Pat Stanford

I just tried a simple test. I put a worksheet image on a design layer and then made a viewport. The viewport did display the worksheet image, so worksheets on design layers can display in viewports. As with everything else, worksheet visibility in viewports depends on class and layer visibility, but it sounds like you have already checked that. You can certainly put a worksheet image either directly on a sheet layer or in the annotations group of a viewport, but you should be able to put the image on the design layer also.

VW can read and write XLSX files. But there is information on each end that will not translate and will end up as static text/numbers. When you export to XLS you loose the live updating of information in databases (or worksheet field with criteria). When you import from XLS you loose any functions that are not in the VW Worksheet (Pivot tables come to mind). But at least you don't have to export as CSV and then import into the other program.

Are you doing marketing drawings for the lamp or the clamp? Will the lamp be the only thing or the primary element in a drawing at 1:4 or larger scale? If not, you are the ONLY person who will ever realize that there is not a bolt/nut there. The model is for communicating the intent. It is not a replication of reality. IMNSHO don't draw that doesn't matter.

@Chad Hamilton HAarchs I agree. In a drawing I did recently I added an extra layer called Title Block Reference just so I could see where the title block (that would eventually be placed on each sheet layer) would be while I was drawing. It is amazing how little things like this can make a huge difference in productivity.

Check the Criteria of the Database row. Worksheet Menus: View Menu: make sure Database Headers is Checked. Right Click in the database header (i.e. 3, not 3.1, 3.2, etc.) and choose Edit Criteria. Make sure the criteria is specifying the layer(s) that you want to count objects on. If you don't specify the layers it may be counting objects in both design layer and sheet layers. I thought that was fixed, but I know that used to happen. If you are counting objects on multiple design layers just add them all in as separate criteria rows. If you are still getting duplicate, then turn off any SUMmarization in any column and then right click on the subrows (I.E. 3.1, 3.2) and Select Object to see if you actually have somehow duplicated objects on top of each other.

Not going to happen in current versions of VW. VW2021 will export to Excel, so you might be able to export and run the pivot table there. In current versions of VW there is nothing similar to Pivot Tables (or lookups). Database rows can not have anything else special done to them.

Yes, the menu commands and tools that you see in the Fundamentals workspace are the one's they have access to. The thing to look out for is that if you use PIOs that are not included in Fundamentals you will be able to edit them (since your license is actually Designer) while they will be "read only" proxy objects for the user on Fundamentals. If you need a "fool proof" (remember they always make a better fool) way to check, you can create a script with just the following line: DisableModules(1); That should make your version think it is Fundamentals and Renderworks only. To undo this you will have to quite and restart VW.

I used to use the Kensingston Expert. And another one that moved the trackball with my thumb. Ended up with tendinitis in my thumb. I also (personal opinion) found that it was harder to control the trackball accurately than a mouse.

Logitech G602 here. It has 10 extra buttons, but I only use the Left/Right/and Mouse Wheel buttons. One at home and one at the office. Needs a USB dongle, but has been quite reliable.

I think this is a large portion of what the new "Materials" addition to VW2021 is about. It allows you to specify the material that an object is made of and the data about that object. One of the pieces of data is the density of the object. So if you draw a beam and make its materials Steel, then you can extract the volume and density to get the weight. Change the material to Concete and the density automatically changes and so does the calculated weight. I know what you are looking for for details to have the material specified in the title block, but that is going to be hard to accomplish. I think you will have better luck using a worksheet that you format to look like the title block and add separately.

What is the final purpose of this drawing? If it is to communicate to someone how to build this object, does it really matter if it is exact? If you have a 12' diameter circle that this object Is bent along, do you think if you dimension it as a smooth bend that someone is going to look at the print and say "Look there is a point there where the bend is not smooth. I had better make sure that happens even thought it is dimensioned as a smooth bend."? Personally, I can not see anything that does not look smooth to me in the last three screenshots you attached. I can't read them, but it looks like you are zoomed in about 7000%. Does being slightly off at that type of zoom really matter? Zoom out to the scale that you would normally use for presentation. Does it represent what you want? Print it out at a typical zoom and 300 to 600 dpi. Does the print represent what you want? The model is not reality. There are limitations to computer math. There are limitations to screen resolution. Yes, you may very well be being too picky about this. I recommend thinking about the desired output. I tutored a person one time who got caught up on the idea of exactly modeling everything. These ended up firing me when I told them I was not going to try and spend the time to teach them to draw square knots for the hanging wires on the back of the picture frames. They would not accept that the model did not have to be perfect in every detail. HTH.

