Pat Stanford

The PNG you uploaded is only 96 DPI, so it will be very difficult for anyone to really help based on the image. Can you export a high resolution PDF? Also, what are the actual dimensions of the viewport? A very small viewport even at 300 dpi will still look pixelated when expanded to a larger size. What rendering mode are you using?

Be careful buying an older version of VW. VW2016 will have basically zero "trade-in" value towards a newer version of VW and if you are on a Mac, the most recent version of the OS that it will run on is 10.12 (Sierra). I would hate to see you spend money on an older version of VW and then find that you have to upgrade VW at near full price if you have to get new hardware. Unless you get a really good deal on the older version and consider it a sunk cost with basically no residual value, you might want to rethink your purchase plans. OS compatibility for VW versions are located at the following two links:

Hi Jeff, I am not intending to be negative, but based on the people posting here on the list, you seem to have more problems than most others. I am trying to think what we can do to help remedy that. I can think of five main reasons for this. Or maybe it is a combination of these five and others. 1. Hardware issues. This may be the least likely reason, but it is always a possibility. 2. Installation issues. If your installation somehow got corrupted, or your user folder has corruption, or a workspace that has been brought forward a number of versions, that could cause problems that others are not seeing. 3. Usage Style. Perhaps your usage of VW just happens to hit more problem areas in VW than other users. 4. Care about details. Perhaps you care more about details or workflow than others on the forum. From some of the people I know on the list, this is also likely not the case. 5. Thought pattern. I like VW. Even though I don't get to use it that much, VW and I "think" in similar fashion. This makes it relatively easy for me to figure out what is happening a lot of the time. If you don't "think" like VW, then I could imagine it being a very frustrating experience to use it. Can you point to one of the above items or add others that you think exacerbate your issues? I can tell from you post you are frustrated, but it does not give us very much to go on to help you with your current problem, or to help make Enhancement Requests to try and make things better for the future. There are people here on the forum who are paying attention and who do care that you are having issues. Let us know what we can do to help.

Can you post the object copied into a clean file for us to take a look at?

Pure guess on my part, but I don't expect there will be a version of VW2021 released (except possibly to beta testers) that will be M1 native or even a universal binary. Too many possible things to go wrong to put it out for general consumption. Another pure guess is that there is a version running in Maryland that is as close to a native M1 app as they can achieve based on the libraries they are using.

I am working from memory here, so apologies if I am wrong. I just tried this in VW2021 and did not see the behavior I am remembering, so either it has been changed, or I am just not doing the tasing correctly. In my memory at least some types of objects moved back to their original creation location when they were edited. I don't think it was all objects, but I can't remember which types. Basically, going back to the original 2D objects the 3D was created from (By Edit Solid/Enter Group) at some point you ended up with objects that were at a different point in space than where the 3D object was. Like it was storing the creation and some form of position translation that you could not easily access. If you went back far enough in the history eventually you would get objects that were back to where they were when the object was originally created. Am I being clear enough? Maybe someone who has a better recollection of this will chime in. HTH

Do you make sure you have your towel with you while you are using VW? ;-)

Cut and Paste in Place is the best way to get an object out of a group. How would VW know where you want to object to go (if say the object is in a group, in a group, in a group, in a viewport annotation) unless you go to that point and Paste in Place? ;-)

@michaelk See Andy Broomell's comment above. Have you worked on the Rename Viewport script to work in 2021 and not break smart markers?

I think there is something wrong in the factory shipping settings for the Space object. The first time I put in a Space and went to Settings:Advanced, I did not see the 3D Boundaries or Room Finishes. Once I hit the Restore Default Properties button they did show up. Since I did that to one object, I have not had to do it to any other objects. If I get a chance I will do a clean install and see if I can get the problem to reoccur. If I can I will submit it as a bug.

I just did a quick play and I think you can get the surface you are looking for. Use the Extract Tool in Extract Curves mode along one side. Enter the group created, select all, and Modify:Compose. You will now have a single NURBS curve inside the group. Exit the group and Ungroup to get just the NURBS curve. Repeat on the other side. Draw a 2 point NURBS curve between the two extracted/composed curves. Loft the three curves using the Birail Sweep mode. If you check the Create Solids in the Loft settings, you will end up with a Generic Solid that is the same size as the bottom of the parapet. If you select the new Generic Solids and Wall assembly, you can Section Solid to get either the wall or the parapet. Duplicate the objects first and Section Solid the other way and you will end up with two Solid Sections, one representing the wall, one representing the parapet. Ask again if not clear enough. HTH.

