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Francois Levy

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Everything posted by Francois Levy

  1. One cannot currently copy a viewport from one file to another. In order to do so, one would have to copy the design layer from the source file, create a new sheet layer, create a new viewport, then copy annotations from one viewport to another, carefully positioning them in place. Very tedious if one has a sheet with a dozen or more viewports! Workgroup References will not reference sheet layers, unfortunately. I'd like to see either Sheet Layer workgroup references, or a way to copy and paste annotated viewports from one file to another; probably there would be a prompt to ask the user to identify which layers in the source documents would populate the viewport.
  2. Since each sheet layer can have a distinct page setup, it would be great to be able to selectively change those in a single operation, as a complement to Batch Print and Batch PDF Export.
  3. I've recently had a few DTMs where the elevation labels are displaying as decimals (EG, 564'11.978" instead of 565'). This is in spite of the fact that the 3D poly corresponding to that contour has an exact Z of 565' in this case. Moving the 3D polys within the DTM up .022" does not change the display. I could set my display units to round to whole inches, but that obviously would sabotage the dimensioning everywhere else in my project file. I should also mention that I am using a cropping polygon in this DTM; don't know if that would contribute to this error. While I'm at it, there is no way, is there, to control the dislay units for a given DTM (EG displaying elevations as 565' instead of 565'0")?
  4. Right! And I knew about the instances, but I was pretty impressed with how dynamic they were.
  5. I have a project whose model consists of 5 design layers (site, three floors, roof), all correctly registered in X,Y and Z. I have keyed in section viewports from the viewport of my ground floor *sheet* layer, in order to generate elevations, building sections, and wall sections. I then copied and pasted all my section markers from the ground plan annotation space to the annotation spaces of the second, third, and roof plans. I've noticed that VW tracks all the instances of the section markers and "knows" that they are all referring to the same section. If I change the position or keyed number of one, that change reflected in all annotated instances. Pretty dang cool!
  6. How about a database of cities worldwide with lat and long already built in (as a pull-down menu) for the Set Sun Position command (like YouKnowWho?Up) Also, adjusting for a rotated plan north is not user-friendly; it only accepts positive values and could be more graphical.
  7. I often have to manually clip objects and reasssign them to other classes in as-built drawings/models in order to generate demolition plans. Wouldn't it be grand if there were a Demolition Tool? for starters, anything within a drawn poly could be clipped and assigned to (a) user-defined demolition class(es). The tool's Preferences box could list all current file classes and how they would map to demolition class(es), such that a door in a wall would map to a different demolition class (with different graphic attributes) than the wall itself.
  8. Well I feel a little foolish. First, I didn't realize that I was running 12.0 on an Intel machine--I thought it was already upgraded to 12.5! Secondly, I set my 3D resolution to Low (from High). Finally, I traced the building footprint, offset it by 5', and used that polygon to clip the DTM, vastly reducing the number of 3D polys (and elminating many that I did not need anyway for those viewports anyway).
  9. We're working through a large residential project in Design Development, and taking section viewports of a 3D model to generate building sections and elevations. The site is large and complex enough that ther are a fair number of 3D polys, and the building has two main wings set 65? apart, with a shallow barrel roof in one case, and a flat roof in others--in short a fairly demanding model but not (IMHO) hugely so. We have thus far set up 6 sections, and are finding the machine is now very slow (brand new Intel core Duo 2 iMac, 1 GB RAM). Even moving a vewort on the page is painfully slow. Questions: --does anyone have any tips on speeding up hidden-line Section Viewports (other than turning off polygons)? --will more RAM make a substantial difference (we have an aditional 1GB on order)? Any suggestions welcome!
  10. One can crop a DTM by pasting a polygon inside the group of data objects (3D polys or loci). In some cases, though, the cropping polygon causes 2D countours to simply drop out. Are there "rules" for such a polygon (for example, no concavity, maximum number of vertices, no edges on/near 3D data, etc.), or is it hit or miss?
  11. Maybe that works for you. Naturally, I need to dimension details, and obviously dimension strings have to be annotations. Looks like I need to cross-post this over on wishlist.
  12. Katie, Tried the eyedropper; it only saves me one step. It does allow me to set the scale, view, render mode, and source layer(s) of a new viewport to match that of another viewport in another document, assuming both files have like-named source layer(s). It doesn't transfer annotations or crop, which is the time consuming part. Still not quite what I'm looking for.
