Jesse Cogswell

Interesting. I've been using the command maybe as far back as VW2010 and have only ever had Spotlight.

You have it, but it's not part of the default Spotlight workspace. To add it back in, follow these instructions: Go to Tools - Workspaces - Edit Current Workspace Select the Menus tab In the box on the left, navigate to and expand the Architect category. In the box on the right, find a Menu to place the command in, such as Modify or Spotlight - Architectural Click and drag the Fit Walls to Objects command from the box on the left to the desired menu in the box on the right. Press OK

@iHolmes The 3D Connexion mice come in a couple of different varieties. There's the Space Mouse, which is what put the company on the map way back in the '90s and can make navigating 3D views much, much faster. I bought a Space Mouse Compact back in 2016 but its spent most of its time in a box since then. I think it would be great for things like Blender and other 3D applications, but I found it really annoying to use in VW. When moving around in 3D space, it's super smooth and works great, but there's a slight delay every time you release it when the VGM redraws the screen. It's much faster for me to just use the Ctrl+middle mouse button flyover shortcut anytime I need to navigate in 3D, so I gave up the Space Mouse. That said, it works GREAT when using the Walkthrough Tool set in the "gaming" mode. When I need to walk clients through a model, it's perfect for it. But that happens very rarely for me. The other mouse, of which I am a very large fan, is the CADMouse. This is a more traditional mouse but with a dedicated button for the scroll wheel button, and I cannot recommend it enough for VW. There are a couple of programmable buttons with some dedicated VW functions available. My current configuration is almost entirely related to changing views. Scroll wheel click button does Fit to Objects Forward button launches a radial menu with front, top, bottom, left, right, left isometric, right isometric, and Top/Plan available, super easy to bop around different views Back button is mapped to the Ctrl key, so I can do the Ctrl+middle mouse button flyover thing entirely one handed. Also convenient for click and drag + Ctrl duplication. A couple quick caveats about the CADMouse: The drivers can be hit or miss, especially on Mac. I am rocking an old driver because I know it works, but it also means that I have to make my own XML configuration files for each new version of VW. I don't know the current state of the drivers at the moment, they might be great. On Mac, radial menus are restricted to only 4 items, on PC they can either be 4 or 8 items. So my view radial menu wouldn't be possible on Mac. I would stay away from the compact models. I have big hands, so the fullsize Pro model is perfect for me. My partner has much smaller hands, so she bought the compact mouse but had the scroll wheel stop working after a couple of months of use. 3D Connexion has a decent warranty, so they sent her a new one free of charge, but the scroll wheel died again after only a couple of months. They finally sent her a Pro and it's been working ever since. I've had mine since 2019 (when I replaced my old Canon X Mark 1 calculator mouse) and have had no problems aside from the rubber grips on the side wearing out.

There are a couple of things going on here. One of them is that it looks like the export isn't respecting a Clip Cube. Make sure that you have the Viewport fully updated before exporting the PDF, I've seen a couple of things not quite work properly if you let VW update it as part of the export. The other issues have to do with lineweight and default Gray transparency. By default, VW doesn't realistically show lineweight so that it's easier to make sure lines objects are snapped where they should be (and it's also much easier on the processor and graphics card). Whenever I'm editing Sheet Layers (placing sheet notes, setting the Title Block, placing annotations, etc), I make sure that I have Zoom Line Thickness engaged. This will properly show lineweight and will give you a better idea of how something is going to print. This option can be toggled by going to Vectorworks Preferences - Display - Zoom line thickness (slow) or by using the quick preference in the upper right of the mode bar. As for default Gray transparency, it appears that you have a couple of layers set to "Gray" so that they appear transparent. This has an entirely different setting when exporting, and the default value is quite high (69%). I find that 40% is much more appropriate and matches what is shown in VW. This value can be changed through the File - Export - Export PDF dialog box, in a setting called Gray Level for Grayed Layers and Classes. And what @Pat Stanford says about PDFs being a bit tricky with transparency also has merit, though in my experience it shows more when printing the PDF than with the PDF itself, which tells me it's likely more of a printer driver issue.

I think I could write you a menu command to do this...kind of. The scripting functions for importing files are very limited, but there is a function for importing 3DS files that I think would work in this case. No luck on FBX, which is, as far as I am currently aware, not a file VW can currently import at all. There are several topics about it in the Wishlist forum, though, so that might be changing some day. As imagined in my head, the command would open a dialog with a box on the left displaying all 3DS files found within a selected file folder (with a button to select a new folder). There would be a box on the right displaying chosen files. You would select the files from the box on the left, then press a button adding the selected files to the box on the right. When you press the OK button to close the dialog, all 3DS files located in the box on the right would be imported. That being said, the 3DS import function currently only has the option to place the imported objects directly on the drawing, which options to use the original file's coordinate system or to specify new coordinates. There are no controls for managing those imported assets in regards to where they land in class/layer space or Resource Manager organization. Feasibly, the assets would be placed on the currently active layer, so I could include a way to select which layer each file would import to. Unfortunately, there are no scripts to manage .zip files, so any assets would have to be extracted into a folder beforehand. Any possible chance you could post or DM one of these .zip files and I could take a look? I don't have a lot going on next week, so I think I could whip something up in relatively short order.

I think the easy solution in terms of graphic attributes would be to add a Classes Pop-up parameter for the "Crossed Lines", defaulting to match the object's parent class and leave it up to the user to set things like line type, line weight, color, etc. I've also experimented with using "hidden" parameters that store data for particular overrides in graphic attributes so that options will generally follow the class definitions, but can be overridden on an object to object basis. It does end up being a lot more code, though.

