Francois Levy

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.

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?

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)

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

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!!

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.

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?

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.

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).

I agree completely.

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.

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)?

You can also use Custom Selection to select all dimensions and globally change them to the new dimension style, once you've cretaed it per cbaarch's instructions.

Well after a bit more work and help from NNA (thanks Donald) I was able to get the site model 'clipped'. To the above instructions, I would add: --The clipping poly MUST be a polyGON, not a polyline --It may be in the None class (class seems to be irrelevant) I would also add that is procedure is analogous to pasting a polygon into a Roof object to create an aperature or crude skylight.

In v11 there was a DTM command, "Set Border", which allowed one to exclude portions of a site model from the graphic. This allowed having data points outside, say, metes and bounds, but generating a DTM of the property only. That command is no longer present in 12. After speaking with Tech Support, I've been given the following (undocumented) procedure: --Create class: "DTM-border" --Draw bounding polyline and set to DTM-border --Cut --Click on DTM and 'Edit Group' --Paste in place --Exit Group --Click on 'Update' in the OI Palette Problem is, the above procedure does not seem to work for me. Does anyone have an alternate approach to cropping out portions of a DTM (other than converting it to a mesh etc.)? Thanks in advance.

YES!

3D loci (often artifacts of PIOs like fireplaces) are visible in my renderings. While exporting the rendering as an image file will get rid of them, often a screen capture will do for a rendering export. Having 3D loci invisible in rendered views (even if as a preference similar to light objects') would be much appreciated.

Since VW 10, the 2D reshape lassso has been very slow, leading to frequent errors in handle point selection. Can this be speeded back up to VW 9 responsiveness?

In addition to using the Move... command in the RB, let users drag resources around and drop them into folders.

I did a serach for this but got 72 topics that seemed irrelevant. Sorry if I'm duplicating a prior post. Anyway, here goes: Please include a library of IKEA kitchen cabinets in VW or ARCHITECT. IKEA provides a kitchen layout application for free, but it's PC only and pretty cumbersome to boot.

While sometimes it's nice to move one wall and have all attached walls move with it, most of the time I DON'T want that. It would be nice if that mode were turned off as the default.

Being a keyboard shortcut-loving guy, I wonder what interest there would be in implementing a keyboard shortcut for toggling through the pick points for simple geometries in the OI palette. For example, click CTRL-(keypad) 1 and the lower right point of a rectangle is selected for reshapes.

Yes, I know. My point is that it would be nice (for me at least) for that mode to be off when I launch the program, not on.

I'd like to see walls behave better with 2D tools. For example, have lines extendable to walls with connect/combine tool; have the trim tool work on walls, etc. [ 08-04-2004, 06:11 PM: Message edited by: Francois Levy ]

My Autojoin pref is always off; that's not the problem unfortunately.