AStein
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Posts posted by AStein
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I cannot find a way to change the default text style for the dimension tools anywhere. I'm sure it's something obvious for such a normal operation but yeah... I'm having trouble. Changing the default text style for text boxes is very simple, but it must be something else for the dimension tools.
I've been simply selecting them and changing them in the object info pallet for years, but when thinking about the number of hours I've spent messing around with them after the bigger boxes pop up and cover all sorts of things up... I thought I'd bite the bullet and ask...
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So, I'm diving into this tool.
What I'd like to be able to do is this:
1. Have the truss cross symbol able to turn into x4 Burgers and have those burgers each have data I can attach for counting purposes
2. I'd like this function to work for any structural member (namely my pipe symbols and I-Beam symbols)
Wil this work by...?
1. I believe I can accomplish this by making the symbol myself and setting the offset appropriately, but I'd like to hold off on this if it's already a feature.
2. Can I fake this by somehow turning my pipe and I-Beam symbols into truss?
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Confirmed. Your workaround of toggling Show Measurement label seems to rest the hoists.
Also confirmed. Your script works nicely.
Thanks fellas. This'll save me loads of time and keep me away from the Legacy hoists.
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Thanks fellas!
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I might need it dumbed down a bit Pat. If I play with the database tab within the report, it seems to just generate another worksheet that won't talk back to the hoist objects.
I can recreate it now though. Basically, if I move my origin, Nothing in my Y (formatted) column changes and I would like it to automatically. My workaround is typing a random number in every single cell, and this seems to kind of force the hoist to say "no, it's actually ##'##"" and refresh the cell accordingly so there's some kind of script happening natively when I tell it to be something it's not.
Is this as simple as changing the formula to include Record.Field?
Like, here's what's there now "='BrxHoist'.'OriginY_formated'"
"='Record.Field''BrxHoist'.'OriginY_formated'" breaks it.
Meh?
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So, my second and I were talking: wouldn't it be cool if there were a way to print a layout sheet right onto a semi durable piece of vinyl (maybe 2"X200') on a 1:1 scale.
I've see sparkies print our something similar on receipt paper that they tape to a stick of truss as a guide but...
A) I have no idea how to do this, as I have never been an LX guy
B) seems like receipt paper would not be durable enough and maybe not accurate enough for more than one load in.
Any thoughts? Has this been done before and/or is it a bad idea?
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Pat, you're a fount of knowledge.
I'll have to make a copy of my critical show file and play around before I completely follow, but I got the broad strokes and will be referring to this post as I play around. Thank you.
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Thanks for looking Kevin.
I should have been more clear in that, I can't recreate it (I'm on the road now, so I've only tried a couple times)... I was more hoping this was a known bug or something.
But it sounds like I missed the day when they covered the differences between a database and a worksheet. Is there a resource you might point me towards so I can better understand this, or do you have a quick explanation? I've been making reports for a few years now and haven't had any issues so I probably just skipped over this topic.
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2 hours ago, klinzey said:
Did you move the user origin?
Can you post the file here so we can take a look?DMing you now.
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Some very strange behavior in VW here...
So, I'm making myself a layout sheet on this 100 point show I'm on and when double checking the sheet I notice that some of my hoists in the report are giving me numbers that are wrong and don't make sense.
for example: I'm picking up a stick that is 9'7" upstage of my origin with 4 hoists. All 4 hoists are linked to that origin. Two of them read Y:9'7" as one would expect, and two of the other ones read Y:1'7".
When I click on the hoist and look into the OIP, the OIP displays the correct Y coordinate for all hoists... So There's a disconnect happening between the OIP and the worksheet.
Things I've tried:
1. making a new worksheet. (same hoists have the same issues)
2. recalculating all worksheets (changes nothing)
3. manually typing 9'7" into the worksheet (This DOES fix the problem for that one hoist, but I still have to identify something wrong with said hoist)
4. Deleting the hoists and putting new ones in (This DOES fix the issue, but I have to find the issue in order to do this)
Now the problem with my workarounds is that I'm on tour and need to spit these out quickly between shows, but now I need to go through every hoist to double check that VW isn't hanging onto a random number.
Any thoughts on what's going on here? I'd be willing to share the file with anyone who wants to take a look via DM, but it's a bit sensitive for me to post publicly here.
Thanks in advance.
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Amazing. Thanks Pat. I'm going to dive on in.
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A predefined sheet layer is good.
Attached is a VWX file with a tiny hypothetical show organized in a typical way for my use case.
sht-1 "STICKERS" has a sample sticker symbol with text typed in to indicate the data from the hoist OIP I'd like to connect to and a short parenthetical explanation.
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Yeah Pat thank you. That sounds just about perfect. The idea is that I'd like everything to come from the drawing rather than bouncing around various office programs, so keeping everything I want to edit within the hoist symbols themselves is just fine, and you've nailed a good process...
My experience with coding is being pretty serviceable writing functions in excel and knowing some basic java, but I haven't had a reason to dive into scripting in VWX yet, so it's a little intimidating, but this seems like a great excuse. But that's where I'm coming from so I might struggle a little with this...
Is there any link you might want me to read/study so that I don't waste your time getting me up to speed with basics?
Thank you so much!
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Hey guys, here's a new one maybe:
First: thank you VWX team for making the vanilla hoist system work well. It was pretty rough in 2021, but I really like the kinks you've worked out for 2022.
Anyway, here's my current workflow for printing layout stickers:
Make a VWX worksheet --> copy paste into a google sheets template that sorts and highlights the data nicely for me --> perform a mail merge into a doc for printing and touchups --> print
It works, but it's kind of a lot of steps and clunky to boot. I wonder if there's a way I can print my stickers straight out of Vector Works?