Again, Click the Restore Default Properties. From there you can add the Room Finishes to the OIP also.

My guess is that your window symbol is rotated. The inside/outside of the window needs to be screen parallel in Front view.

From Advanced Settings try hitting the Restore Default Properties ... button. That should then show 3D Boundaries in the right hand column so you can click it on to show in the OIP.

Rhino is a Surface Modeler meaning it only creates the surface and does not create the internal objects. I don't know enough about Rhino to know if there is something you can do there to make the object a solid. In VW, you could try and Convert to Generic Solids. That might give you the interior solid that you need for your Interest Solids to work.

Complete guess here as I have never used C4D and have no way to test, but does C4D have the same type of "Container Object" limitations as VW? There are a number of different "Container Objects" such as Symbols, Group, Walls, Plugin Objects and probably others. A Container Object has a class. The "Contained" objects inside the container also have a class. If the class of the container object is different than the classic of the contained objects and you set the Class Options to Active Only, then you will never see those objects because the class of both the container and the contained have to be visible to be able to see them. If C4D has a similar feature of only showing things in a single class it is possible you are seeing something similar.

@unearthed VW will gladly translate all student work to remove the student limitations with proof that you have a commercial license. It can be one you purchase yourself, or one supplied by an employer.

@Zeno, What is the size of your Dell monitor and what resolution do you have it set for? If it is a big monitor, but only 1080P (meaning a resolution of 1920 x 1080), then the sizes of the individual pixels will be large and things will not look as crisp as you Retina displays. Alternatively, if the default resolution on the monitor is 1080P, but you are driving it to a higher resolution, then individual pixels won't match and you will get a blurrier image.

Check that the classes of the extrudes are set to Visible.

Open the Worksheet for editing. From the Worksheet View menu, make sure Database Headers is checked. This should show a row above the subrows that contains the formulas. (eg 3, not 3.1, 3.2, etc.) Right click on the Row number of the Database Header row and choose Edit Criteria. Take a look at the criteria and see if there is something there that is blocking the areas from displaying. If you can't figure it out, post a screen shot here of the Criteria dialog box and we can help explain what it is doing.

Check the 2D conversion Resolution of the Vectorworks Preferences and the 3D Conversion Resolution of the 3D Pane of the VW Prefs. Also check that the object is actually a curve and has not gotten converted to a polygon with a low vertex count at some point. HTH

Katerina Panagiotakis was (is) a very generous VW users and programmer. She provided lots of useful scripts and resources such as the hatch package and textures. The last public post I have in my archive from her was from the Fall of 2008. But I think she may still be around.

Was the missing data in a file that was generated from the template AFTER you did the update? Or could it have been made BEFORE you edited the template? Create a new file from the Template and see if the fields you added are there. If they are then chock it up to user error (could they have created a local copy of the old template?) If not, it could be that the version with your changes did not get saved in a location that others are using the template from. Many possible causes. I recommend that you try one more more. If you still see the problem then we can spend more time trying to troubleshoot.

The concept you are missing is called "Container Objects". There are a number of types of objects that can "Contain" other object. These include Symbols, Groups, Plugin Objects, and as you have noticed, Walls. When a Contained object has a different class than the Containing object, both of those classes have to be visible for the Contained object to be seen. This has lead many people to not use classes on Container Objects and always use the None class for them. Then they always leave the None class visible. The Container Object also makes the Class Option of "Active Only" less useful because you will never be able to see contained objects with that setting. The Work around is to set the visibility of all the classes except the class of the Container to invisible. You can then make any other class the Active Class which is always visible and get something similar to Active Only. Ask again if this is not clear enough. HTH

Sketch Styles are Resources and can be moved between files or loaded from library files like any other Resource. To edit, goto the View menu:Rendering:Sketch Options. Click the Edit button. From the dialog box that opens you can adjust the Sketch Style. If you give it a different name it will make a new style using the new name and the options you have set. If you put a VWX file containing a Sketch Style into the Defaults:Sketch Styles folder of either your User folder or Workgroup folder and then go to the Gear Icon in the Resource Manager and restart VW, the Sketch Styles you have in that file will show up in the Default Content and be selectable from the Render tab of the OIP just like the "built in" options.