Conrad Preen

How to report problems. Just to give you the idea, this is how I reported a recent issue. In Vectorworks 2025 do the following: place a default non-rack equipment item (300mm cube) create a new symbol that is also a 300mm cube, select the equipment item in the OIP set the equipment to use the symbol just created Observe that the 300mm cube is now offset by -3mm along the Y axis. The point to note here is that anyone can take these instructions and re-create the problem. They don't have to be inside my head. It doesn't take any more time to do it this way especially when you factor in the amount of time YOU will spend answering follow-up questions from Vectorworks staff. So let's try and cut out the need for guesswork and supply as much information as possible up front. Thanks for listening! Conrad

Okay so after a certain amount of fumbling about I was able to verify this. Looks like rack-mounting offsets are being applied when there is not rack mount set. I think we already fixed this in an upcoming version but I will check. C

Dear Phillip, It is very hard for me to verify this because I have to guess at what you're doing. With the same dimensions as what? It will speed things up a lot if you provide a step-by-step guide that will allow someone else to reproduce the issue. I gather from previous correspondence that you are on Vectorworks 2025 update 5 running on Windows. Conrad

@Greg Abel Well that sounds like yet another improvement project for my list. If it was only about length calculations I would say that these are only an estimate at the best of times. But I do see the point in having top and bottom attachment points for cable paths going to racks. As you rightly surmise this requires changes to the in-rack length calculations and also means that if the user changes the rack size then the length calc is also invalidated. What a tangled web we weave... It's going on the list. But I cannot say for when. Conrad

@Greg Abel That's a great workaround! The answer to your question is that the internal drop point of a rack is bottom conter rear. It has to go somewhere and false floor cabling is pretty common. In the end all this does is affect the length estimates. Unless you are going to design exactly how cables are dressed within a rack and be 100% confident that no unforeseen practical obstacles exist in your cable paths it's best to err on the safe side. And as if that isn't enough cable comes on fixed length spools so there is always cutting waste to think about. If there's a case to be made for much more accurate cable length calculations I'm listening. Conrad

@FKA I've seen arrows used in this way before, and I've seen arrows pointing at the circle with the level number in the circle. Be nice to track down a standard for this kind of thing.

@FKA at the time we were planning this feature there was some debate about how to visualise this. The way people show vertical paths between layers will vary across the world so it would be great if you could post here the icon you would like so we can include it in content when we develop this feature. Conrad

@Brian Lawrence ah right. I didn't have enough visual context to get that.

@Brian Lawrence Not even sure what I'm looking at here. Where do these blue dots come from? What were you doing exactly? Conrad

@Greg Abel perhaps one of the 2 cable paths has become disconnected from the rack? Try selecting each in turn and see if the control point popup menu displays at both ends of each path. If they are connected and we still have this behavior, then please PM me the document and I'll take a closer look. Conrad

@YesChef in the forthcoming new version this will be much improved.

Data Viz doesn't get inside objects. You can override the signal type classes in viewports which would give you the ability to change this for presentation of your drawings. That would be a one-time effort.

Hi @Brian Lawrence ConnectCAD signal type colouring pre-dates Vectorworks Data Viz by many years. So I'm a bit confused here. Are you using Data Viz to colour your circuits by signal type? You don't have to do that. In ConnectCAD Settings you can assign a colour to your various signal types so only the lines get coloured. Isn't that what you want? Conrad

@Alrendir Hello! Avery labels are made in the US and set up for US paper sizes. So... You will need to create a label format specifically for your label stock. So, what you can do is send your Avery labels to a sheet layer and then unstyle the Label Format, rename it, adjust the parameters to the correct paper size, label size and layout, center on page first then set margins to what you measure on your Townstix label stock. Select the worksheet and column you want to print and do a test. If it works export to pdf and you're good to go. If you still see problems re-check the parameter values. If you are using this setup frequently you can also save your label format as a style for future use. Reach out if there are still problems after you've tried the above. Conrad

@Callum Walker Sounds like you changed grid spacing in mid drawing. What version are you using? Conrad