ApocHalyptic

Move Page. Yes, I just discovered this! I have been searching for a means to do this for several weeks now, taking a while to get to know all the tricks and tools VW has. I wonder, how do you deal with import another .dxf file into an existing map file? Do you simply import the NEW .dxf file into a blank document and paste the objects "in Place" in the existing map file? Do you use any layer linking? Curious.

Salut; Alexandre B A Villares: quote: Try Tool > Combine into Surface ... Works in most cases, however in VW10 does not work in some situations where areas are bordered by a polyline, or a break line. I end up retracing these lines with a single unconstrained line, then using this tool. A small bit inconvenient. Perhaps this is fixed in 10.5? Petri: quote: We've moved this and that, ... you name it, we've done it - and the polygon stays put in the coordinates, so the spatial information is not destroyed. Wow, I have not had this luck with VW10. Perhaps I should down grade! We use use .dxf output from Leica systems GIS DataPRO unfortunately available only for PC and incredibly buggy (or perhaps it is the legendary stability of the platform it is running on:) ). Our class objects are very simple, line, point, areas, and the information imported into VW remains intact very nicely, until we try to start repositioning the objects on the page for presentation. Moving the objects records them at a different x,y position, thus my reason for all the extra steps insuring I do not lose the x,y information. I only import into a blank doc. I hate a mess Sounds like the Australian Grid System is the same likeness which we use here. From the way AzimuthMapping communicated to me, these systems are not supported. Their plugin apparently will take the extra step to convert positional information to Lats/Longs, and they do not sound familiar with our type of Grid Systems. With out a demo there is no way I will test this out! It is great to hear from someone else mapping in our style with VW. I am just nit picky is all, Anal Forestry Services is our motto cheers!

Salut Petri; Layer transfer modes, interesting, have not been pointed in that direction yet. Perhaps this is promising, I will certainly look into this... pg.92... aha yes Overlay I did not catch on right away. I have actually used this with my airphotos, essentially reducing my image layers by 1/2. It is certainly the best means of dealing with this problem in VW, but nothing beats a live adjustment from 100% to 0% Transparency for best visualization when overlaying. Airphotos can be tricky, and there have been many errors in the past due to subtle changes in Forest Cover. Concerning object linking to x.y position. Yes, I had troubles clearly explaining. Well first off, as a Canuck we do not use Longs and Lats in our industry here. The UTM meter grid is just so simple to use. I only use Longs and Lats when travelling at sea. Okay let me see if I can draw a clearer picture with my words this time. An ecosurvey grid is GPS'd let us say, establishing plot 1 as the Point of Commencement. The area covered is 500m squared and plots are on 100m intervals running North-South/West-East. By coincidence plot 1 is at UTM 600,000mE by 5,900,000mN with plots running South and East. Exporting this GPS data into .dxf produces a 25ha square area with 100m grid lines and plot points. Importing the processed data into VW renders a perfect representation spatially since we are not dealing with Lat/Longs but in the universal meter unit. Moving the arrow over our grid area shows us perfect position in x,y meters. The problem is, that moving the 'class' objects destroys the x,y meter positional information imported into VW. Reposition of imported objects is often necessary since objects are placed center of the document. There is a work around, which is grouping all objects, recording the x,y(top left 600000x, 5900000y) coordinate given in the Object Info pallette, repositioning the origin manually by 'next mouse click is: 600000x, 5900000y', and entering the same x,y coordinate(Top Left) for the object group in the Object Info pallette to return the ojects back to thier 'true' positions in real world space. I am curious perhaps if there is a way to lock an object to its x,y value so that its spacial information is never accidentally destroyed in VW? As for Azimuth, I am sure it would be fine for anyone not needing true UTM meter co-ordinates. Azimuth deals strickly with Lats and Longs. Richard from Azimuth Mapping told me in an email that Azimuth does not support UTM and they have no interest in supporting it. Which I find kind of silly since UTM needs no conversion since it is ... universal! Not sure how many Geo Projections it has. Essentially for my work I only need a few adjustments to VW and it would be a perfect Mapping tool. I should look into building a simple plugin perhaps... Anyways, I think I made my post long and confusing enough. cheers!

