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Conrad Preen

Vectorworks, Inc Employee
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    Product Planner - ConnectCAD
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    Greece

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  1. @R_Teunissen Hi Remco, I'm aware of the demand for this workflow. Implementing it involves some steps, which we are currently taking. In the current version the Equipment Item knows nothing about connectivity i.e. the sockets present on a device. So it isn't possible to automatically create a device from its physical equipment counterpart. However you can create devices from a worksheet. So here are the steps: Create a report of equipment items listing Make an Model Convert to a non-report worksheet using ConnectCAD > Documentation > Convert Report to List... Then create devices from the list using ConnectCAD > Update > Create Devices from Worksheet ... That will get them there today. Moving forward we will create a more streamlined approach. Conrad
  2. Hi @Andrew.Stansfield Assuming we are talking about scripting here, I don't think you will get an event when a record is updated. Probably the simplest is to create a command that copies the changes to all the other instances by traversing the drawing list with a FOREACH. Conrad
  3. Hi @Seth Moak Would it be possible for you to PM me the file? I was trying to reproduce the problem and I didn't see it. Best regards Conrad
  4. @btgroves If you have a reproducible case and you can share the file, please PM it to me with the "how to make it happen" and we'll look into it. Conrad
  5. @Thomas_ thanks again for sharing this. Basically we run into the limitation that software doesn't know what you're thinking... yet... so when you have several paths to the same place plus shared intermediate points it will go ahead like a good little computer and find all the permutations regardless of whether that is a sensible thing to do. Because it doesn't have any idea what sensible is. And I'm afraid the outlook for automating "sensible" isn't very rosy. ChatGPT has read the internet and still manages to spout dangerously plausible nonsense. Separating cable path use by signal type sounds like it might be a reasonably easy thing to add. And it aligns well with good installation practice. So I will add this to the pile of things to think about 🙂 . At the moment your best bet might be to draw Spotlight cable objects that follow your preferred routes through the path network and assign circuits to the cables using the circuit Object Info Palette.
  6. Thanks @Thomas_ I really appreciate your sharing the difficulties you've encountered with me. It helps me to see what adjustments could be made to smooth the way. Yes I think that would be very nice. I'll think about how we could do that. This is a good point too. I'm not sure if it's possible to programmatically determine the "correct" way because that is mostly in the head of the designer. But being able to reverse the sense of a home run after the fact would be neat. Thank you again for your input and the time you have given to explaining the issues. Best regards Conrad
  7. @Sam Williams Best suggestion I can offer is to read up the online help about the ConnectCAD cable numbering system. You can define your own rules for cable numbering specifically for your application. The help explains this pretty well. If you can find a common characteristic of your switches then you can set up rules that give them no cable number. Conrad
  8. Hi @Thomas_ those look like "home-run" style designations. The command puts home-runs in for longer runs to avoid crossing arcs that are visually confusing. In the dialog there's a slider that you can move between all arcs and all home-runs, and any mix in between. There'll be a reason for this. Just tracing circuit X9022 it goes from CTP-DSL to MONITOR4 which is located at the Drop Point CTP-DSR so that implies a cable between the two. Pulling a bunch of cables from A to B is the same as going from B to A. So we merge the B to A cables with the A to B 'cos it would make no sense to have 2 separate pulls along the same path. The software can't distinguish which way around works best in your head so we have to make an arbitrary choice. I suspect it's the same problem - TV1 and TV 2 are mixed up. Hope this helps a bit
  9. @Justin Freeman This ask to have user-defined data synced between devices and equipment items has come up before. So I will look into how we could provide this. Making no promises because it won't necessarily be easy or even possible for any arbitrary data. Conrad
  10. @AaronWillis-SWI We scale ConnectCAD schematic objects ( which in essence are Not To Scale ) to the snap grid so that you can use ConnectCAD at other scales than 1:1. This lets event designers draw there schematics directly on floor plans at scale and get a quick and dirty cable length estimate. Best practice is not to change the snap grid once you have begun. For beginners we recommend you start from the template. Conrad
  11. @EricSeipel The great thing about Vectorworks and ConnectCAD is that you are not forced into a complicated workflow to solve simple problems. If the tape measure works for you that's great - whatever floats your boat !!!
  12. @gkwilson What you have there is a report on the Circuit objects in the drawing. i.e. it shows you what the parameters of these objects are. You can type numbers in to the cells in that column and these will update the corresponding Circuits. If you want to automatically number circuits you can either use the ConnectCAD Number Cables command or the Spotlight Numbering command. Both give you considerable flexibility to define the way you number circuits but with somewhat different approaches. In the online help you will find quite detailed explanations about how these commands work. I hope this helps you. Conrad
  13. @Thomas_ OK the thing with the spare cabling looks like a bug. I can reproduce it here. So I will file that for immediate attention. There is a semi-workaround, when you are using the Edit Cabling tool to add extra circuits do this in Top/Plan view. Apologies for any inconvenience. I'm pretty sure that was working in any view but sometimes there are complex interactions between different parts of Vectorworks. About analysing the network. You will need to re-analyse whenever you have made changes to cable paths, drop points etc. At the moment we have this as a manual command so you can choose when to run a possibly time-consuming routine. This process determines the routes between all the drop points / racks / equipment. One day I hope we will have this working automatically in the background but we have to be careful that it doesn't get under your feet! So for now you decide when. I noticed with your file that Analyse fails because of some devices that (quite reasonably) aren't on the layout. I've made a note to look at the way we handle this because I suspect the drawing remains marked as not-analysed when in fact you know that it's OK. We're not letting the software know this so I reckon we're "over-analysing" a bit. Thanks for raising the issue. Conrad
  14. @gkwilson Sorry I don't quite follow you. What's the distinction in your mind between Hardware and Equipment? You don't need to create schematic devices in order to insert blank panels! Just use the Equipment Item tool to add them to your layout. You can have Equipment that has no corresponding schematic Device and Devices that have no corresponding Equipment. This is the freedom you get with ConnectCAD! C
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