_c_
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Posts posted by _c_
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Michael, there were two persons wearing a mass of curly, bicolor white/black hair, both with olive-coloured skin.
One with a beard, one without. I was the one without. LOL!
Shukri, it was amazing to meet you!
(Shukri was the one with the beard).
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I was there. It was pure adrenalin.
It took me two planes and 15 hours to reach Philadelphia, I come from Europe.
I wanted to be there and I swear, I didn't dream it could turn out to be so exciting, entertaining and interesting at the same time. Someone in the organization really has a deep sense of how to time an event.
We had parties and they were perfect, loud and crowded as they have to be.
Every evening. And even during the event too! At the opening keynote, where each of us was about to politely enter the room, suddenly there was a compelling music and darkness undisclosed all engineers greeting us. Shaken from any whatever rest of countenance, nearly dancing, we got into the room. It was crowded up to the last place. I can tell you that after that everybody was highly excited in anticipation.
Then we had Sean Flaherty telling us the story of MiniCad. I loved it. I am user old enough in many senses but didn't know most of this story. Sean Flaherty made his story humorful, entangling. There was a graph … that graph with the Peak of Inflated Expectations, the Trough of Disillusionment, the Slope of Enlightenment and the Plateau of Productivity, please, can someone post it here? I took a picture but nothing came out of it.
We had conferences and some of them were truly moving.
For example Leo Van Broeck. Van Broeck, if you ever read this, I repeat it: you made my day.
Van Broeck is an insanely charming speaker. He shifted us from the abstractness of a conference participation to the restlessness of wanting to get out and just DO something. Stripped architecture naked. Shot us into an emergency state. A feeling I didn't have since a far time in my past when I pushed for a whole day across chilometers of landslide during a muddy summer in the Alps. The landslide kept on taking me away down the valley and I was deep in it up to the chest. The same did Van Broeck with me.
Some conferences were so shocking, that had to be repeated due to popular demand. Marc Pancera presenting the SwissFEL I saw twice. It's about a particle accelerator in Switzerland whose tolerances are less than 2mm (0,078'') for the 750m (2400 ft) of its length. Millions of tubes. A machine drawn in 3D so large and detailed, that nobody could display it, only the client. Everything had to be changed under the eyes of the client then. He described the project with incredible passion and respect.
We had time for knowing and discovering each other, and that was beautiful beyond what I can describe. Years of mail traffic, private and public, engineers and fellow users, all concretized into hugging humans, shrill calls, laughs and you name it. I didn't know I knew so many people in this VW community. Some friends couldn't come - Molly, Mike, I am thinking of you- we missed you a lot. Next time!
I spoke so much that I lost my voice.
I met Vectorworks when it was a bright child. Used it through its adolescence, occasional falls and rises.
Some of you must have already heard what the next version has in store for us: project sharing, self generating objects à la Grasshopper, energy analyze, 3D objects editing by controls reshaping. I think that Biplap's video with his presentation will be available soon. I won't try to describe it.
Orso thanks you all for this event
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Sean, I saw something similar on Win 7 already.
Please try to reduce the printing resolution of your document. Sheet layers should also be set to a lower DPI resolution.
Experiment with this, it should fix the problem.
orso
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Hello,
a symbol is a "container", so it can have a class but not it's attributes. So there is no picking attributes from a symbol.
There is no inheritance of pen and fills to the objects within.
There is nevertheless group-like inheritance of the opacity, which will be additive: if a symbol has opacity of 30% any object within will also be equally transparent (and if within there are other transparent objects, they will be more transparent).
There is also visibility, which is the main reason for classing symbols.
A fast method to draw objects by class is to use the "create similar" tool which will set the active class and all attributes according to the chosen object, but doesn't compel you to draw the picked object type.
In your case:
* pick an existing symbol using the "create similar" tool --> this sets the active class from the symbol
* enter your symbol
* begin drawing what you need
orso
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Nemetschek can provide us a workaround but the fix should be done by the printer producers. VW is by no means the only application suffering of this issue. This has been told to me by Minolta. It's a well know problem.
orso
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I see the problem also on Minolta printers and Epson Plotters, Windows XP and 7. Filed as bug years ago. I had a big quarrel with Minolta, they are aware of the problem.
As noted in the Knowledge Base Article the issue occurs when on drawing even a singular transparent object is present.
Our solution is to increment the line thickness on class basis, but this is very very cumbersome and not always correct, since the issue is also affected by the layer scale, which is often mixed across the different Viewports on the same Sheet layer. It takes loads of plotting paper for testing. And you can't but test on the very printer where you need to output (results are printer specific).