  13. Thought I responded but my earlier reply didn't appear. Hopefully this isn't a duplicate post. If so, I apologize. Save As won't allow me to integrate two files. For example, if in one project file I've developed details (Viewports) from wall sections (Design Layers), and I want to import them into a new file in order to reuse said details, I have to manually copy and paste Design Layer contents, create new VPs, copy and paste Annotations, etc. Even Workgroup References won't allow the kind of importing I've describe. Furthermore, in CA, I like to have all my drawings in a single file, even if during CDs the set was broken up in two or more files, and Referenced.
  14. One cannot currently copy a viewport from one file to another. In order to do so, one would have to copy the design layer from the source file, create a new sheet layer, create a new viewport, then copy annotations from one viewport to another, carefully positioning them in place. Very tedious if one has a sheet with a dozen or more viewports! Workgroup References will not reference sheet layers, unfortunately. Does anyone know of or have a script that allows copying or cloning viewports (or even entire sheet layers, viewports and all) from one file to another?
  15. Thought I had posted something along similar lines before, but maybe not: --Back and Forward buttons like a web browser --Folders for Resources other than symbols --Ability to move Resources around within the browser without using the clunky "Move" fly-out menu option (just drag it) --And while I'm at it: drag a collection of objects to the RB and create a symbol (drag and drop from drawing to RB, not just the other way around)
  16. In the Mac OS, if I have an open folder, I can type the first several letters of a file name to find it. When listing classes in the Organization Palette, however, VW only highlights the class beginning with the last letter I typed. For example, if I have 100 classes, and one of them is Sills, typing "S I L" should ideally get me Sills. The current behavior highlights "Landscape", however, and makes finding just the class I want more tedious. The same is true for lists of symbols, textures, etc. in the Resource Browser. Thanks
  17. Thanks! That's very helpful. Here's what I ended up doing--a bit more simple-minded I admit, but I couldn't have done it without seeing your examples first: --I copied all my text objects and pasted them into a clean file --Exported as a VectorScript file --In a text editor, I did a series of find/replace, replacing first TextOrigin with Locus3D then (at the end of the x,y for the text object) replacing ); BeginText; ' with , finally, I replaced '' (at the end of the line with the text object's value) with ) This had the effect of changing each text object with an x,y and value into a 3D locus with an x,y, and z, using the text object's value for the z. --I then saved the text file as MyFile.vss, then imported into VectorWorks as a VectorScript. Seems to have worked like a charm. Thanks again!!
  18. A surveyor has provided me with an incomplete file (and of course I'm in a rush) with 914 points identified. They've imported as groups with a text object adjacent. I'd like to automate placing a 3D locus with the correct Z coordinate (given in the adjacent text). Obviosuly what I'm after is data for a DTM. Any suggestions? Manually placing 914 3D loci and assigning their Z's would be tedious.
  19. A surveyor has provided me with an incomplete file (and of course I'm in a rush) with 914 points identified. They've imported as groups with a text object adjacent. I'd like to automate placing a 3D locus with the correct Z coordinate (given in the adjacent text). Any suggestions?
  20. Right. I don't know how I managed it, but it didn't. I ended up copying and pasting the data from one file to another and that worked.
  21. I'd like to request: --a progress bar (or numerical estimate of time to complete) for solar animations. --a "sun view" animation, whereby the viewer's position changes with the sun, so that one sees "what the sun would see". This would be a helpful design tool in evaluating the effect of shading devices (and you'd never have to render shadows, since they would always be occluded by any shadow casting object, so a GL rendering would work fine, thereby reducing rendering times).
  22. Sketchup, as I recall, allows realtime displays of rendered models in a variety of styles, one of which it seems to me approximates the default "cartoon" mode for Artistic RenderWorks. I'd like to see more cached rendering modes, starting with something like ArtRW "cartoon" and other sketchy presentation modes--call it OpenGL sketchy if you will. It seems that if SketchUp with its relatively small footprint can do it, VW ought to be able to as well. It has been suggested that one way to achieve this is by using the GL engine to render lines as very thin polys.
  23. I've searched the message boards and Help files, and couldn't find a procedure. Is there a way to update a v11 DTM (symbol) to a v12 version (PIO)?
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