boxjoint

Christiaan, I still don't understand how this was possible in V12. I'm not suggesting you couldn't do it, I'm asking HOW you did it. I'm still on V12 and I'd like to know. As my post above shows, my dialog boxes don't allow for these settings. Thanks.

Colby, As to your excavation, I had a similar problem and solved it by drawing a set of 3d polys around a pad as shown in the attached files. The pad is red and is set to elevation. The 3d poly that surrounds it is offset a small amount, as little as 1/16" as seen in the closeup. I added vertices at the corners, doors, and other key locations and adjusted the z values of each vertex. Make sure you put the poly in a class called Site-DTM-Modifer. Set it up if it doesn't already exist. This will make the poly act as a site modifer. Essentially what you are doing is creating a plane (between the edge of your pad and the 3d poly) that will describe the inside wall of your excavation. It made the model work but almost drove me mad. The flat areas are probably also caused by the model peeking out somehow. I don't get it either but I've had to actually modify elevations slightly to eliminate the problem! How's that for software not getting in your way! You might try the Drape feature, though I haven't used it so I cannot offer guidance. I believe it will even out slight irregularities in the surface of the model and allow a better render. Let me know how it works if you try it. I agree that the DTM has great potential, but it is not so easy to work with.

Colby, The flat areas could be caused by the combination of the type of rendering you have chosen and the way you are displaying the site model. Try a different combination. The three stacked grey triangles in your excavation may be the "ground" leaking out from behind the site modifers, depending on how your modifiers are set up. You may need to check your vertices to be sure you don't have any holes. I've had these problems too. Frustrating. My fixes are usually workarounds. Perhaps someone with better DTM knowledge can help.

Christiaan, Forgive me, but I don't see how we have the ability to set individual component's line by class style in V12. See the screenshots of my palettes. They seems quite similar to the ones you posted from V13, with the exception that you have the ability to assign color to your components and I do not. I can assign a color to the whole wall, but components only allow for "None", "Pattern", and "Hatch". Your left and right pen setting also have a "class attributes" checkbox where mine don't. Can you post shots of how you used do what you are describing in V12?

Is your site model set to perform contour smoothing, perhaps? (In the create site model dialog box)

I don't have V13 so I don't know exactly what the interface is, but based on V12, wouldn't a modification as illustrated in the attached graphic serve to eliminate some confusion?

Here's another: 3d OBJECTS Z VALUE: We know that all objects are drawn on the layer ground plane by default (or optionally on a working plane). Wall objects display a Bot Z field in the OIP to allow them to be moved up or down. The number in the field reminds us where the wall is in the layer's Z space. ALL 3d objects should display a Z field that allow you to move the object in relation to the ground plane and provide information as to where that object is in Z space. Currently, extrudes do not have any info as to their Z location even after moving them. Even objects that are drawn on a rotated or angled working plane or objects that are not rectilinear retain a relationship to the ground plane. The Z value of the object should refer to the lowest point of the object. (Bot. Z) If the program can place a bounding box around the object, surely it knows the limits of that box. I realize there has been discussion on this before and that there are ways to determine the Z value of the vertices and such, but I cannot accept that, when I draw a simple shape, extrude it upwards, and relocate it using the Move 3D command, I am unable to see it's z value in the OIP. It's my wish and I'm sticking to it. : )

Another thread mentions making improvements to the Object Info Palette. http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=88729#Post88729 Perhaps we can list them here. I have one. FLOOR SLABS: Why do they only show a Bot. Z and Thickness in the OIP? They have an X and Y dimension too. This should show in the OIP. I know that you can double click the slab object which shows and allows editing of original object used to create the slab and it's properties. I won't tell you how long it took me to figure that out. But, the OIP is largely blank when viewing a slab. Why can't the info for the underlying object appear, even if it is uneditable until a button that says "Edit Floor Object" is clicked? A related issue is that displaying the Bot. Z value is really meaningless unless we know the Z value for the layer the object is on. I'd like to see an option to have the Layer Z displayed in the Navigation palette for when you are working heavily with layers with different elevations.

