Benson Shaw

Ooo, good call, CW. Filtered Image with Object Fill option! My bad. Alternative to the wrap: An existing texture can be converted to Filtered Image variety, sort of. Create a 3d poly with fill, apply the texture & render. Scale the texture for best appearance and take a screenshot of the basic tile. Use the screenshot as imported image to create new RW Filtered Image texture. -B

Ya, Brendan, post the file. Maybe it is something besides the texture. I did submit the birch as a bug. Bug submit replies (!) that not all textures are created equal. So it's not a bug but rather an example of a texture type which has no mapping options. These NO Asterix Textures can only be manipulated to the extent of host object rotation, scaling etc. That's fine, but I am bemused that all the default RW wood textures except the yellow birch varnished have mapping options. Even my home made textures have the options! Here is the message and screen shot from Gunther at NNA (Thanks, Gunther!): Hello Benson. There are two different types of textures. Not all texture types can be modified. When you?re creating or editing a texture, you?ll likely see an, asterisk appear next to a texture?s name. This determines if the texture can be fully modified. See attached image and the circle help for better explanation. Hope this helps. Gunther

Or adjust color of an image outside of VW and import it as an image texture. Or put a transparent colored wrap or overlay: Dupe the object in place, scale the dupe a bit and give the dupe a transparent, attribute colored texture (eg glass). Change wrap color with attribute palette. Modify wrap transparency for color density. Veriegated Stone turned blue with glass wrap in attached file. -B

Tried it with RW glass texture set to white color and no transparency. At 35% ambient light, the glass is not transparent. No transparency at 100% ambient. Can you post a file with a few objects which illustrate the problem? -B

For some plan textures use the Object Attribute Color in Edit Texture pane. Right click the texture icon in the Resource Browser to access the Edit TExture pane. If you are not familiar, try this first in a new file with new objects and a duplicate of a texture. Changing an image texture to plane or attribute deletes the image. -B

It's obvious - We all just need to start drawing at 1:1 scale using displays which are as large as the drawing extents. Bicycle and ladder at workstation are required. Telescope and microscope are optional. -B

This seeems more of a backup issue than a warning/lock issue. Sort of reminds me of the If Microsoft built a car it would be in the crash shop all the time. If Apple built a car there would be an "Are you Sure ..." warning every time you put on the brakes or shifted gears. (That is some other wag's joke) I agree that VPs can involve lots of time, but so can objects, textures, etc. Maybe some Document or VW pref option for this would make sense. I delete VPs all the time and see the Are you Sure warning as a hinderance to work rather than a needed protection (so far anyway). One can build safeguards into the workflow to get get back to a deleted object such asTime Machine Backups on several minute increment, dupe a layer or the file prior to work session, etc. Hope you didn't loose too much. -B

Those might be connecting to or indicating center vertices of nearly flat arc segments. I saw these in dwg conversions, too, butI have not tried any lately, so cannot duplicate your experience in v2008. The dwg conversion sometimes created some or many extra vertices. Some stacked. What I used to do is select all and fit to selection to find the end points about a mile from the drawing. Then zoom with mouse scroll, and use the 2d edit shape tool to delete the offending vertex, zoom back to the object and delete a few of the extra vertices near the problem one(s). Another fix was to just trace then delete the poly say with arcs rather than cubic or bez point, or splice in a new section near the bad part. Also, some polys imported from ACAD have areas which do not select in VW - cursor or clicks indicate selection in about half the poly, but not the other half,. Had to split by point and recompose or just trace over those. You say you cannot select, so perhaps that was no help. And waay cool church! Renovation or building new? -B

I tried all the default RW wood textures. All behave as expected except Wood Yellow Birch Varnished which behaves as you report - Rotate unavailable. Scale is unavailable and changing map type produces little or no change. I will submit this as a bug. For now, maybe you could choose a different woodgrain texture which does work, or create your own texture with a photo of some wood. -B

Look in Forum FAQ about add a file and attach a file. -B

There might be a custom line type with characters, but I have not seen it. Duplicate (a letter or phrase) along a path might work for you. Or the Repetitive object tool. -B

Lots of things could cause this. Here is a guess: Dimension objects are set to low precision, so do not display enough decimal places to describe the offset difference and The tangent and radius lines are not actually snapped to the circle. Perhaps there was a mouse twitch and no snap occurred, or VW snapped to a snapgrid point (if snapgrid is enabled) instead of the circle, or to an angle alignment, or to some other locus such as center of some off screen arc etc or One or more of the objects was moved after the dimensions were created - a small, inadvertent drag can happen when selecting and manipulating objects, esp in close zoom. See if you can make the radius, tangent and dimension objects snap properly in a new test file containing only the objects in question. -B

