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Kevin

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Everything posted by Kevin

  1. Thanks EricK. I have done the same thing, but it seems like a crime to not take advantage of what is a useful tool.
  2. Agreed. The challenge that I have is mixing decimal feet with fractional. In some cases dual dimensioning works, but I see no way to get the grade tool to display decimal feet unless I set Document Preference Units to decimal as the primary. That then causes havoc with all of my architectural work, that is using feet and inches. What do other people do?
  3. Thanks Jonathan, I have always valued your insights.
  4. Yes, Mitch, you can go in either direction. I am not sure why we are given this choice, as I cannot see how it makes any difference to the user. Whether you go clockwise or counter-clockwise, you still have to travel 360 degrees to close the property line.
  5. I solved the issue that I was having with this tool. The problem was not so much with the tool as with my not understanding bearings. The revelation came in understanding that a bearing can have two different compass points. N 30 30 30 E, is the same as S 30 30 30 W. My surveyor explained that the choice in the survey is arbitrary, as it is the same bearing. However, the Property Line Tool depends on directionality. I needed to tell the Tool whether the next line goes up, (north), or down, (south). Once I understood that, I then saw that I could direct the property lines in their proper direction. When I copied the surveyor’s information verbatim, the tool never worked. But just now, I entered the bearings with the understanding of whether the line needed to go up or down, (north or south). For example, I have a rectangular property, and the survey has both of the north/south lines labeled NW, north/west. When I imputed this data, the Property Line Tool did not work, as the lines went where I did not want them to go. However, given that the Tool is progressing in a rectangular circle, it is logical that one of those lines must be opposite of the other. So in drawing this rectangle, I altered the surveyors bearings by switching north for south, and east for west.. To draw the rectangle clockwise, the first line must go to the right, then down, then left, then up. In other words the line must go east, south, west, north.
  6. I am experiencing the same issue, doing the same thing that Jim did. Trying to create the property line using the dialog was a failure. So, like Jim, I traced the survey with lines and arcs and composed them into a polyline. I converted this to Property Line. NorthWest changed to NorthEast; SouthEast changed to SouthWest, just as Jim is showing. (Not all lines, but some). Is this tool broken or is there a trick that we do not know about? I have never been able to get the Property Line tool to work, so I assumed it was me. Now I am inclined to think that the tool has a bug or problem.
  7. Using VW2017, my file has crashed five times while trying to use the stair tool. It got so bad that the file would crash upon re-opening without me doing anything. How am I supposed to earn a living, when I am spending my time watching my file crash, (and then take quite a long time to reload), only to crash again.
  8. Marissa, thank you for your help. My experience with CAD started with MiniCad which then became Vectorworks. But since upgrading to 2016/2017, I feel like I need to take a college course to figure out these new features. I have no idea what Marionette is or what it does. Is your suggestion simple, or am I going to have to spend days to understand Marionette? I am at a loss to understand why "upgrading software" means that I lose useful functionallity. I was able to go to my Menu Bar and select "prefix classes" and the whole process took less than a minute. Now that I have "upgraded", that menu command is gone. It makes no sense to me.
  9. Thanks zoomer, I will give that a try. The engineers at Vectorworks keep saying that their software now rely on the graphics card and to set preferences at "Best". So I got a new video card. However, as I track the processor loading on my "GTX960 4095MB video card", it never goes over 20% usage, and video memory never goes higher than 30%. This leaves me completely confused on how to solve the lagginess and screen redraw issues. I am already not happy having spent money on upgrading to VW2017. I need a straight answer on this before I aimlessly spend thousands of dollars on a new computer, that may or may not solve the issue.
  10. It is now over 6 months since JimW's last post on this. I am on 2017 SP4 and the screen refresh issue still exists. It is making me crazy. You execute an action and nothing happens. This makes me think I did something wrong, but in fact the action did execute, but since the screen does not refresh, I have no idea that the change was made. I am spending far too much time in zooming in and out to trigger a screen refresh. is this going to be solved?
