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Conrad Preen

Vectorworks, Inc Employee
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Posts posted by Conrad Preen

    Anyone want to share examples of connectcad projects or workflow?

    in ConnectCAD

    Posted

    Hi Daniel,

     

    Let me try to deal with some of those right away and come back to you on the others.

    15 hours ago, Daniel Dickman said:
    • Room Tool - Is there any way to use the room tool on the schematic design layer. When I was drawing my schematic views, I was already drawing rectangles to define location/rack. When I finally got to a point where I was ready to drop gear into racks, it seemed like double work to draw all of the rooms again on the rack elevation design layer. I would be awesome to define all of these location in the schematic view. Then use the update elevation function when i'm ready to define where gear lives in each rack.

    Right now the answer is no. And if we did this we'd be confusing physical space with schematic space. I will think about it but I can't promise anything. It sounds tricky.

     

    15 hours ago, Daniel Dickman said:
    • Cable Type Tags - Is there a way to move multiple cable type tags at once? After using the reroute tool, I would find myself having to reorganize all the cable tags one by one to make them line up again.

      Re-route is working fine for me. I select all the circuits with the tags in the wrong place, then move the cursor over the tag that's in the right place so it highlights red, click and they all line up. If that doesn't work for you let me know which version you are on and I'll sort you out. This is fixed.

    16 hours ago, Daniel Dickman said:
    • Data Patch Panels - Using the Data Term Panel Tool, how can I define the connector on the front AND back of the panel. Our RJ45 patch panels typically are punchdown on the backside and would like to call that out.

    Punchdown implies that no connector is to be fitted to the cable end, but it is stripped and terminated in situ. This is very like custom connector panels where the cable inside the box is soldered or crimped to the chassis connector. In these case the socket orientation is X, and the type is IN or OUT. And thus the circuit calculates the connector type on the inside of the panel is '-->' or '<--' depending on whether the chassis connector is  input (accepting a connection from the left) or an output (connection towards the right). To model these we'd need two different symbols for input and output and the way to select the right one. All the part are in place, it's how we put them together. Leave that with me...

    16 hours ago, Daniel Dickman said:
    • Connector Panel - Similar question as above. How do I define the connector on the front AND back. Some of our DMX venue outputs are terminal strip inside the Jbox. Some RJ45s are punchdowns in the JBOX.

    I think you may as well just create a 'slim' device for these. Connector Panels are based on the idea that bare ends are soldered or crimped to the back of the chassis connector.

    16 hours ago, Daniel Dickman said:
    • Symbols - I've seen a lot of suggestions in this forum about saving connectCAD devices as symbols for re-use later. I was doing this but then once I started connecting devices, I would realize that a socket would have its signal set incorrectly. I attempted editing the symbol in the resource manger to set the missing socket signal, but the exiting instances of that symbol would did not update. Is there a way to update existing instances of a symbol so I don't have to edit each one individually?

    That could have a lot of unforeseen consequences. Which is why we don't use symbols directly but convert them to groups first. But this could be a nice power-user utility provided it is well-designed to show you specifically what is being changed. I'll keep the idea in mind.

    16 hours ago, Daniel Dickman said:
    • Patch Panels - Turn off Rack name - My rack names are typically something like NWK-001 or LTG-001, these tend to be too long and over lap with the connector type in the schematic drawing. Is there a way to turn off the location name besides deleting from the symbol?

      If you edit the symbol 'VJX_label' you can remove this linked text specifically for patch panels.

    16 hours ago, Daniel Dickman said:

    2D Rack Elevations - Is there a way to draw a 2D front view and 2D rear view of a rack? It seems that all front and rear mounted devices appear in the 2D rack elevation and its hard to tell what is a rear mounted device.

    The command ConnectCAD > Layout > Front-Rear Rack View... gives you the choice to display front, rear or both.

     

    Hope I've helped. I'll be back with some more thoughts soon.

     

    Conrad

     

    • Like 3

    Socket definition device builder

    in ConnectCAD

    Posted

    Hi @James Chipman

     

    From the first time I wrote Device Builder I knew that there would always be some device that would exceed its capabilities. But with ConnectCAD there is always a "get out of jail" card. You can add the extra sockets and save the device as a symbol. That way you never have to create it again. You can easily share symbols with your colleagues and access symbols from other documents using the Resource Manager.

     

    Ultimately we would have to make the socket groups into a scrolling list to allow arbitrary numbers of rows - but would it be easier to use? That's the question.