Use the Split tool (in the basic tool palette - It works on 3d objects, too) If all target objects are in one group, dbl click to enter the group Set the view plane perpendicular to the cutting plane Apply the Split tool in Line Split or Line Trim mode. This cuts all ungrouped objects crossed by the line, selected or not. Resulting object will show as Solid Section in OIP. Dbl Click the object to reveal and edit its orig objects and cutting plane. Any target objects which are groups will not be cut. (ie you can group an object to protect it from cutting) If manipulating groups is a problem, apply classes to the objects, ungroup and manipulate class visibility. Post back if this does not work. And please create a signature (My Stuff tab near top of forum window) so posts indicate your VW version and computer info. -B

Dbl click the solid addition - this reveals the 3d extrude. Dbl click the extrude which reveals the 2d objects which are extruded. Your extrude is made from two polylines. One of them is the inside arc. (Used as a clipping boundary?) Delete this poly and exit the edit windows. Your sliced poly should appear and render as expected. Also, the original polys have lotsa points. In that edit extrude frame mentioned above, you can retrace the extrudes with polyline tool in arc or spline mode, with the ocassional corner point. If the shape is close enough, it will improve redraw and render performance. Hope this helps! -B

Have you tried the Mask Transparency during texture creation? The Edit/Options button allows you to pick the background color (or other color in the image) as transparent. -B

Toggling between options in the Align Distribute command can require several clicks. Expand the radio button arrays to include a button for each option. One click to toggle! -B

The Add Image and Attach File topics in the Forum FAQ are not fully helpful. Many forum users, esp new users, cannot find or apply the process to add files or images to forum posts. How 'bout Drag 'n Drop? or Paste? with some kind of atomatic file size limiter if that's a problem. And last time I tried, .doc and .exl were not attachable. Is file type limit really necessary? FAQ is an acronym for questions, but FAQ is also understood as Help or Guidance. Remove the "Why. . . " and "How do I . . . " from topic subject list. -B

Hi, Jeff - Post a screen shot of the render or post the file, if it's not too big. Here is a guide for including a file in a post. -B

My Arial Black is behaving as expected. The menu commands for changing text operate properly. Plain text settings result in plain text display and print. Please create a user signature in the My Stuff/My Profile button near top of the forum window. Include a short description of your VectorWorks version and system info. These are often relevant to discussing and solving user problems. -B

Hi, Peter - Add a link if you like but you can also add images and files to your posts with the forum File Manager. Access File Manager by clicking the Reply button - the square one at bottom of each post. That opens a new reply window with areas for Icons, your post message, and Options. In the Options area, click the blue text "File Manager". This opens a window for adding files from your computer or network to your post. Click Choose File and navigate to the file you want to display, click Add File, Click Done Adding Files. Then Submit your post. Now the image or VW file will be in your post. This works with new posts and the Edit button, too. Good luck! -B

HI, Sketcher - In my workspace, the png export option is in the file type pulldown of the export pane. Default filetype is jpg so you have to select the png option: File/Export/Export Image File then click the File Type pulldown menu near lower right of the window. I think it's built in to all US VW packages, but I could be wrong. If you can't find it there, post back so others can help. Try the screen shot, too: shift command 4 draw a marquee. That makes a png. -B

There are at least two ways in VW. One is to use File/Export/Export Image File/PNG image. Another way is to make a screen shot with the key command: shift command 4 The cursor changes to cross hairs. Click Drag a mqrquee around the area you want an image of. When you release the drag, an image file is created and placed on your desktop. Press Escape before releasing the drag, and the action is canceled. Some software has no export png or save as png, so option 2 may be your only choice. Or you can save as pdf, open in Preview and save as png. But usually the pdf is a better graphic. -B

This may be only a partial help, but the hot key to open VW prefs is: command comma That saves a trip up to the menu, but still leaves you with all the tabs and check boxes in the prefs dialog box. Anyway, it works for me when toggling Show Other Objects in Groups. A tool approach would probably end up as a bunch of separate tools, or a few tools with dialog boxes and/or option check boxes. So still lotsa clicks. VectorBits appears to be working now. But you may be looking for Katerina Panagiotakis' Toggles at VectorDepot http://www.vectordepot.com/plug-ins/ It adds several of the VW prefs to the work space menu. I don't use it, so can't report on efficacy. -B

VW 12 and VW2008 rendered objects deteriorate when located at great remove from drawing origin. But no crashes or finder artifacts. Maybe too many digits in the vertex location numbers for successful calcs. Paste same objects close to drawing origin and they render successfully. -B

Here is one exercise which should get what you want. Create Rectangle Modify/Convert to Nurbs 3DModeling/PowerPack/Convert Curve to Surface In OIP check the Untrim box. This creates surface with U and V vertices. In OIP increase degree of U and V vertices to 2 which creates a middle vertex. Select Vertex Only in the move field. Navigate to the middle vertex with the OIP arrows. Increase z dimension of mid vertex. The perimeter vertices do no move. Increase weight of middle vertex to make the mound more pronounced. This round topped rectangle can be combined with an extruded rectangle of same base with Add Solids command. -B