I agree. In fact, let's start a new thread for that here http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=88732#Post88732

Kabota, Have you tried the Stack Layers command? If your floorplans are registered in the X/Y axis in Top/Plan view and you have your Z values set correctly, Stack layers should automatically show you the layers correctly when viewing in 3D. Z values are the key here. Check your Layer Z values in the Organization Pallet under the Design layers tab. If you set your layers so that their Z value is the same as the floor elevation for the floor plan, then be sure the walls on that layer have a Bottom Z value of zero in the Object Info Palette. (assuming that the bottom of the wall is resting "on" the floor) Be sure the layers you want to view are made Visible in the Navigation palette and that you have your layer options set to show other layers (ie. Show/Snap Others). Select Stack Layers from the menu and switch to an elevation or isometric view. Once you get it to show, play with the layer Z and the wall's Bottom Z values to see how they affect the model. This should help clear things up for you about those relationships. HTH's

I do not want to step into the middle of a pissing match here, but I will say that I sympathize with Ian and appreciate his persistance in getting the explanations provided in this thread. They have helped to clear things up in my mind as well. I have never quite understood the logic of having to convert the symbol files either. Now I do. Thanks for that. I have been a Mac user for years and feel fairly competent, but for some reason I find the whole structure of the resource browser and navigating the associated libraries confusing. I haven't spent a lot of time trying to figure out why, so I keep muddling along hoping the light will shine on me some day. It might be that the Resource Browser could be reorganized to be a little more user friendly during navigation, but again, since I haven't focused on it, I can't provide specific suggestions. This may be another one of those areas where folks that have become accustomed to the structure find it to be second nature, while those that haven't had that "AHA" moment yet still struggle.

I've been having my own hyphen issues. Dimension lines show feet and inches separated by a hyphen, ex. 1'-10 3/4". However, if you wish to place a worksheet on the drawing with dimensions in feet and inches, you must not use the hyphen since VW sees it as an operator and subtracts, leaving you with 1 1/4 inches instead of 1'-10 3/4". Entering the dimension in the worksheet without the hypen works, but then the notation is different from the dimension lines.

I agree with your agreement. Also with your additional suggestions. User friendly should be the watchword.

I would like to see the viewport name in all three panes of the OIP instead of just the Data pane. It could appear just to the right or directly below the title "Viewport". The Shape pane is the most used, but when clicking on a viewport, especially if there are overlapping viewports, it is inconvenient to have to switch to the Data Pane each time to determine which viewport is selected.

If the box with the 9 dots is smart enough to modify itself to reflect the orientation of the rectangle as originally drawn, perhaps it could be taught to share that information with the user by showing three red dots that indicate the edge that it knows was the bottom edge originally. Otherwise we are left to guess as it doesn't sound like there's any way to distingush the orientation without trial and error each time. Ideally, the box with the 9 dots would also rotate to the same orientation as the object.

Twickenhaman, You may not have done anything wrong. Your second post says that you made a viewport (of the design layer) on a sheet layer. You don't say exactly how you did this, but you can do this two different ways. If you simply select Create Viewport from the menu, the viewport that is placed on the sheet layer is uncropped. You see the whole design layer. On the other hand, if you draw a rectangle ( or other shape) on the design layer that encloses the area that you want to see in your viewport, and then, with that object selected, you select Create Viewport from the menu, you are given the option to use the object as your crop object. As Ray says, you can also create a crop object directly in the viewport using Edit Crop. Note that in the OIP, just above the Update button, there is a tiny note that tells you whether the viewport you have selected is cropped or not. It's handy. Hope this helps.

Katie, It was crashing. I was getting a message that said something like "The application has unexpectedly quit. No other applications have been affected." And it gave me options to report it to Apple, reopen the application or close the window. I'd like to give you the exact text or a screenshot, but guess what??? Today, I cannot get it to quit! I am doing the exact same procedures to batch export a PDF and it exports fine with any amount of pages. I don't get it. I made some changes to the file last night which included deleting some viewports I was working on. Perhaps there was a problem with one of the viewports that was causing it to go haywire. If the problem crops up again, I will forward the file for your review. Thanks for your replies.

