Joe Newell

Oh that was me tit from one of my wish list items hehehe sorry

Yes, your colours will be all wonky. Autocad uses colours to define line thicknesses. Or at least it used to back in the days of pen plotters and it seems to have kind of stuck. So a dialog comes up asking you to set colours to line thicknesses. I usually just accept the default and change the colours later if I don't like them. Autocad users tend to work on black screens and use light fluorescent colours that don't show up well on the white screen that VW users seem to favour. Scale is something to watch out for. Surveyors will use imperial or metric but the smallest increment is usually feet (or metres) so you have to scale everything up by 12X (or 1000) Vectorworks usually asks you to define the scale when you import a dwg file. I accept the default and work it out later. Up to Version 14 Acad there were no objects as in Vectorworks so everything is lines. This is not a problem importing but exporting to DWG you will lose all your hatches and fill patterns. as well as any opacity. So everything you thought wass hidden is suddenly exposed to view like so much dirty underwear. That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

We don't have a plotter. We need a plotter. We run VW 8.5.2 on a combination of G3's G4's and Imac G3's. WE print to a teensy little HP laserwriter over an ethernet network. What else what else. we need it to plot postscript . Uh ink jet would be fine. My question is, What's everyone else using. I have always thought HP's were the way to go. Am I right? Am I wrong? Could someone give me a lead here since I have been charged with leading the blind. Thanks

That's right!!what a great idea.Throw away all your nasty mackintoshes ignoring the immense cash outlay you made to purchase them in the first place. Shell out more cash for shiny new PCs (complete with a whole host of their own problems) and completely ignore the source of the problem. Super super stable!!!

Is there any possibility that the way a drawing is drawn, set up, organized could contribute to consistant, constant, frequent crashing. of the computer. The crashing is in the form of a freeze of Vectorqworks. There is no message but nothing is happening. I have waited ten minutes sometimes and nothing is unsticking so it is definitely a crash. I can still for the most part force quit VW although sometimes I have a full system freeze and have to restart the computer. This is the same problem reported previously whihc I thought I hade fixed with an updaed Vid card driver and increased memory etc etc and OS 9.2.2 etc etc. It is back. I have been working since 8:30am and it is now 10:00 am and I have crashed no less then 5 times losing about 45 minutes workl. This is counter productive. These crashing issues are losing our company money Any suggestions?? Thanks

Sounds to me like you've got one of them there AI versions of 9.5.1 I have commented on this before. VW seems to be rewriting itself. For the most part the goofs and bugs it writes into its program don't look any different from the goofs and bugs that the original programmers have inserted. It has thus gone undetected. But it is growing and it is getting smarter. Also you may have changed the text size at some point when you think you have selected something and you haven't, thereby changing the default. Or maybe VW deselected things a fraction of a moment before you changed the text size and then reselected them immediately after....

I'd like to add my voice of complaint. I have noticed this too and complained to our former computer whiz who said he would post it as a complaint... he never did...he no longer works here but that's a different story for better sunnier days. When you select that group by mistake as described by titanium, and then you perform some edit function such as move or scale which you believe to be applied only to those objects you think you have selected (remember you can't see the group and you can't see the selection handles of the group because you are zoomed in reall close, the group is edited as well. You then carry on blithely ignorant of what hass happened and exactly 101 moves down the road you realize you have scaled your group up by 1.01 and nothing is the right size anymore or it has moved some fraction of an inch and there are no reference points to get it back to where it was. you can see where this might be a problem. I think it is cause for complaint . The marquee may perform as designed, therefore the design is flawed. Regards

I'd like to add my voice of complaint. I have noticed this too and complained to our former computer whiz who said he would post it as a complaint... he never did...he no longer works here but that's a different story for better sunnier days. When you select that group by mistake as described by titanium, and then you perform some edit function such as move or scale which you believe to be applied only to those objects you think you have selected (remember you can't see the group and you can't see the selection handles of the group because you are zoomed in reall close, the group is edited as well. You then carry on blithely ignorant of what hass happened and exactly 101 moves down the road you realize you have scaled your group up by 1.01 and nothing is the right size anymore or it has moved some fraction of an inch and there are no reference points to get it back to where it was. you can see where this might be a problem. I think it is cause for complaint . The marquee may perform as designed, therefore the design is flawed. Regards

I have a question about 3d gables. In the Vectorworks manual (8.5.2) Page 14-30 it describes how to create a gable using the edit roof dialog box. The box shows a radio button marked gable walls which you are supposed to select and the program creates a gable wall and makes the roof face into a gable roof. But... on the next page there is another picture of a roof edit dialog box which has a radio button marked gable ends. Thi is the dialog box I get. There is no gable wall option and when I select the gable end option the program does not create gable walls, only ends. How do I do it. This is really bugging me since there doesn't appear to be any way to create a smooth gable wall short of making two walls and pulling one end down to have 0 elevation. help someone please.

hahahahahaha No there is nothing like that in Vectorworks You just have to save every three seconds and hope you don't forget. They have a reminder but it is set at a default no I don't want to save. I love this program!!!!!!!

we get that occasionally. I have found it occurs when the file has been renamed or something from the OS when you actually still have it opened. Doing a save as and giving the file a new name usually allows you to save it and so not have a heart attack.