To add on to what @markdd said, everything in VW is actually drawn at 1:1. If you want to draw an object that is 48-feet long, you use the scale bars or heads up data bar and draw it as 48-feet. It does not matter if you are 1:1 scale or 1:48 (1/4-inch) layer scale, the rulers and menu bars will still show it as being 48' long. You do not have to do any conversions to think about the fact that the line length will only be 1" long when printed at 1/4" scale. The basic idea is that if you are drawing at a Layer Scale that is "close" to what you output scale is going to be, then you can use line weights and text sizes that are appropriate for the output instead of using huge sizes that will look appropriate when scaled down.. But VW is very flexible. You can draw everything at 1:1 if you want and ignore layer scales except when you have to share with others or output final drawings. But what I am reading between the lines is "Why doesn't this work like AC that I already know." For that my suggestion is stop trying to compare them. They are very different programs designed for similar but different uses. If you are going to be using VW, then just accept how it works and use it to the best of its abilities rather than try to force it to work the way you used another program.

I could not make the IF format work either, but with a record names PTS the following worked. "TWO"@#PTS#.#INT2#="2":"Not TWO") The value is true is before the @ surrounded by double quotes. The condition is between the @ and the : (colon) The value if false is after the : (colon) No spaces anywhere inside the formula except inside of double quotes (for the true and false conditions or as part of the comparison). Hope this helps.

Instead of Final Quality Renderworks try Custom Renderworks and make sure the Curved Geometry option is set to High or Very High. Final Quality Renderworks and Fast Renderworks have pretty much been obsoleted by Custom Renderworks and the ability to save Renderworks Styles. Set Custom Renderworks to what you like/need and then save it as a style for easy reuse later.

The Constrain Coinicident tool (Dims/Notes tool set in the default workspaces) will do what you want for segments with corner points on both ends. I have not tried all of the vertex types, but it does not like to find "interior" points of segments using Cubic vertex points.

Go back to the original arcs and check your 2D and 3D conversion resolution in Vectorworks Preferences. Set to Very High you will end up with 256 segments that should be smooth enough for most uses. If you need it to be even smoother try using a NURBS Curve and Lofting instead of extruding.

Man, you are making me really go back in the archive. This script sets all symbols in the resource manager to insert as groups. This is from 2007. Procedure SetSymbolsToInsertAsGroups; {Copyright 2007, Coviana Inc} {Pat Stanford , pat (at) coviana.com} Var H1: Handle; Begin H1:=FSymDef; While H1<>nil do Begin SetObjectVariableBoolean(H1,127,True); H1:=NextSymDef(H1); End; End; Run(SetSymbolsToInsertAsGroups); There is a very good chance that this will not properly traverse Symbol Folders, so if you need that we will have to look more closely. I am assuming the "remarks" is a field in a custom record that you have attached to each symbol definition. If this is so then change the SetObjectVariable line to something like: SetRField(H1, 'Name of my Custom Record', 'remarks', 'This is what I want my remark to be'); Ask again if this is not enough help.

It sounds like you do not have Unified View turned on in the View menu.

If you go to the Class pane of the Window Settings you should be able to put the sill in a separate class and have it use the attributes of that class to give it a different texture than the rest of the window.

I think that Very High converts the circle to a polygon with 256 sides. So with a 12m Diameter and 256 edges, each edge will be about 0.15m long and the angle between edges is about 1.4 degrees. If you are seeing longer sides or larger angles then you don't have your 2D or 3D conversion resolution let properly. My guess is that 2D conversion is probably set to medium. I believe the circle is converted to a poly using the 2D conversion resolution before the extrude happens. If setting both 2D and 3D to very high before you make the extrude is not sufficient, then you will probably need to look at using a NURBS curve and a Loft instead of an extrude.

I would be careful with this. There are an awful lot of Menu commands in VW. And many of them are view dependent. And they operate on selected objects. So if the Active versus Selected pane can become a very large issue. You think you are extruding in Top/Plan but happen to have the mouse over the isometric and end up with something very different than you expect.

Extrusions are always directly into the screen. So if you are in a view other than Top/Plan when you extrude it will extrude "into" the view you are in. Assuming that the object is Screen Plane. In many cases it is easier to just extrude them and then switch to Front/Back/Left/Right/Top/Bottom views and use the rotate tool to move them to the angle and location you want after you create the extrudes.

It sounds like you will have to add a second check and also see if the object class is hidden in your logic for exporting.

As Josh and Kevin say, this is just part of the way that "Container" objects (Groups, Symbols, PIOs) work. Since every object has a class, that means that the container has a class and each object inside the container has a class. In order for an object to be visible, the class that the object is in AND the class of any container object(s) that the object is contained by must all be visible. If you use container objects that contain objects with different classes than the container (this means almost all PIOs) then Active Only as a class option is less than useful.

Set the Line Thickness to 1 Point and you will only get a single vector line. Or try Export rather than print. Is it the printed image that is not what you want? Or is it when you import into a different application?