Ken

Here's another situation. Currently (in VW2010) I'm hacking it up manually and inserting a little line segment (set to a different class for visibility purposes). I cannot find an improvement in Vectorworks 2012.

My roof is often on a different layer from my walls. So when this situation occurs, there's no seam line at the underside of the roof where the wall meets it. Seams elsewhere when you don't want, no seams when you do want. This is already Vectorworks version 2012. Any solution?

2. Yes! 3. No. For walls, the options only include Plane, Sphere, Cylinder. Only Plane looks like a texture. The other two don't... unless there's yet another work-around? 1. How do you do so for a corner situation? These are what I get. I had to pick one or the other wall.

Yes I did submit this as a bug a while back. Maybe I should keep a file and submit them again and again every year like whenever a new version comes out? Maybe I should get paid for it, too.

That's a decent work around. But 3 little questions remain. 1. How did you resolve the chamfered inside corner? 2. How do you resolve the open gap in the rendered image? 3. Is it possible to eliminate the texture mismatch? (This #3 is relatively low priority for my immediate purposes, but I'm just curious)

Seriously, you really don't have to be still correct in any sense when it's a Vectorworks flaw. Sure the solution is hacking up the roof face into little pieces, but many times for complex shapes, you do NOT want to do that.

I see what you're saying. Editing the class inside a VP is unique and does NOT affect global settings ? although the edit window looks hauntingly similar. But this actually means I cannot use the same Class definitions for simple on/off visibility in the same VP because the "House" and "Garage" classes I already have assigned to many other objects, some of which require different line weights from that of walls. I might as well create new classes solely for the purpose, like VPL1, VPL2, VPL3, VPL4? maybe up to VPL7 because my elevations require as many as seven different line weights. More classes to manage... you have to keep track of this from VP to VP to VP. And all this requires assigning *SOME* kind of distinct class to each and every visible object. The default None class becomes lacking. You just can't draw simple objects and leave them in the None class. It's a decent work around though... just for walls' line weights.

But those walls are fill objects on a different layer. They are, say, 3 feet in height. The L-corner walls are fine on their own layer. They are, say, 9 feet in height. All walls, both layers, are then aligned at the top (same ZZ tops, pun intended). So T-joins make no sense. I'll try to simplify the drawing and send it to you.

I've emailed you the drawing. It's just a simple roof face. You realize that you spoke out of both sides of your mouth in your response above?

Class overrides don't seem to work for me. I've just tried again by creating it all new in VW2012. It seems you might as well use the Advanced Viewport Properties to scale the line weights to 0.01 or something, then go in to annotate it with 2D drafting. 2D drafting still necessary. Lots of it. Opaque fills, too if you want. But seams, clunky roof faces, etc still remain problems.

In general, I find that having extraneous invisible wall components in a special lineweight class for viewport purposes to be cumbersome at best. These are also drawings that get passed around. Not everybody here is up-to-speed on Classes, let alone wall components. Let alone picking and choosing the right ones for each design change! It's an indirect workaround that'll backfire more often than shine. Nonetheless, it's an interesting workaround.

I've just tried it on an existing drawing (existing viewport elevs), and it did not work. VW 2012. I created a new class called "Eleview." Checkbox checked for "use at creation." Line weight set to really thin. OK button. I make this new class visible everywhere. The walls have no class assignment (in this drawing). So on the walls layer (floor plan view), I selected all walls and assigned them this Eleview class. The dialogue box asks, "do you want the selected object(s) to use the graphic attributes of the new class?" I said NO to all, keeping the heavy lines for the floor plan. Then in elevation viewport (Hidden Line render), I bring up viewport class properties. But checking/ unchecking the "class overrides" and "class visibilities" have no effect on the line weights. I exit each time with OK button and press Update several times afterwards, various combos. No effect. Not sure what you're talking about.

Does not work, Mr. Know-it-all. Thanks for laughing at me. Your last sentence read, "The thing with roofs is that the eave you set only happens on the lower side of the roof of the above stated line." Duh! So do you understand the problem or don't you?

In this situation, the "fill" wall cannot be shown in either floor plan (lower or upper). The lower walls turn the corner. This makes the fill wall "butt joint" at the wall corners show as a seam in Hidden Line render. How do you fix this problem IN AN EASY WAY? (also notice line weight problem in this simple model, affecting the windows too)

I've only skimmed those discussions. But are you talking about introducing WALL COMPONENTS into the fray? You're talking about setting an "outer skin" component to become visible or invisible in different views? What if I want my walls to have NO COMPONENTS? Just a double line!? Or if I already have very specific components where the exterior surface must be visible in both plan view and elevation view? If so, then you're not just talking about applying different classes. You're talking about fudging the drawings with visible/invisible wall components. Yes?

You mean 20? to 30? (not percentages)? Seems to have no effect. Even if it did, wouldn't it chop up the profile into a rougher outline, and therefore more undesirable?

I want to show just the outline of a NURBS surface in Hidden Line Render (either in a dynamic viewport or when converted to lines). How do I eliminate these extraneous line segments?

Can you explain more? For example. A house with detached garage, breezeway between the two, I have the house walls in a class called "House." The garage walls are in a class called "Garage." In the model, I control the visibility of either house or garage by turning on/off the two classes. In the floor plan, walls are shown as a set of HEAVY double lines. How would I apply class overrides to see thinner lineweights for walls in the elevation viewports?

I thought this issue would get fixed in an upcoming version. This problem is from the Minicad era. Sometimes roof faces are much more intricate than this. The essential problem shown is that the eave profile is NOT done to the higher eave. [img:left]http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8907/roofl.jpg[/img]

My floor plans show walls in a heavy line weight. These same heavy lines show in side views (viewport of model, hidden line render). Then if I use Advanced Properties to change the Line Weight Factor, all lines for the entire view get reduced. Isn't the goal to reduce or eliminate 2D drafting? How do you use classes to control the lineweight of walls for different views (floor plan vs. Elevations)?

Thank you!

This is still a FUNDAMENTAL WEAKNESS in Vectorworks. It's not just lineweights. Seams still show, roof faces are still clunky... basically a tremendous effort is still needed to tidy up the 3D model whenever the design is a bit fancy. Several years ago, we had a lively discussion about real-time elevations. It ended with promises of improvement in the next version. Now, several versions later, the improvements are only in 3D. There's no help in 2D elevations. It's like you present your stuff in perspectives rendered in wizbangknockyoursocksoff wow, get paid, happily run to the bank, then forget about 2D quality for the rest of your project. It makes me think that the demand for good lineweights is just not there ? or as revealed in the other discussion, the understanding of why it's important has eroded. Old school dying out?

You boast that "lineweights are not as important as they used to be. Here's why..." But you don't explain why. You don't even show it. Those images may look okay on screen, but what about in the field, perhaps with printing imperfections, folded, wrinkled, faded, smudged, etc.? You say that using good lineweights is "old school" but you don't identify the principles of old school.

My example does not involve components.

Despite NNA's claims that wall joins are improved (in the very simplistic "what's new video"), it's still broken. Simple problems remain. How do you join this without manual hacking? [img:left]http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/4054/walljoin.jpg[/img]