Smartphone-Smartphones/dp/B00V73H02U/ref=pd_lpo_107_tr_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MDG7WDF9P80KF1JF0PR1

If you use the "Plug-in Manager" to set a default class for the drawing label then they insert in that class even when created inside a viewport*. *wasn't sure if "Create Detail Viewport" but after checking it seems to. Now it would be great if the installer had an option set empty default class to None without needing to go through everyone.

I take it then that this should be considered a bug in the wall, slab and roof styles that they don't respect the users choice to Use class attributes at creation not a wishlist item?

Pining None and say the half a dozen of the most recent user selected classes at the top of list could be very handy. Like it is with other very long lists like Fonts.

This and I Agree with Jim Smith. The number of classes generally increases with the complexity of the project, we work hard to keep it down but it happens. The number of line styles is generally static to project size (5 solid various dashed, would be under a dozen 80% of projects). Being able to control lines from one spot would be a massive improvement. Some version of line styles would make it easier to tweak line weights to different scale drawings. We could keep heavy line the same weight while making the lighter lines relatively more bold. In a way not possible with a single scale factor. Oh so left field - Even better would be to embed behaviours in them so we can leave it to the Computer Automated Draftsperson to handle the complexity the computer needs. If we had line styles then part of the style could be a control how that line diminishes with distance from viewing plane (section cut, perspectives and elevations)? So super heavy lines for ground plane could fade really quickly. While say a bold line used for Solid elements might not fade at all and stock and light lines for window details could have linear fade. Bingo - nice looking elevations/sections every time.

In the hopeful case that the engineers are building a system that can auto-display and dimension Storey Levels in veiwports. Would it be worth considering that building grids should also be an organisation system similar to storey levels and layers instead of a graphic element we place? - Then the same code would take care of drawing them on page for us. - Like levels we could then define object relative to a grid or offset from grid (like a column could be X= grid A , Y=grid 1 + 200 , Z = storey 3 slab) Might help with the rounding issues as well. Given this is how we always avoid the problem in large drawings anyway. Dimension critical stuff off the grid allow the float to occur between.

I wonder if the objections to "drawings" would be a lot less if the double handling of information the computer already knows was lessened to significant extent and we could mostly concentrate on telling the story.

Might take a bit of tweaking to get the density of tags right but I can see how we would make use of this. Would be useful if class over rides allow it to be turned off on selected viewports.

In that case I'd still use layers. Lots of layers keeps most classes on by default and easier to manage. So, isolate the effected wall(s) on to new layer and then generate the options as duplicate layers. Once the options are presented and decided you can save an archive copy of file then clean house in the working file. I wouldn't call it best practice it feels like there is a better solution. With new xml text files, project sharing system and the like it feels like we should be in line to tools like GIT that the engineers to handling versioning in the code they use to write the software.

Also, the interaction of project sharing and Layer creation could use some work. The operation shouldn't fail and revert just because one of the affected sheets/Viewports is currently checked out.

Better still use the section viewport checkbox so we don't need to hunt multiply places to find why it hasn't worked.

Yes very much in support of a clean slate set of shortcuts. Move common commands to easy shortcuts. Also, like your suggestion of a category shortcut with refining key. Would help create a fairly logical set of shortcuts. I'd add it would be great if the computer could maybe get the right secondary key based off context. Thinking for commands for clip, join,... where there is a different command for solids vs 2d planes.

A 3D crop would be useful for working with architects who insist all sections should run through the ridge. Then disparage the software when the selected section doesn't run through the right features of the building. We could tweak a section without changing the section line and avoid going through in plane walls, or make sure it goes through the most useful part of a minor detail like a floor hatch.

Why is if I a drag a door out of wall it keeps its orientation, but I then drag it back in it flips 180º?

Have to do a lot more testing in order to get my own confidence up. Would certainly be useful if we can prove it works or find why it doesn't.