     

    Conrad

    Wire/Cable Type?

    in ConnectCAD

    Posted

    Hi Jeff,

     

    I see your point. We will certainly look into that. There are two issues here:

    1.  Adding the cable-type as a parameter.
    2.  Optionally displaying this on the drawing.

    I'm going to log this as an enhancement request.

     

    Thanks for reaching out.

     

    Conrad

    circuit/cable label and colour

    in ConnectCAD

    Posted

    Hi Jens

    Just to expand on that a bit, Circuits are assigned to classes according to their signal type so HDMI circuits would be in the class Sys-Circuits-HDMI etc. You can of course override this assignment or better still set up your own colour code using the Class editor to set the default "by Class" colour for each signal type. So you don't have to do this for each drawing just make yourself a copy of the ConnectCAD template set up the way you like it.

     

    You can't customise the labeling of circuits right now. But I would like to know what sort of thing you have in mind? Maybe we can add this facility in a future version. I'm not promising anything right now. We have to balance the ability to customise ConnectCAD against keeping the software accessible and easy to use. That said let's have the conversation - sometimes a very simple change can make a big difference.

     

    Regards

     

    Conrad


     

    • Like 1

    Device room information

    in ConnectCAD

    Posted

    Hello!

     

    The workflow is like this:

     

    - use Update Rack Elevation to create a Rack Elevation layer (if you don't have one) and to create Equipment Item objects for each unique Device.

    - use the Layout Room tool to create a Room object and give the room a name

    - drag the Equipment Item into the Room and the schematic layer Device updates automatically

     

    This is faster to do than to describe in fact.

     

    Just to add some extra clarification. Schematic drawings are about connectivity. Physical locations of equipment in room, racks and rack frames are a separate workflow. The reason is that often the clearest way to show signal flow isn't the clearest way to show locations and vice-versa.

     

    Hope I've helped a bit and do ask if anything is not clear.

     

    Conrad

    Wire/Cable Type?

    in ConnectCAD

    Posted

    Hi,

     

    First off all I'm glad you're finding ConnectCAD friendlier than WireCAD. You are not the first by any means. So, wire/cable types...

     

    Generally speaking it makes more sense to setup your Sys-Circuits-<sig type> classes to color Circuits by their Signal Type code than use the Cable field for friendly signal names. You can use the Legend object to explain the color code with friendly names of your choosing. Many people are comfortable with the idea of signal type being what determines cable type. Most of the time you run the same signal thru the same cable type anyway.

     

    Other people use the Cable field for cable type, but it really depends on what you want displayed on the drawing.

     

    And of course you can always add a custom parameter. Here's how you do that.

     

    My point is this. There isn't a particular "right way" and that's just another example of the freedom and flexibility that people value in ConnectCAD.

     

    Conrad

    Legend Layout

    in ConnectCAD

    Posted

    Hi Max

    If you create a Legend object, select it and then use the menu Modify > Convert > Convert to Group, you can turn the parametric object into a normal Vectorworks group and edit everything inside the group to be exactly the way you need it. Most of the time it's a pretty fixed set of signal types you use so chances are the same legend will be fine for most drawings - correct? So this seems like the simplest way to go about it.

     

    I prefer not to add a zillion controls to something like the Legend when it is fairly easy to modify it with standard Vectorworks.

     

    Does that cover it or have I missed the point?

     

    Conrad

    Rack Equipment- Text size

    in ConnectCAD

    Posted

    Hi DEZ

    Sockets are always created on snap grid points. This is done so that the Connect Tool will detect sockets even when Snap To Grid is the only active snap (recommended). So what I think is going on is that you have chosen a rather small snap grid and hence the text overlaps. Not quite sure why you have the snap grid set so close? If it's a matter of fitting to a particular sheet size then you can always achieve that by displaying your design layer in a viewport located in a sheet layer. This is better in any case since it gives you more control over presentation.

     

    If you think I'm missing the point please send me the drawing and I'll take a look.

     

    Conrad

    • Like 1

    Legend Layout

    in ConnectCAD

    Posted

    Hi Max,

     

    Dare I say it? You can always Convert To Group and edit this to whatever look you want. In essence the Legend is just a bunch of lines assigned to the signal type classes in your drawing.

     

    What kind of editing were you looking for?

     

    Conrad

     

    Rack Equipment- Text size

    in ConnectCAD

    Posted

    Would it be possible to post a picture showing exactly what the problem is?

     

    The Equipment Item text display is designed as far as possible to "just work" and therefore speeding up your workflow by you not having to attend to this. Obviously there is a case here that we have not covered so if I could know what it is maybe we can handle this too?

     

    Looking forward to the screenshot !!!

     

    Conrad

     

     

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