A Ha! I started experimenting with the 'Combine into Surface' Tool and this is the closest thing I could find to a simple 'fill' tool. I had tried this before with with my object area except that the area I wish to fill has a boundary line which is a 'break line'. For whatever reason VW does not treat 'break lines' the same as normal lines, polylines, or surface areas such as rectangles. The only way to fill this area is to trace over the break lines with multiple lines, this combines the area into a proper surface fill. So I wonder if this is a glitch with break lines, or that break lines were simply left out of the algorythm? I must concede that I have just started testing use of VW at work, and have found the learning curve very very smooth. I am simply baffled at this little teeny quirk I have not been able to figure out till now. A VW user at work told me he simply traces over areas with a polyline to fill complex areas with breaks in them. quote: keep in mind VW is a CAD program based on vectors and geometry. Yes I absolutely understand this, I suppose I have been spoiled by other CAD programs such as Pythagoras and Illustrator with CAD plugins. I know comparing a $2000US Pythagoras is not fair, and Illustrator with CADtools is childs play compared to VW. I was just hoping to find a simple solution to adding fills in my situation. Thank you a bucket of pucks! cheers!

Thank you Katie for helping soo much on this subject. Using the connect/combine tool does not seem to help. All these lines are already 'connected'. Not by their endpoints but connected in 2D space none the less. For experiment I have been drawing a trapazoidal box with sides that extend beyond their intersection points, much like a childs drawing of a house with the roof extending. The bottom line I use a broken line (say the ground) which extends beyond the "walls". All lines are connected to one another, and using convert to poly seems to do nothing and compose (although is shows a fill value) will not allow for any fills to be seen or triangle fills are formed from the endpoints of the lines. Essentially there is no easy way to quickly fill an area in VW as in a simple illustration/paint program, so be it. The only way I can seem to fill an area I desire is to retrace over the closed area with a polyline. Anyways thank you for all your help, I have learned a lot more about connect tools and composing, and perhaps will find a need for these tools in the future. Cheers!

1. When drafting 2D, it would be nice to simply 'fill' a closed area as per any paint/illustration program. Yes I understand the argument about needing a plane to apply a surface feature, but I would like straight forward simple no fuss "Fill". Not asking for PS or Ill here. 2. Transparency level of objects. (or in the very least images) Okay, maybe I am a bit... but here is another feature I have used in other advanced CAD programs as well. Being able to simply select an object and adjust its transparency is a major bonus when tracing over AirPhotos. A transparency slider is the simplist means of acomplishing this. Yes, it is possible to import partially transparent photos from PS, but some features may need to become more 'intense/opaque' to see them in the photo while other parts of the photo will wash out line work. Importing several photos with different transarency levels can become a nightmare to organize in a drawing. I heard word about using props for this... but this sounds a lot more complicated than it really needs to be; select object, adjust trasparency... 3. Linking objects to their position in 2D space. ie. If a polygon is imported in with a top left corner point of x: 603456m y: 5995677m moving the point of origin on the document would not change this (the object would move in relation to the movement of the point of origin). Another thing people will most likely shake their heads at although this has huge benifits for mapping. No, Azimuth is not the answer to mapping on VW. UTM and meter coordinates are not supported by Azimuth and they have no wish to support this tremendously popular grid system in resource industries. Not only that, but VW already imports GPS .dxf files with appropriate coordinates intact. With a few more tweaks here and there, VW could revolutionize the speed and availability of mapping in the resource industries here in Canada. I can see this beeing helpfull in other areas of CAD for quickly repositioning your drawing on your document. Anyways still looking for the Killer CAD app. VW is as close as it comes when compared to price and ease of use. Great work, love the interface. cheers!

Whoops, just wanted to add I have tried the convert to poly also to no avail. A cosmetics thing. A mountain out of a mole hill so to speak.