Actually, playing around with this a little more has revealed that the internal record field for "Name" and the object's name are linked, so changing either of them will update the other. This means that if you change both of them, like I do in the script above, will result in a "-1" being added since the name is then otherwise in use. If I were in your shoes, I think I would just use the SetName function and be done with it.

There aren't any dedicated functions for Camera objects that I know of, but you wouldn't need anything specific to cameras for what you are asking. If you just want to rename the camera, you can use vs.SetRField to change the Camera's internal record field to the name you desire. The Camera object also seems to have its unique name automatically update from that field, so it wouldn't be the worst idea to also use vs.SetName to set the object to the new name. And you would also need a vs.ResetObject to get the changes to stick. Here's a sample script that changes a selected camera's name to "new name". Keeping in mind that there's no sort of error checking to make sure the name is not already in use or verifying that the selected object is actually a Renderworks Camera. If you need help in how to flesh this out to fully meet your needs, let me know. import vs h = vs.FSActLayer() name = "new name" vs.SetRField(h,"RenderWorks Camera","Name",name) vs.SetName(h,name) vs.ResetObject(h)

The tool uses the Circuit Name and Circuit Number fields of the Lighting Device object to match to a corresponding Distro Label. So the Multicable Name field of the distro label must match the Circuit Name field of the lighting device, and the circuit number must be within the range of the label module (a label with Starting Number of 4 won't see a Lighting Device with a Circuit Number of 1, for example). In this screen shot, we have a 26deg Source 4 at Channel "101", Circuit Name "Mult A", and Circuit Number "1". Likewise, we have a Distro Label Module with the Multicable Name set also to "Mult A" and a Starting Number of "1". When we press the Autofill Circuits button, the tool properly finds the matching fixture.

It sounds like you are trying to use the Select Similar tool to select Lighting Device objects of matching types. While the Lighting Device uses a symbol for its geometry, it is not a Symbol resource, so being set to Symbol Name won't help you here. What you are asking for is possible through scripting, however. There are several paid options for this, such as @Sam Jones's Autoplot, Savvy Select Similar Instruments from @JBenghiat, or this simple script that I made up a couple of years ago: This functionality isn't built into the Select Similar tool because the Lighting Device is exclusive to the Spotlight workspace. The VW intended way to do what you are asking is to use the FInd and Modify... menu command found under the Spotlight menu or to use Tools - Custom Selection. Both are admittedly much slower and more cumbersome than the Select Similar tool, which is why folks have made custom scripts to ease the process.

It took me a moment to realize that you were doing this in a Front, Left, or Right view. In Top/Plan or Top view, the rotate tool works exactly as expected. In any other 3D view, the tool is assuming that you want to set the X or Y rotation parameters using the Rotation tool. This is great when rotating a single fixture, but not so great when rotating more than one fixture. My guess is that they programmed in the feature but didn't program in an exception for when multiple fixtures are selected. Interestingly, if anything other than a Lighting Fixture is selected when you use the Rotate tool, it works as expected. To me this would be a bug rather than a feature. I can't imagine a scenario in which I'd want the rotation tool to work this way rather than the way you are asking for. I also don't know how long this tool has operated like this, but it at least dates back to 2019. I remember doing a plot with an angled truss back in 2017 and don't recall having a hard time using the select and rotate method. For now I would recommend the Group trick.

Unfortunately there's not a quick way to toggle this (it would be great if it could be a Quick Preference), but you can turn this feature on and off by going to FIle - Document Preferences - Spotlight Preferences, selecting the Loads and Rigging tab, and unchecking the Auto-position loads when created and Auto-position loads when moved options. When these options are checked, the fixtures shouldn't try to attach to nearby position / truss objects unless they are moved. I agree that it can be pretty annoying to deal with. The way I get around it is to separate out my fixture and position layers based on where they are (deck, FOH, overstage, etc) and use Saved Views to jump between them. So I'll activate the Deck Saved View, which turns off or grays the overstage layers, when placing deck fixtures, then using the Overstage Saved View, turning off or graying out the deck fixtures, when dealing with overstage business. It makes for having a lot of layers, but ultimately gives you better control anyway.

Unfortunately you have to create your own symbols to make this work. While you can freely rotate the 3D components of the symbol with the Lighting Device X, Y, and Z rotation parameters, the 2D will not reflect those rotations outside of the Z rotation If you right-click the symbol in the Resource Manager and choose Duplicate, all of the fixture data will come across, you'll just have to tweak the geometry a bit. One very quick way to do it would be to go into the Edit 3D Components and rotate the tube to match the orientation that you want, then go into the Edit 2D Components, delete the existing geometry (the circle), right click and select Generate 2D from 3D Component option. Vectorworks will then generate the 2D for you, though it may require a bit of reworking if you want to get picky about lineweights. This method should retain proper counting for Lightwright, but will be a bit tricky when using Instrument/Equipment Summaries. But you would likely need to have them separated out on a key anyway, so it's not that big of a deal.

I personally miss the simplicity and ease of use of the original Attributes palette. With the new one, whenever I try to enter in an opacity, the first click always seems to register on the bar behind and not the percentage. While the new one avoids having to open a dialog box, the old one still feels more effortless to use. I also detest the new widgets used for adjusting gradient or image fills. Tabbing through goes through the fields in an unpredictable order, I'd much rather just have the original dialog box. I also miss being able to turn on line end markers with just a click and having an unambiguous indication that a marker is engaged, rather than having the "no marker" be shown as a marker type.

Set your label legend to use the Universe/Address attribute. Starting in VW2022, the DMX Address, Universe, Universe/Address, and Absolute Address fields are all linked, updating one updates the rest of them. If you want a "traditional" Universe/Address layout, you need to reference the Universe/Address field.