  11. ermino, you mention "importing old settings" and that you "reset VW". Could you elaborate on this? I am looking for answers on the slowness of VW 2017, and would be interested in your solution. Thanks.
  12. I used to be able to do this in older Vectorworks versions. There is a plug-in on Vectordepot that is called PrefixClasses. I used it on VW 2009, but now in 2016 & 2017 it is disabled. My surveyor would send me a survey file that had 30 or more classes. I would import that file into a new blank document, and with that plug-in, simply give all those classes a prefix of "survey". Now all those 30 or more classes would collapse neatly into the single class heading of "survey". I would then import the survey, and its newly renamed classes, into my project file For me, upgrading Vectorworks to current versions, is taking away tools that I use, and adding things I don't need. Very frustrating.
  13. gmm18, Thanks for such a thorough and accurate reply. You clearly show exactly what I am trying to do. I am glad that VW2008 now does this. I only wish that VW12.5 did it :-(. I really appreciate your time and effort in following through on this.
  14. I do a lot of remodels. This means measuring an existing building to the finished surface, (usually drywall). I then need to draw a floor plan using these field measurements. I have tried using Wall Styles and frankly do not like them. Before CAD we drew walls to represent the studs only. Dimensions are to the studs. This is the way that I have always done it and would like to continue doing so. If I use Wall Styles, the Dimension Exterior Wall command dimensions to the finish material. This is not what I want. Dimensions need to be to the framing, to the studs. This is my question. Is there a way to have separate Classes for wall components? I would like to have a Class for Stud and a Class for Drywall. During the drawing phase I could have both classes on which makes drawing much easier. My field measurements are to drywall and having the physically accurate Wall Tool with drywall will allow placing of wall on the drawing without having to do math with each wall placement, (adding or subtracting for the thickness of the drywall). Once the plan is drawn, I could then turn off the Drywall Class. Now I have a traditional floor plan showing only the studs. The Dimension Exterior Wall command would then properly dimension to the studs. Is this possible?
  15. Thank you for the update. Glad that your situation is resolved. However, your phrasing suggests that other users should be experiencing missing plug-ins. Could you elaborate on whether this situation is isolated to your installation or, as you say, that V12 from VW is missing these plug-ins. If so, then all of us will certainly want to receive these plug-ins that are missing.
  16. islandmon, I for one do appreciate all that you contribute to this forum. Thank you.
  17. Ion, That is an interesting article. It appears to me that in order to install more memory in addition to the factory install that one must remove the factory memory and reorder it. This would mean that there is a good chance that Phil's memory is not installed properly. Having said that, I also get random out of memory messages. They do not appear to affect operations however.
  18. I had to do the same kind of wall. I made 3d blocks, gave them a glass texture and built the wall using the Duplicate Array tool. It worked fine, however it takes FOREVER to render in FQ. All of those transparent glass faces creates a lot of computing. I did not even try to address the grout.
  19. I have the same question. I tried to explore the Alexandria Laundry Lofts file, but it is in the .vwx format and VW12.5 won't recognize it.
  20. I would like to try to help, but I have been disqualified as I do not know what a "developed" crown mould is. Sorry.
  21. I stumbled upon the answer. Under the formating section, the cells were set to "General". Once I changed the format to "Dimension", everything fell into place as feet and fractional inches. My schedule units now read in the same format as those shown in the NNA Alexandria Laundry Lofts example. Thanks to all for your help.
  22. Are you sure about this? I tried your suggestion prior to asking the question. I see no ability to set the units for the column.
  23. How do I change the units in the Schedule? I want my doors and windows to display in inches, but the Schedule show fractions of feet. This is for VW12.5.
  24. Can someone explain the difference between PRINTING to PDF and EXPORTING to PDF?
  25. I don't have a definitive answer, but do have two suggestions: The latest version of VW12 is 12.5.3, so you might want to update that. You might also use FontBook to test your fonts. It can tell you if any of them are corrupt or suspect.
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