mdawson69

Thanks, Jim.

After years of using Vectorworks 9, I am evaluating Vectorworks 2018 to determine if Fundamentals suits my needs or if I will need to bite the bullet and get Architect. Thus far, using the Fundamentals workspace has allowed me to work within the default setup for Vectorworks Fundamentals, but it can be misleading as it omits some things that are available in Fundamentals. For example, I found out that while they do not appear by default the Door and Window tools could be added to the Walls toolset because it was explicitly noted in the online help. Otherwise, the online help offers icons to note features that are only available to certain Vectorworks products. I am now exploring some of the plug-in object options and noticed that there are tools specifically for adding cabinets to drawings. The Furn/Fixtures toolset does not appear in the Fundamentals workspace and the online help does not have an icon indicating that the feature is not available in Fundamentals. My uncertainty is due to the fact that there is also no text or subsection explicitly indicating that this toolset is available in Fundamentals as there was for the Door and Window tools when I looked them up. So, is the Furn/Fixtures toolset available in Vectorworks Fundamentals?

Actually, I have no issue with absurdly large screens—and really, is there such a thing —and was not arguing against them. My point was that Bernard should consider a dedicated computer display over a television; although ultimately it comes down to his preference. Dedicated computer displays are available in the 30+ to 40-inch range, but the selection is far slimmer than displays in the 20 to 30-inch range. Now that IPS panels are more commonplace than they were in the past—at least amongst Dell’s offerings and Apple has been using IPS panels near exclusively since the early 2000s—, dedicated computer displays are much better than any HD/UHD television for computer use. The exception to this rule are true LED TVs as they do not require backlighting and, therefore, do not suffer from the off-angle color shift issues evident with televisions that have fluorescent or LED backlighting. As I noted in my previous post, using a television as a computer display is often the better choice in environments where you have a need for very large displays, as dedicated computer displays larger than 40-inches are rare to nonexistent. I also need to correct something that JimW mentioned, as I think he may be conflating a few things. Back in the days of CRTs computer displays and televisions were effectively different devices. In the US, television broadcasts followed the NTSC standard of an interlaced image at ≈30 fps. Thus, old tube televisions had to have a refresh rate of at least 60Hz and there was little reason to exceed that. Also, televisions did not have pixels in the sense that we tend to think about them now, but NTSC televisions had an effective resolution fixed at 640 × 480. Due to overscan in analog TV the viewable resolution as actually less. CRT computer displays were progressive scan devices that typically had a recommended resolution with a 60 Hz refresh rate, but unlike TVs, computer displays could work with a range of resolutions. Often, one or two higher resolutions could be displayed at reduced refresh rates and several lower resolutions could be displayed at higher refresh rates with the former case having the caveat of the screen image appearing to be fuzzy. With the advent of flat panel displays and the conversion to digital television, excepting their inputs computer displays and TVs became more similar. All modern televisions are progressive scan like computer displays and computer displays are now standardized at a fixed refresh rate of 60 Hz like TVs. In fact, higher end TVs are more likely to have refresh rates of 120 Hz or more. If I recall correctly, gaming displays may also have higher refresh rates, but I never have a need to look into such displays, so I am not sure. The case where computer displays fall short of 60 Hz is typically due to limitations in connector technology. Higher resolution requires more bandwidth and while most computer display connectors that are currently readily available can handle transmitting a signal for UHD and 4K displays, they do not have enough for 5K, let alone 8K, displays. The way display manufacturers and computers work around this is two-fold. In order to retain a 60 Hz refresh rate, OEMs can design their displays to get the required bandwidth by using two Displayport 1.2 cables. So if your computer has two DP ports—I have not seen cases of two HDMI ports being used and it may not be supported—, you would use both to drive the one display. Barring that method, an OEM may produce a 5K display that has or reduces its refresh rate to 30 Hz so that the display can be driven with a single HDMI or Displayport 1.2 cable. Displayport 1.3 has more bandwidth, but has yet to be widely adopted. In fact, Intel dropped the ball on including the DP 1.3 protocol in the Thunderbolt 3 interface as they originally planned, but because Thunderbolt 3 has considerable bandwidth it can drive a 5K display on a single cable. Unfortunately, Apple is the only computer company that supports Thunderbolt-driven displays, so other than the LG model developed for Apple, the Thunderbolt display market is nonexistent.