For the amount of plotting paper that we wasted on this, I filed at one point a wish request to have an option to manually increment the line thickness upon printing/exporting to PDF. The option to disable GDI isn't feasible, since thus permits wouldn't have the needed layout.
Give us the option to increment line thickness please, storable on VP-basis.
orso
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Once you have imported the layers and classes, you could cut and paste viewports from one file to another.
You can't simply copy/paste Viewports across files (alert with error), but there is a trick: group them, then copy and paste them. Then remember to give them a name, because they are unnamed after this process, which isn't a good thing.
This is valid for Sheet Layer Viewports.
orso
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Hello,
I work with large files.
Is there a chance you to reduce a file and post it here? I'll be glad to look into it.
Alternatively you can post me privately. If I find the issue I'll file a report for you.
orso
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if you get writer's cramp though holding the pen for long periods!
No (average time at the tablet: 10 h/d).
The pen is extremely light, much lighter than the smallest pencil and doesn't even need to touch the tablet.
If you wish to know how it feels, find a feather, hold it loosely in your hand and "dust" some surface with it.
This is exactly the feeling you have with the stylus pen. It's joyfully relaxing.
o
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How do you zoom?
By keys in marquee mode, and obviously all generic zoom shortcuts (see the help).
I use the keyboard for zooming also when I have the mouse. It's much faster and again more precise.
BTW tablets come with many mappable functions and buttons, among others also zoom stuff which works very well.
orso
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Cadplan,
buying myself a tablet three years ago was probably one of the few really good things I did. Much faster, preciser to draw than any mouse I ever tried.
Wacom Intuos 3 (I think), A3-size (very large, purposefully for moving the arm much).
BTW it also cured 1) back aching 2) painful arm injury 3) loss of capability to write by hand.
Now I can write again. Not that I need that much in the age of computers, but it was disquieting to have lost that capability.
orso
much too much time at a computer
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30 seconds + to wait for a regen on a set of viewports
If you mean 2D stuff, is long. I don't see such a thing on both Mac and PC.
You can post here a reduction of one of your files and your complete preferences' set.
I can give a look.
orso
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Hi Ride, use the marquee mode.
C or V key and draw a marquee, navigate with the pan mapped on (on my German keyboard) Y. You'd perhaps have Z, if you have a querty keyboard.
This would be the old default setting.
Nowhere can you be as fast and precise. Try.
The scroll wheel is insufficient, lack of precision. In every graphic application. And is never as fast as drawing a marquee exactly where you need it.
BTW, it's well learning shortcuts for zooming. It takes two minutes, it returns a lifetime advantage.
Ctrl + 4, 6.
No big business even for really forgetful people, I am sure you agree.
orso
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Hi Ride, unregarded the fact that I see no large delay on both Win and Mac upon scrolling, using absolutely standard, mediocre and oldish machines, and this on really large files, please try using keys for zooming in and out.
This will work instantly.
The key for Zoom in and out are settable in the workspace editor. I use "C" and "V" with the marquee mode on a qwertz keyboard since is a comfortable combination. BTW it was the old settings long long before the scroll wheel was introduced. Teach it each colleague coming to work with us in the office and all are absolutely happy.
Mind, in no application using the scroll wheel is faster than using the keys.
Call me hard, but I expect the usage of keys for such basic commands from persons spending more time over their CAD than with their own families.
If the scroll wheel for some reason doesn't work for you, you have this -in any case- more efficient and advisable way to achieve your purpose.
orso
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You don't do yourself or your office a favor.
VW 2011 is far superior than 2008. Far. Specially for 2D drawings. Compare the features.
I don't sell this thing.
Use it to the top of its possibilities, I believe. It's just that the price/benefit is unbeatable, might well have a bug or two, still what you get out of it is a gigantic lot for a really minimal price.
Can teach new colleagues in the office in few days with no effort. The application is easy to learn and to use proficiently.
Our job:
construction drawings on existing buildings, average project type dwelling blocks from 1800-early 1900 with some 5-6 floors and about 40-50 flats. Museums. Lots of technic (try to build in Germany please).
We draw DIN-compliant details in 2D for more or less every conceivable corner, calculate quantities and costs. 3D we use for the acquisition phase and for the building shell, so that quantities generate by themselves.
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Great job, gnkarch!
Big help for who knows how many people!
orso
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Matt, thank you!
Too nice!
PS
Sophie, if you don't know how to install the plug-in:
* open your Application preferences
* click on the tab "User Folders"
* click on the button "Reveal.." (I don't know how it's called precisely in Vista)
* open the Vectorworks' folder that will autoselect in the next window
* Save the uncompressed copy of Matt's plug-in into the "Plug-ins" folder there included
* Restart your application
* Open the Tools>Workspace Editor, click on the tab Tools
* Add Matt's plug-in to your current workspace (or a copy) dragging it from the left to the right in a palette of your choice.
