Pat Stanford

PIO stands for Plug-In Object. All of the objects in Vectorworks that you can modify by changing the settings in the Object Info Palette (OIP) are all PIOs. Doors, Windows, Stairs, Slabs, Call Outs, Drawing labels, etc. Almost everything except for the basic 2D and 3D drawing primitives.

What about using your symbols with the Use Symbol Geometry feature of Doors and Windows so you can get the benefit of drawing exactly what you want while still getting the insertion ability of the PIOs?

Not that I know of but check this thread for a script that will let you replace your loci with a symbol.

What are you actually trying to do? It will help us to make reasonable suggestions. There is no way to get a automatically updating version of the X and Y position of an object into a record. It is possible to get this into a worksheet. You will have much better luck at updating data in a Vectorworks worksheet than doing the editing in Excel and trying to import. Take a look at this thread for more information on editing records from worksheets.

Ok, so this is actually a Label Legend issue. I don't work with lighting devices enough to be able to help. @JBenghiat @Sam Jones can either of you make a recommendation on getting label legend text to rotate 90° in a rotated viewport?

Select the Viewport and click the Advanced Properties button. There is an Adjust Flipped Text check box for that specific viewport. Does changing the setting there make it do what you want? If not, can you try and create a much simpler demonstration file to show the problem. Just a couple of objects. The screen shots you posted are not high enough resolution for me to be able to see the problem.

It sounds like the original DWG is drawn "incorrectly". Normally Dimensions in paperspace would come in as part of the annotation group of a viewport rather than directly to the sheet layer. Maybe try and Cut the dimensions from the sheet layer, Edit the Annotations for the viewport and Paste in Place and see if that "solves" the problem.

If you import with different units than the original drawing uses you will end up with a drawing that is off by some scale. You can either import again and set the units to what the original using uses or you can use the Scale command to adjust the already imported drawing. Usual scale differences are 10 (drawing in mm imported as cm or vice versa). 1000 (drawing in mm imported at meters or vice versa) or 25.4 (drawing in mm imported as inches or vice versa). Try drawing a dimension on something that you know the dimension of (maybe a door or window). Or you can use the Modify:Scale Objects:Scale by Distance mode to draw the dimension on the imported drawing and then enter the dimension that it should be. It is always a good idea to import into a blank document and them copy/paste or reference into your drawing so you can get the dimensions correct rathe than contaminate your whole drawing.

If you change the rotation of the object by 0.2° or more, that will be enough to get the Adjust Flipped Text algorithm to ignore the text while not being noticeable in a drawing. So rotate your text by 90-0.2 = 89.8 or 90.2° and you should be able to get what you want. (I have had too much to drink tonight, it may be 0.02° instead of 0.2°. Try them both and see what happens.

Vectorworks has three different "primary" render modes. Wireframe. This is exactly what it sounds like. OpenGL. This is a semi-"Cartoony" rendering mode. It will give you solid surfaces and textures, but only supports up to 8 lights and will always look sort of basic, but will render very fast as it is intended to use the graphics card of your computer rather than the CPU. Finally, there are the (may) different Renderworks modes. These can be photo realistic (or near) like Final Renderworks, or stylistic (like the different Artistic Renderworks modes), but all are processed on the CPU of the computer and take much longer to generate, but usually also look much better than OpenGL. Which you pick depend entirely on what the use of the final output will be. I would find some time, create a scene or viewport and try the different render modes and see what the output looks like and how much time it takes to generate and use that as a starting point on which mode you want to use. Glad to help. Ask again if you need more help;

The Flyover Tool only works in Wireframe or OpenGL Rendering. It appears that you probably had the file set to one of the Renderworks Render modes and when you did the flyover it switched to wireframe. Normally it will re-render after you stop moving using the flyover tool. Try this: Go to the View Menu:Rendering, and switch to Wireframe mode. Then do the same and convert to OpenGL. If I am right you will now be able to flyover a rendered model. If you need Renderworks quality renders, use OpenGL with flyover to find the views you want and then create viewports and set the rendering mode to Renderworks. Ask again if I am not understanding your problem.

Are these VW symbols or ones you (or someone else ) created? Based on the way they look, it appears that the text insertion point is not at the center of the text. I would try editing the symbols and make sure the text is set to Horizontal Alignment of Center and Vertical Alignment of Center and then move the text so it is in the center of the circle/hex.

