jcogdell

Have you tried turning off the VGM graphics cache in the document display settings?

The problem you have run into is that currently Spotlight and Braceworks will not calculate structural beams and the related panel/connection points between structural beams. The Structural member tool from the rigging tool set is primarily a design tool that was originally developed for the architectural side of Vectorworks and had the ability to connect with bridle added later. However I am encountering more and more users here in Europe, that like yourself would like to be able do this. We are discussing this internally but I have no idea when or if it will progress onto the roadmap for development. The only partial solution I can offer at the moment is to layout hanging points to represent the specific panel points on the structural beams and then use the load overview dialogue form the braceworks menu to get an overview of how much total weight is in the roof or areas of the roof (you'll need to use layer and classing for this) On the subject of tutorials have you looked at the Vectorworks University?

please DM me the file and I'll see if I can figure out the problems

sorry misunderstood the question please ignore my first answer.

Also forgot to ask what mac OS are you currently running? If you are using an OSX older than 10.15 Catalina that may be part of the reason for the problems since 2022 requires OSX 10.15 or 11

@Fergy I followed your work flow as described in the previous post, the only thing I noticed was that I had to turn on the event-scenic-curtains class in sheet 1's viewport, before the drape was visible there Please let me know if you are still having problems

Additionally the Braceworks System check commands can be added to your workspace without needing a Braceworks license. Although they don't do a full calculation (they just check for physical errors that would prevent a calculation) you can add these menu commands into your workspace and use them to get a feel for the Braceworks calculation overview dialogue

@JMiller that is the designed behavior, a flexible/pliable truss cross is designed to represent fixing the pipe with a steel rope or some other form of non rigid (movable) attachment method (which in the case of an out-rig pipe would be dangerous), where as the fixed definition is to model a rigid or hard connection like when using doughty clamps or burgers. I not 100% sure whether this is bug, as I can kind of see why it might get triggered. I'll contact the developer and ask about it. Not all warning/error messages will prevent a truss system from calculating, typically as long as the issue will not physically prevent the calculation then Braceworks will calculate the system. The issue highlighted may for example just refer to a potential documentation problem like having several hoists with the same ID.

Check that you don't have enable vertical offset toggled on in the insert connection tool mode bar (its the green tick icon to the right of the tool preferences)

another option is to use the insert load tool from the rigging tool set, once the load object has been inserted go to the OIP and tick the Show symbol box then hit the select symbol button to convert the default geometry into a symbol of your choice

Hi Dave if you are using 2021 or 2022 the distributor tool from the new cable tools will allow you to attach distro boxes to trusses and have them included in weight calculations. in 2021 the distributor tool is located in the preview tools palette, which you may need to turn on in 2022 the distributor tool is now in the lighting tool set or you can in the resource manager navigate to Vectorworks Libraries Defaults>Cable Tools and look in one of the distributor folders select the distro you want by double clicking on it and insert it on the truss as normal

I can't reproduce this in 2022 or 2021, could you send me the file so I can figure out what is going on? (send it by DM if the show is confidential)

Hi Martijn can you share the file with me? What build did this appear in? (normally this message should only appear in development builds) Gruße Jesse

Hi Leppi I've had a look at your file this seems to be because of the hanging angle of the bumper, if the bumper has a hanging angle Braceworks assumes that it needs a second motor. This looks like a bug, from what I can tell it only appears when multiple hoists are used. I'll get the bug report in. If you don't want this included in the Load overview you can use the load filter to turn if off. I haven't found a way to turn it off for the create report command though. Gruße Jesse

As far as I can tell the behavior for the Fixture ID attribute of the label legend is the same in 2020, 2021 and 2022, in that it references the instrument type parameter of the lighting device. You will need to select channel or unit number in the edit label legend dialogue to display these parameters in a label legend.

open the resource manager, right click on the symbol and select attach record from the context menu. You may need to import a truss symbol into your file to make sure that the truss record is available to attach to your custom symbol

Can you send me the file with the problem so I can take a look at it?

I'm working on a set of detailed skill videos for the new cable tools, as soon as they are finished I will let you know

I had a quick look at your file and as far as I can see the issue is the H30V C017 corner has the wrong dimensions in the geometry pane of its Truss properties, by default it is display L1 as 710mm and it should be 713mm. I'll get a bug report into the content team to have the symbol corrected in the default libraries In the mean time to fix this in your current file right click on one of the H30V C017 truss corners and select 'Customise truss symbol data' from the context menu this will open the truss properties dialogue in the geometry pane change the contents of the L1 field to 713 hit ok to exit this will correct the symbols definition. You will need to rebuild the truss system to get everything correctly lined up (if you look closely you can see the the cross corner in the center is not correctly lined up with most of the straight truss sections) Also make sure to save the symbol into your user or workgroup folder so you don't have to fix it again for future projects.

At the moment it looks like we don't have this in the library, If you are a Service select member you can make a fixture request through our customer portal in the support page Otherwise you can contact the UltiRender team (our Finnish Distributor) and ask them to make the request for you

I will make an enhancement request, this is happening because the house rigging point tool converts the symbol into a parametric object which then blocks the record being visible in the data pane. If you ungroup the hanging point object after insertion the data record will become visible, however this will break the house rigging point object and convert it back into a symbol From my understanding this is the default behavior in Vectorworks whenever a symbol is converted to a parametric object by a tool and the few exceptions to this rule (like lighting devices and trusses) have been specially engineered to allow specific records to still be visible in the data pane

Yes this is fixed, I just checked it to make sure (2021sp4) and as far as I can tell it is behaving correctly

In this generation of the cable tools Distributor objects are primarily designed to document/display how the system is connected, so there is no way to document the individual MCB's (breaker) and RCD's (differential breaker). The work flow for creating a distributor object is create or select a symbol for the distributor object in the resource manager right click on the desired symbol and use the attach record command to attach the 'CableDistributorRecord' by ticking it in the attach column while still in the attach record dialogue select it (highlights in blue) and hit the edit values button to open the record and fill in the data. For the Input type and output type fields you will need to use the connector universal name from the Cable Connectors xml file (found in your application folder>Libraries>Defaults>Cable Tools) exit the dialogue and save the new distributor into your user or work-group folder.

Hi Ben There are 2 related problems that you are dealing with here When using Daisy chain mode you have to make sure to set up the auto-numbering to use the same cable run ID for each cable in the chain, or only the first cable in the chain will be given a cable run ID as it is the only cable directly connected to the breakout. If the cable doesn't have a cable run ID there is no data to push to the lighting device At the moment the lighting device circuit name and circuit number fields only get data pushed into them if the cable object is connected directly to a breakout. I will put in an enhancement request to have this behavior improved, ideally the lighting device should document the connected cable no matter what it is connected to at the other end. At this point in time the only option in Spotlight is to create a custom report documenting the lights circuit name, number and wattage.

From looking at the ACT notes about the plugin it was fixed fin Vectorworks 2019.