I know how to make a symbol and link the text within to a custom data record (thanks Pat). But is there a way I can do this where the text links to specified hoist data in a somewhat automated way? Maybe I have to type in the Hoist ID, but the rest of the the data then populates from the matching hoist? and then, is there a way I can easily print dozens-hundreds of these things straight from VWX?
Seems a tall order, unless there's some way that's already sort of built in? do it through the cable labeling function somehow?
Thank you!
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Thanks Sam.
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Thanks Pat. Baby steps. Copt that. I'll start chewing on this.
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Thanks guys
I'll explore data tags. And point taken about the time-sink to go deep into this stuff.
I'm going to keep learning this stuff though, because ultimately I want to build a plug in that I can give to people in the company that kind of does everything we do.
Still trying to wrap my brain around how to get a custom tool to talk to another custom tool in a similar way to how the hoist and origin tool do it.
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Hey
I'm getting into custom plugins, but I'm definitely still a beginner as a power user here, so I appreciate how helpful this forum as been already. Thanks ahead of time Pat. You're a godsend on this forum!
What I'm trying to do:
I'd like to make a data record than can reference the VW Hoist origin tool so that I can attach it to any symbol and snag coordinates for layout and reporting easily. I currently use the hoist tool to do this, but it really chugs VW when I've got 300 1/4x size hoist symbols attached to a complicated layout and the art director wants to see what the set looks like rotated just "this" much... And again... And again... and VW hangs for a minute each time, I'm guessing, because the hoist tool has a ton of back-end braceworks-related things it's trying to do every time I nudge a point around?
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That gives me a lot to play with Pat. Thank you.
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I'd like to be able to copy/paste a symbol that I've made and have the text be editable from the OIP. Bonus points if I can link that data for later reports.
What I'm trying to do is make my engineering reports much quicker by being able to drag a symbol to everywhere I've made a connection or have a load, then populate the text as I calculate. My current method is to simply copy-paste and edit the text in the drawing each time, but this is slow and not attached to a record.
Sorry if there are tutorials about this, I'm new to the power user side of VW.
Much thanks!
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So, the 2021 hoist tool is a bummer. The legacy hoist tool was clunky, but we did have workarounds to get it to do layout and reporting data.
I'm guessing the new hoist tool was designed to better integrate with Braceworks, which I and most people in my circle have no need for.
There are several simple things that most of us need, which I can't imagine would hang up a system like the current hoist tools like to do.
I need:
1. Hoist callsign (displayed on the hoist symbol)
2. Cartesian coordinates (that can interact with an origin)
3. one or three other text fields that I can define (as a text string) and place rather than searching through the OIP for the one or two criteria I actually need
4. A hoist report sheet that defaults to a preferable layout datum
5. Extra credit if some of these automatically count upward for me as I place more hoists (ie: I place a hoist and define it as "A1" then when I place the next hoist it's callsign auto-populates as "A2)
And that's it. The new hoist tool is really obtuse for what we're trying to do and something with way less bloat and system hangs would be super-nice.
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@jcogdell I have, thank you. Formatting the VW sheet as a text string rather than an actual number seems to be the ticket.
I really hope VW is talking to someone about the new hoist tool. Most people in my circle have abandoned it and installed the legacy hoist tool as a workaround.
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Thanks Pat. I couldn't get that to work the way I wanted, but I did find a workaround that might be a little more friendly to people like me (Knuckle-dragging riggers). I'll detail it here in case someone else runs into this issue. Also I appreciate your time. I see you solving problems all over this forum!
Make a backup file in case you're polluting other departments with our whole inch "precision"
First:
File --> Document Settings --> Units
"Decimal Precision" Dropdown menu: select "1"
Hit "OK"
Next:
Spotlight --> Reports --> Create report
Objects with Hoist record
Add: "Origin X(formatted)" and "Origin Y(formatted)"
Click on one of your adds and then click "Format Field"
"Number Format" dropdown menu: Select "Text"
Do this for both adds
Now you can copy-paste into excel
It's a pretty quick fix but damn...
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Hey guys
I'm trying to make a layout datum in excel (basically X/Y columns in feet and whole inches) which used to be a very simple affair. Hoist report --> copy paste to excel and bob's your uncle.
Now it looks like the hoist report function has been deleted in 2021?! OK, so I created a report for objects with a hoist record and that worked. But now when I copy paste to excel it pastes, not in feet and inches, but as a decimal string. It's displaying correctly in worksheets, but copy-pastes as a decimal in excel and google sheets. Very frustrating.
Bonus topic: Am I missing something with the 2021 hoist stuff in general? It seems worse. More steps, less options, It lags my very fast system, which never happened with hoist in 2020 and there's some OIP stuff missing that I used to use. What's going on here?
Data and Hoists
in Entertainment
Posted
So, I'm still very bummed that the new hoists are so... not good... But I can't keep using the legacy hoists because they're slow and non-riggers never use them...
Anyway, My current gripe is that I can't figure out how to change the maximum chain length. I have to be pretty clever about how I move these things around or it throws hanging positions and hook heights around.
I've tried attaching hoist data records and modifying that (as I saw suggested in another thread), but that only changed the data record, not the useability of the hoist symbol itself.
Any ideas?
Vectorworks people: I would LOVE to spend a little time on the phone with someone to help you design a useful hoist symbol. I'm not sure where the disconnect is here but, to a person, I do not know a single production rigger who likes this thing. Please let me or somebody help you out here. The only reason I keep hearing about the "production Assistant" software is because we're desperate for something. I just spent the past few days wrestling with this and making workarounds for a tool that isn't nearly as complicated as many of the other wonderful and not broken tools in the VWX arsenal.