Rotate the text by 179.98° instead of 180. Then 0.02° difference is enough to convince the Adjust Flipped Text algorithm to not correct the text orientation but small enough as to not be noticeable when viewed in the drawing.

I think Boh is right about the check mark. But on another issue, be very careful with names in VW. Layers have a different "Name Space" than classes and other objects, but if you had a class named "Wall" you would not be able to create any wall objects in the file. A name in VW can only apply a one and only one objects.

Also, I think you can use Aliases or Shortcuts to access a single VWX file from multiple Object Style or Defaults folders.

@Boh I don't have time to test right now. Do you know if files in a Workgroup need to have items in the appropriate Resource Folder to show up as Object Styles? I am afraid I am not explaining this very well. For Example, when you import a Data Tag or a Worksheet Border, a Resource Folder is created in the active file called Data Tag Styles or Title Block Styles. Do the files in the Workgroup folder have to have objects in those sub-folders to show up as Style options for those objects?

Viewport render modes are controlled on a per viewport basis. Select the Viewport and in the Object Info Palette (OIP) set the mode you want for Background Render and Foreground Render. Then click the Update button at the top of the OIP to force the render to happen or to update.

If you have not edited Data Tags before it is a little "different" Pick a Data Tag style that is close to what you want. Insert it into the drawing and Convert to Unstyled. Then use Create Plug-in from Unstyled Plug-In. (or I your base style is already in the drawing you could just duplicate and rename in the Resource Manager). Find the new style in the Resource Manager, Data Tag Styles folder. Right Click and choose Edit. From the dialog box click the Edit Tag Layout button. Select the block of text you want to change. Click the Define Tag Fields button at the bottom of the Object Info Palette (OIP). Delete what is currently in the Current Tag Field window. In the Data pull down choose Incrementing Value. Select Integer then click the Sequence Settings... button. Set the Start Value to 01 and click OK. Click the Add to Definition button at the bottom of the dialog box and then OK. Click the Exit Tag Layout Edit button at the top right of the screen. Select the Data Tag Tool. In the mode bar select your newly created/edited style. Click and enter some tags. They should have 2 digits.

Your post was fine. It was my reading that was bad. Check out these threads for a good starting point for Workgroup Folders and then ask again if you have more questions.

I have to ask, have you quit and restarted VW? I know you have, but it is part of the unwritten rule of troubleshooting. Does the same thing happen if you edit the contained symbol and choose Top Level from the Modify menu? What happens if you create a really simple set of nested symbols in a new blank file? Have you tried a different workspace? Could Top Level have somehow gotten linked to the shortcut for Exit Symbol? Grasping at straws. 😞

Command Up Arrow and Command Down Arrow. (Ctrl on Windows) scroll through the design and sheet layers. Command Left Arrow and Command Right Arrow scroll through the classes.

Glad you figured it out. Unfortunately, no the viewport does not control everything. The Viewport controls specify which layers and classes are visible, but the Navigation Palette controls which layers and classes are selectable. Just the way it works.

If you need to do this, consider making a Data Tag object that will let you manually enter the data rather than the automatic Drawing Label. You can put two fields into the tag and then enter exactly what you need. Again manual, but if that is what is wanted/needed, it is probably the best way.

We fought with something similar in title blocks recently. The workaround at that time was to rotate the text by 0.02 degrees (not 0.01). that was enough to trick the autoflip to ignore those text blocks while not being enough to be noticeable in the overall drawing. Perhaps you can do something similar in your plant tags.

As a test, try this. Go to Vectorworks Preferences:Interactive Pane: Interactive Appearance Settings. Change the Object Highlighting options that are currently red or orange to different colors so you can obviously see what type of highlighting it is. In my (mostly) stock system, I see Pre-selection-Active Layer is kind of a light orange, Pre-selection-Inactive Layer and Object Highlighting-Inactive Layer are a dark orange, and Tool Highlighting is Red. If you change those to things like purple, blue, green, yellow you will be better able to see which type of highlighting is taking place and probably better able to troubleshoot. If you settings are like mine and the Red is the Tool Highlighting, it sounds like the Select Similar is finding the objects. I don't know why it is not actually selecting them.