Chris Burton

Thanks for your reply. I just undocked all of the palettes and tried again. They all dock normally, except for the Attributes, which will not dock anywhere.

Has something changed where only certain palettes are able to be docked? The Basic, Tool Sets, Navigation, and Object Info palettes dock normally, but for the life of me I cannot get the Attributes palette to dock anywhere.

Alternatively, aside from the BW webinar that starts with the demonstration of how to link truss pieces, are there any other Braceworks-specific training videos?

Thanks very much Nicolas!

I've watched the 'inserting truss' tutorial, but am wondering if there is something similar for attaching lighting instruments to trusses. I'm currently trying to figure out the best way to take a lighting plot, that is sent to me with straight truss, and replace that truss with a particular type of truss (insert truss) while having all of the lighting instruments attached to the new truss. Adding the truss and hoists is easy, but I don't know where to go from there so far as getting everything attached so that I can calc the rig. thanks, Chris

I know that one license allows you to install the software on two different machines, but can those machines run different operating systems? I ask because I currently have a Macbook and am thinking about buying a MS Surface Book 2. At least for a little while, I'd like the ability to run the software on both machines. if it matters, I am in the U.S. thanks, Chris

Thanks Pat. I'm only ever going to do this once. It was more of an exercise for me to expand my Vectorworks 'skills', which are pretty rudimentary at this point.

In the search through the web, I came across a German company that has a free piece of software that will calculate belt length for multiple pulleys. Mulco Belt-Pilot I ran the pulleys & dimensions through it that I have in my vwx file and it was close to the same result. The linked software uses metric dimensions and the bely length it calc'd was about 1cm longer than what the vwx files comes up with. Vectorworks shows 869mm whereas the Mulco software came up with 879mm. fwiw, Chris

I'll spend some time with it today, but first I'll have to learn some math in order to check the derivation. After I thought I had it completed & functioning, I went back through it a few times, finding a mistake here and a mistake there, so I wouldn't be surprised if the error still sits on my end. It'll be a cool sheet if it eventually functions correctly.

Thanks for the link. I'm working through it with Excel, but can't seem to get it to mesh with what Vectorworks returns. Belt Length, 3 pulley.xlsx

Gadzooks, That's correct. That's what I'm trying to figure out how to do (in the 'simplest' manner possible). thanks, Chris

Thanks very much. Chris

@michaelk Thank you very much. Chris

Hi, I'm brand new here and am not sure where to ask this, but... I have a few questions related to this file. It's supposed to represent three pulleys and a belt on the front of a car's engine. I'd like to: 1) make the lines that represent the 'belt' one single line. Is there a way to combine the six pieces that I have, or is it better somehow to draw it as one line from scratch? I couldn't figure out how to do that accurately. 2) and then is there a way to dimension the length of the 'belt'? 3) bonus question: is there a way to 'attach' the belt to the pulleys so that the belt is resized as the pulleys are moved closer/farther apart? Datsun Pulley Layout.vwx FWIW, I use vwx as a rigger, so I'm familiar with truss, motors, lighting fixtures, and such. Drafting, not so much. thanks, Chris