Hmmm yes, the compose tool. I can not seem to apply it correctly, it often times 'polys' an unwanted area.. This is most likely because the line segments only butt together and do not join point to point? Also part of the boundary of the proposed poly is composed of broken lines butted to a dado joint. I have been playing with the compose tool and it works fine if composing a poly of lines which end points are joined, but has very predictably unfavourable behaviour when a poly of lines are merely butted to each other to form a closed area. ie. compose in this case joins end points and does not help to 'fill' a closed area. Perhaps there is a procedure I am not making here. I have tried using the join tool, but this simply butchers the draft lines. I have also tried grouping then composing with the same effects. For now I am tracing over my entire work with a polygon to hatch in closed areas, it does double my work for these areas although VW does save me heaps of time in other places... Thank you for the replies! Much appreciated!

Hmmm very unfortunate. This will greatly increase drafting time not being able to fill areas closed by non-planar objects. It is very often not feasible to use polygons in drafts since there is no way to apply a broken edge to one of its sides, especially when the broken line must extend beyond the boundary of a polygons edge. Using a filled poly with a broken line means retracing the entire closed areas as masks. This leads to drawing bloat and complications when making adjustments to drafts. A simple fill area would solve this instantly. (treating the drafting page as a plane, with non-planar objects defined as boundaries) My list of simple requests is building here, for this almost perfect application. cheers.

Is it possible to add a pattern/fill/hatch/ etc. to an area which is closed by lines? Part of the drawing has broken lines as boundary breaks. I have tried grouping the lines and using the hatch tool. no go. curious george.

Wow Katie, sounds a little complicated but I will check it out. Hmmm nothing beats a little sliding toggle to quickly effect the visibility of an image/object. Thank you for the suggestion, I will see if it is feesable with workflow. cheers!

Yes, this is what I have done as a work around. Oh how I do love transparencies! Being able to quickly adjust the transparency level of a background photo is very very handy for digitizing. For now I have simply imported a set of 4 of the same photos each with its own transparency level. It encumbers the the workflow a bit, but will do for now. Perhaps some day VectorWorks with be able to adjust transparency levels. Thank you for your response!

Salut! Is there any way to change the transparency of an imported PICT, or JPEG or any other type of image file from fully opaque to say 30% transparency? I have scanned in image of an airphoto which I would like to reduce its transparency level to aid in tracing out timber type lines, openings and roads. With the image 100% opaque it is very hard to trace while viewing line work. thank you!

Thank you for better outlining the problem. I finally figured out how to reposition my .dxf map boundaries file accurately. Perhaps no one understands what I was asking, sorry for the lack of clarity, my only excuse is; I am new to CAD/GIS work and have only been working with Vectorworks for a few hours. Problem: .dxf is an exported Map layer from GPS data collected and 3D differentially corrected. Scale 1:10,000 UTM Z9 WGS84 in meters (of course). Import places the .dxf map layer central in the Page Layout, but does retain scale/positional info. Moving map layer loses its positional information. What I did to solve my problem is: 1. Grouped all my objects ( Boundary Areas, Roads/Skid Trail Lines, and POT/POC/Hub Points. 2. Read the Object Vertex, and recorded. (x: 662753.1 y: 5988552.5) 3. Shift the Origin by using "Set Origin..." and "Next Mouse Click is: x: 662753.1, y: 5988552.5 position" to offset where I would like my Object data to be placed on the Page Layout. 4. Used the Object Info to reposition the Group Object Vertex to its original x: 662753.1, y: 5988552.5 position with reference to ruler scale. I must say I spent many an hour trying to figure this one out, but I am really relieved to have finally figured it out. Now hopefully I will be able to start doing work that I can charge for Cheers!

Salut! I am becoming rather desperate over the matter of trying to repostiong class data line work which is positionally sensitive to its 2D space (ruler scale). If I move the line work, I lose its postion on the scale, however, importing .dxf files autmatically position central on a document which is not desireable for obvious reasons. Is there a trick, I am new to VectorWorks. Thank you for your help.