If you did know how to install, my apologizes. But great many don't know.
orso
(Matt sorry that it took me so long to discover this, but I am on my way down south, long long car ride to IT! soon no internet at all. I just could sneak a stolen connection using Ax's IPhone).
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How nice Mike, thank you
One day I'll script myself this using the formulae.
o
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Hi, it's a bit tricky:
there is the Worksheet preference "autoRecalc". If that is TRUE, the worksheet will
* before VW 2011 or 10 (I should check) using the command "recalculate" would recalc ALL worksheets whose pref "AutoRecalc" was true. Both running "Recalculate" from inside an open Worksheet window or contextual menu.
* in the current version, the command "recalculate" will recalc all worksheets, unregarded if their option autorecalc is on or not.
I find this good, because too often I have about 50 worksheets and no wish whatsoever to miss one from recalcs which are tied to loads of referenced data. I am VERY happy that now "recalculate" fetches everything.
When you script this kind of action you should remember that worksheets will only recalculate by script upon running "RecalculateWS" if their autorecalc flag is active. So you need to
* fetch handle to worksheet definition
* check its autorecalc state using GetWSAutoRecalcState, store it
* if this returns FALSE, set it to true using SetWSAutoRecalcState
* RecalculateWS
* set SetWSAutoRecalcState back to previous value
* refresh worksheet images using ResetObject, because they won't always do it alone.
You use SetWSAutoRecalcState setting it to false a lot whenever you are changing lots of cells by script, otherwise you have a terrible performance issue. Really important.
BTW if you wish to learn more about List Browsers, there are a number of sub routines on Vectorlab and also a detailed article.
* article about LBs (in three parts)
orso
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The fence would be the "connect combine tool"
- select your objects
- activate the "connect combine tool" in the first modus
- while pressing the Alt key, click on one of the objects to be connected, if the option "tool highlights" is activated in your application preference, the selection should become red.
- drag the selection to a boundary object. They will all extend/crop to the chosen boundary.
If you don't press the Alt key, you need to click each object singularly until it highlights for it to connect.
While using this tool you can read the mode bar, which will lead you through the expected steps.
orso
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Hallo myf, do you have Fundamentals or Architect?
"Out of the box" the drawing border is very far from what we are used to.
But you can customize it to make it look much more like the typical German drawing borders (more technical).
Play around with the settings: disable the zones, the grids, enable a suitable page folding according to your sheet size and take care that the line thickness is proper. Then make yourself a usable title block symbol, which might take some time, according to your experience with records and attributes (it does take quite a lot of time for me, to make a good title block symbol
).orso
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This is not a good advise, Farookey.
Each user in the group will keep on rewriting the settings fully unconsciously. Placing user folders on a shared driver does NOT mean that the settings are shared. It just means that each team member overwrites.
At least on Windows and according to your server settings you might get into quirky troubles having user rewriting settings at the same time.
A file such as SavedSettingsUser.xml will nead to read and rewrite continuously at each opening of certain dialogs.
The proper location for shared resources is a Workgroup Folder, but settings/workspaces placed there are always ignored.
If you upgrade versions, for example from VW 2010 to 2011 (not builds such as from SP2 to SP3) it is also HIGHLY advisable to restart from scratch and never recycle both settings and workspaces.
orso
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Hi, I saw this happening on Windows 7 and couldn't reproduce. Both on Windows 7 and Mac I can edit the notes without any problem.
orso
Vectorscripts have stopped running
in Vectorscript
Posted
Ciao Sam,
post me please one of the scripts that are not running for you. You can PM me and I will answer you privately.
Are you really running the scripts you mean to? I, for example, maintain multiple folders of my plug-ins for each VW version, but all of them use one singular source as includes. Then:
I use aliases/links to load a whole plug-in folder from an USB stick, the plug-ins files load the includes (text files). The alias to the plug-in folder I place either in Workgroup folder or in a User folder, depending where I am consulting. In this way in a couple of clicks I always have my own stuff running in any office I go to, unregarded their settings.
What sometimes happens, is that I load a wrong folder or I misspell a folder name (such as "Plugins" instead of "Plug-ins").
Then I see the silent failure of all my stuff, like by you, because the plug-ins load, but not the includes.
Did you enable the Compiler mode? I am perhaps redundant now: the enablement of the compiler mode changed since VW 2014. It is now found in Vectorworks Preferences > Session > Run scripts in developer mode.
Let me know how I can help you.
best regards,
orso