Safari, Mail, and Preview.... These were all on the other computer. But I had closed all the open applications as a test and it didn't help. I have also just tried batch printing and in the print dialog choosing Save as PDF but that crashes VW as well.

I have recently upgraded my computer system from a 1 GHz titanium PowerBook G4 with 1gb ram, OS 10.4.9 and VW Designer 12.5.0 to the iMac listed below. In the course of switching over, I updated the OS to 10.4.10 and VW to 12.5.2. I am now unable to reliably batch export a PDF. On my old machine, I have batch exported up to 18 pages at a time without a problem. Now, using the same file, I can export 2, or 5, or 10 pages, or any number in between at the whim of VW but never the same result twice. In other words, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Mostly it doesn't. It seems that the greater the number of sheets I try to export, the greater the liklihood that it fails. The little vectorscript window comes up for about 5 or 10 seconds saying that it is exporting, then the program quits. I have trashed the prefs file, restarted the computer, ran disk utilities and repaired permissions, tried exporting different groups of sheets within the document, tried exporting different numbers of sheets, all to no avail. How can I get this feature to work properly again?

It's worth doing. It can be quite an eye-opener, especially with new users. You soon realise that things you've become used to over time can represent considerable barriers to others. I agree. While I've never watched another new user, I've been a new user. I purchased VW 10 upgraded to 11, then to 12. Wasn't until ten months ago or so that I really made a focused effort to learn the system. Prior to that I was fumbling along and found many things very frustrating and unintuitive. I had the same feeling while I was trying to learn the program. I still do, but I now know how it works and can manage. It doesn't mean that things shouldn't be easier. As to the unified window, I think the introduction of the toolsets was a big help. If the unified window allowed the user to arrange the toolsets, menus, etc to their liking, and allowed for the creation of multiple workspaces so one could have a different arrangement depending on the monitor or computer one was using, and if it also allowed for using the current pallet arrangement as an option when creating the workspaces (and I don't mean all of one or all of the other, but rather, being able to use the individual pallets in one workspace but the unified window in another) then it might be an improvement. However, I'd prefer to see NNA focus on improving many existing features that are frustrating or don't work correctly before taking time on this.

Bruce, Perhaps you could provide a link to your other post along with your wish. The other post provides good info that clarifies the problem and what you are wishing for.

Speaking of mice, I have recently gotten the Apple Mighty Mouse. However, while the scroll wheel works very well with other apps, it does not work so well with VW 12.5.2. With the mouse set to zoom via the scroll wheel, things zoom at a frenetic pace, almost uncontrollable. Because it's so sensitive, when you press the scroll wheel to drag the drawing, it zooms in and out when you don't want it to. Resetting the mouse settings each time I want to use VW is not a good option. Any suggestions?

I actually found that the changes made to the DTM in v12 made it quite a lot easier to use than in v11. However, in another case of one step forward two steps back, we lost the ability to select the specific layers that will modify the proposed DTM. In v11 we had the choice of "All Modifiers in this Document" and "Use Only Modifiers on Layer(s)" and were able to chose the layers from a list. In v12 we have the choice of "All Layers" and "Same Layer as Site Model Only". I find that this is very restrictive. If I have modifiers for a road, parking area, building site, retaining wall, etc. on different layers and want to see how various combinations of these or different arrangements of these modifiers affect the site model, I cannot. Am I missing something? Anyone else feel this way? Has this been addressed in v13-2008? If not, I will make it a wish.

Katie, While you're at it, can you get them to fix the annoying popup sticking problem which covers the whole screen and obliterates the topics? It's been some months since this was reported... #80133 - 05/28/07 Re: New Forum Safari bug. Still not corrected. Thanks.

David, I'm glad you got it to work. Personally, I find myself using the Annotations mode much more than the Edit Crop or Edit Design Layer modes. To speed things up, I have used the drop down menu in the Edit Viewport Command where it says Double Click: to select "Edits the Annotations". Now when I double click a viewport, it goes directly to the Annotation mode. I can still access the other modes via the Edit Viewport Command. I also have those three choices in my contextual menu, but I can't recall if they were there originally or if I added them.