That seems to have worked Cipes. I knew the edit thing worked on wall end points but I didn't realize you could add vertexes to a wall. Thanks. Of course there's still a goof somewhere in the program or in the user manual. Not that anyone cares anymore since we're talking about 8.5.2 Why can't patches be issued? Why do we have to shell out more $$$ when we want to see a fix to the program?

Let me get this straight, because I am having the same problem installing Renderworks on a pentium 4 1.0 ghz with windows XP. It says it's installed but when I go into vectorworks I dont' get the REnderworks installed note on the little startup splash screen like I do on my Mac. There isn't an option to install quicktime. Is Quicktime on the CD or do I have to get it from the Apple site? Do I have to have Quicktime installed prior to installing Renderworks and ...Why does Renderworks say it's installed after the installing procedure when it isn't. All these questions because the CD cover just says sick it in an follow the screen instructions. Anyone??

I will try that. tonight. Thank you, you've been a great help

not if, as I mentioned earlier, the autosave saved to a different file and didn't overwrite the file you are working on. An Autocad standby and lifesaver for the past 12 years or so.

ok.. sorry. I will back up a step here. I am trying to install Renderworks over top of Vectorworks 8.5.1 (not into 9 anything yet) The installation defaults to my Vectorworks folder. When I start Vectorworks after the installation there is no request for a serial number. Also the installation is so fast I am thinking that nothing is really installed anyway. I am talking 5 seconds. If that.

You know what it is?? I just realized. I have been doing this stuff for the past 15 years. I am sick to death sitting in front of a computer screen till 3 in the morning learning how to use the latest version of whatever. Or working on 3 d models to wow the boss. It gets me no where. My boss doesn't even know VW. I am teaching him!! hahahahaha what a laff. I'd rather be kayaking See ya later folks

Well that's the thing you know. I am over the learning hump. I've been using this thing for 4 years. I can churn out a set of drawings design or Working as fast and as pretty as the best of them. But when there's anything new to figure out, it never comes easy. It's like wading through porridge. But I'll check out those courses you suggestThanks

of course thank you all for all your suggestions. I will try what you said and will look up the book you noted. Thank you thank you. Does Vectorworks have a 3D tutorial or anything like that?? And whats a nurb. In answer to the contest winning item above. I only know previously I was using ACAD13 and 12 and 9 and 8 and before that execad and I created amazing models of all the buildings I worked on. I could show you some including a nifty little of one of Botta's houses in switzerland with night and day shots. (execad)and animated fly throughs using 3d studio and ACAD 12. I can't even figure out how to fill a gable in in VW.

I don't care about which program is better and which is playful. All I want to know is how to use the playful little monster. I am stuck against my will with VW and so I am trying to figure it out. And in spite of all your stuff above, it ain't exactly self explanatory. Nothing in VW is.

ha ha ha

one thing I forgot to add. I created a drawing on my computer which works fine and sent it to the imac where the font got screwed up. I created a drawing on the imac, noted the screwy font and sent it back to my machine where it was fine.

That is new problems with fonts, not problems with new fonts... On a new 600Mhz Imac running VW 8.5.2 and OS 9.2.2 , I can't figure out how to get the text to appear unaliased, that is without the pixellated look. I had the same problem on another machine and fixed it by upgrading the Adobe Type Manager to 4.6 and restarting the machine. In this case I already have 4.6 installed and it is running but no joy. Also on the other machine, The text would print fine and smooth, It was only ragged on the screen. On the Imac the text prints jagged. Since I am trying to get my boss up and running on VW on the Imac it is most critical that I get this fixed. Are there any suggestions out there?? Thanks

I really must re-iterate two things. one... 3d in Vectorworks is a nightmare primarily because it doesn't relate to how people see things in 3d. It's a simple concept. x,y,z . the earliest 3d programs, execad, autocad (version 8 even) use it and as a new user I latched onto it instantly and started creatng 3d stuff easily. Boolean operations did what you expected them to do. 3d in VW is nightmarish for someone who understands that simple 3 coordinate system because nothing does what you would expect it to do. hell I don't even know what the oblects are that I create or where they are in 3d space. I draw something thinking it's connected to something else and when I channge the view point it's way the hell and gone what looks like hundreds of feet from where I thought it was. What gives. Is there a book somewhere that explains the reasoning beind Vectorworks three dee space? Item two... Given that we purchased VW with render works thinking we were going to do some nifty 3d walkthroughs and such of our buildings and given that VW 9 apparently has a much easier 3d system (I wouldn't know how easy), Why should we have to pay another $1500 or so to finally get a 3d system we can understand. Why can't you issue a patch to VW 8.5.2. Given that VW undertook to make the system easier to use, I assume that they acknowledge the old 3d coordinate system was a bitch to understand, if they even changed the coordinate system. Therefore. They are fixing a problem and we shouldn't have to pay twice for what we were hoping to get the first time Marketting software is a crooks game, you have to admit, All due accolades to the long suffering techies in here who try to solve our countless problems.

I don't know what I have. Icopied over all the fonts from the machine that works to the machine that doesn't . I have further found that it is Univers fonts that cause the problem, however it is not all the Univers fonts. Univers condensed for instance has a problem while Univers Condensed italic does not. All the Italicized text is ok and all the straight up and down stuff is screwy.