Televisions are really not suited for use as computer displays outside of using them as large displays in conference rooms, so I would recommend researching dedicated computer display that are designed for 2 to 3-foot viewing distances. Having read this thread, I would recommend something like the Dell P2715Q, which I use as an external display for my 27-inch iMac Retina 5K at work. A 27-inch display is the sweet spot for large displays and this model is currently on sale for just under $400; it was $600 on sale when I purchased mine back in 2015. Dell has a number of 27-inch “4K” displays available, but for the price and quality, the P2715Q is an excellent display with which I have firsthand experience. Also, unlike any HD or UHD television, many Dell displays have an IPS panel, so there is no color shift or loss of contrast as your line of site shifts away from the center of the display. (Televisions and cheap computer displays typically use TN panels, so there is a considerable shift in color, brightness, and contrast the more off center you are from the display.) I am currently evaluating Vectorworks 2018 on my home computer which is the same as what I have at work, a 27-inch iMac Retina 5K. At 5120 × 2880, the 5K display of the iMac is 4 times the wide quad-HD (WQHD) resolution that was typical of higher-end 27-inch displays prior to the widespread availability of the ultra-high resolution displays over the past 3 years. I assume that you may not be too familiar with display and television resolution standards, but officially high definition (HD) is 1280 × 720 (720p), what most people typically associate with as HDTV (1080i/1080p) is Full HD with a resolution of 1920 × 1080, and what most people egregiously refer to as 4K due to false marketing claims from manufacturers is actually Ultra HD or UHD with a resolution of 3840 × 2160. True 4K resolution is a theater standard set by DCI and the resolution is 4096 × 2160; the name is actually derived from the horizontal resolution that is 4 times 1K (1024) pixels across; so UHD televisions and displays would actually be 3.75K. As Tom mentioned, scaling can be an issue with Windows-based systems. As a Mac user, I have no issues with scaling as OS X/macOS have automatically handled scaling the UI to screen size based on resolution for years now. For instance, on my iMac, icons, windows, text, etc., all render on-screen at the same size as they would have been on older 27-inch iMacs with WQHD resolution, but because my display has 4 times the resolution, those same objects appear much sharper. Manual scaling has been a feature of Windows from as far back a Windows Vista/Windows 7 if not Windows XP. I have not used Windows 10—I run Windows 8.1 in virtualization on my work computer to be compatible with our clients in the federal government—, but from everything I have read, Microsoft has made considerable inroads into catching up with macOS with regard to automatically scaling screen elements on ultra hi-res displays in Windows 10, so you should not have to worry about going into the display settings and forcing the issue.

I actually looked into that based on what I read about plug-in objects in the online help. As it turns out, that seemed to be the issue. Although I explored the addition of default classes before I missed the correct class because it was not obvious. The doors and door swing line are apparently in the Sill class; I tend to think of sills with regard to windows, but technically doorways also have sills. Similarly, the window sashes were in that class. Now that I know the problem was due to default class visibility, I now know why doors and windows that I added to the old drawings using Vectorworks 2018 were initially visible then suddenly began to not display correctly. My old drawings have saved views, which were called “sheets” in Vectorworks 9, so it took some time for me to find the (renamed) feature. Once I found out that sheets were now saved views and began using them to navigate the drawing, the default classes added by the new doors and windows were deactivated, as they did not exist in the original drawing. I have updated the saved views to include the Sill class. Thans for your help.

I am currently evaluating Vectorworks 2018 in order to replace my old Vectorworks 9 installation. Long story short, I am not a professional draftsman, I design houses for fun, had an academic license for Vectorworks 9 when I was in college, I prefer the Vectorworks workflow paradigm to the AutoCAD paradigm used by most CAD packages, time flew by, yada, yada, yada. One of the first things I needed to learn with 2018 was converting my old Vectorworks 9 drawings to Vectorworks 2018 drawings. Easy enough. I eventually noticed that plug-in objects, such as doors and windows, were locked; that is, I could not change their parameters as nearly all were disabled. I learned about the Update Plug-in Objects feature. Again, easy enough except one caveat. When I updated plug-in objects in a converted old drawing I noticed that doors and windows were not properly displaying in 2D plan view. Both object types showed as breaks in their respective walls, but not much else. Windows only showed the jamb and sill/stool, or perhaps just the wall lines, but the framing was not present. Doors only showed the jamb, but the actual door and swing line(s) are not visible. This issue also appears in older drawings that have been converted, but in which I have not updated the existing plug-in objects. When I create new doors or windows in these drawings they initially display these objects as expected, but after working on the drawing for some time they eventually begin to effectively display in the 2D plan view as cased openings as I described previously; the existing doors and windows that have not been updated display fine. Once the issue arises any new door or window added to the drawing improperly displays incorrectly upon insertion into the drawing. Note that in 3D views, all doors and windows have thus far appeared to render as expected. I have been using my exiting drawings to evaluate Vectorworks 2018 to date, and I plan on attempting to redo one of my simpler homes in 2018 from scratch soon to get a better feel for the new workflow; obviously there have been considerable UI and workflow changes since Vectorworks 9. As such, I do not know if this issue arises in native Vectorworks 2018 drawings although doors and windows that have inserted into new blank drawings appear to display as expected. Has anyone else come across this issue of plug-in objects not displaying properly in 2D plan view? If so, does anyone know what causes this to occur and if this issue only occurs with older drawing that have been converted?