Cris with no H

A roof plane is OK, but doesn't cut a section correctly. A simple extrude is often easiest, at least cuts a solid section correctly, and - probably most important - doesn't get in the way of marquee selecting when dealing with the other scenic elements. Just my personal feelings on this one.

If you can manage to create paths in NURBS that approximate the center of your spanset section, then do Extrude Along Path operations with a very flattened oval profile, you might get close to what you're looking for. Cris Dopher

A simple translucent plastic texture will do (found under the Reflectivity settings in the texture dialogue). Cris Dopher

Essentially, you can't quite do what you're describing only by defining new line styles. You could find a good vectorscript programmer to make you some new plug-ins that do these kinds of tasks, or look around on the web for plugins that do something close to what you're looking for. Alternately, you could create symbols that are a chunk of your desired line style, placing them end-to-end for the length needed; but that could get cumbersome and you wouldn't be able to lay them in as simply as drawing a line. Wish I could be of more assistance. CD

A quick test would be to copy and paste the entire light plot into a new file, then try running the paperwork commands. CD

That's a great idea!

Users should be aware that older versions of Illustrator are not supported well by the newer operating systems. If you're not up to at least the first CS, you'll have problems. Also, many users report crashes of Illustrator a couple minutes after booting - make sure you're not running Photoshop at the same time. They share the exact same font cache and will crash each other. CS2 and above fixes this problem on Mac and Windows. CS2 and CS3 play very nicely with VWs EPS exports, but for a quick and dirty way to get the vectors into Illustrator, you can copy-and-paste between applications. BTW, VW can export to .3ds...and Photoshop CS3E can open that up as a 3D file, and by Placing the Photoshop doc, Illustrator can show the model, too. You needto have the model textured correctly first, but the results are amazing, especially when placing a 3D model into a presentation board - no need to tweak the original model just for rotation or scale - Photoshop can handle that. Cris Dopher

Actually, VW will create a symbol every time you use Convert to Lighting Position. The nice thing is, you can then use that symbol over and over to create identically shaped new positions. Save some file space. Cris Dopher

Are you referring to the datum? This can be set at any time with the G key. Does your Detail Bubble have a solid fill in the Attributes palette? You already have this ability. Ctrl-drag will drag a copy off the original. Grab by the correct snapping point and drag a copy to where you need it. Cris Dopher

Listen, every time either product rolls out an upgrade, the Autolink default mapping becomes invalid; it's just a fact of making two products work together. Because it is a bit of file written by NNA, NNA has to fix it. However, even in the best of times, Autolink has never been robust - even within one project my units will eventually break their links. Interestingly enough, I find I can go back and forth between VW and Excel just fine... Then I export once to LW to fill in the finer details of instrumentation and focus notes and send to the printer. I think John and Kevin have some serious collaboration to do if these two products are to work together seamlessly in the future. Cris Dopher

Simon, there is a bug with curtain objects and final quality RW, which they are working on. Which render modes have you tried? Is the curtain wireframe in all of them?

Simon, do your curtains have a solid fill? If they are no fill or pattern or hatch fill, they may not render. (Although, at the moment I can't get curtains NOT to render). Cris

Plopping the symbol itself down on the drawing will work, but you'll have to manage the data per symbol on the Data tab of the OIP. When you start to juggle a number of sheets and have to keep updating titleblocks with revision notes or sheet number changes, it is easier to use the Drawing Border Object and manage the titleblock from inside the DBO's object info palette. On the other hand, it sounds like you made a red-object symbol out of a pre-configured DBO w/ titleblock in it. IN which case, you're all set. CD

Jim, I'm not sure what you mean by live section, but if you mean section viewport, those are created on the design layers, which I assume you're drawing to scale. If you want to edit the section plane later, you edit the section line instance on the design layer; then update the section viewport to show the changes. CD

The short answer, Stacy, is that Stacked Layers programming changed. It was in the release notes, IIRC, that in your workspace, you'll have to first delete Stack Layers, then re-add Stack Layers. The program is trying to find the old version of the programming. Cris Dopher

For a titleblock to work in the DBO, the symbol insertion point must be the lower right corner. Edit the titleblock symbol and move all geometry to the upper left quadrant. (Where the dashed lines meet on the screen is the symbol's insertion point and you must move things relative to that.) CD

Benefit: updated import/export algorithms for dxf/dwg. CD

I just want to point out that it is by upgrading, and staying up to date, that you'll be able to import and export the latest-and-greatest version of AutoCAD files. AutoCAD 2007 and 2008 versions under VW11? Fuhgeddaboudit. Cris Dopher

Not currently, no. Cris Dopher

Anybody have release notes on this version? I can't find them anywhere. Cris Dopher

Steve, you got this conquered, did you not? Do you want to post how you did it for the benefit of future forum searches? Cris Dopher

Have you Updated the WR? Do you have space objects on hidden layers it might be counting? Cris Dopher

Allow me to get out my Old Man soapbox here... "I remember when a CAD program didn't even HAVE database capabilities..." yadda yadda yadda. I have faith that worksheet capabilities will get better and better, since Nemetschek is really pushing this product into a Building Information Model mode of working. Sure, worksheets aren't exactly Excel right now, but they were never meant to be, either. I wouldn't call them weak, either... it takes some digging through the help files, but you can set up some pretty powerful worksheets to track objects and count stuff up. It goes hand in hand with being competent in setting up good symbols and data records. It would be nice if users who are adept at worksheets would start submitting worksheets to sites like vectordepot.com so that the rest of us can examine them and see how they work and learn from that. Cris Dopher

Matt, I'm sure we'll have this ability in viewports someday, because it's been a wishlist item for a lot of people, including myself! In the meantime, I have been using a nice little plugin I got off vectordepot.com (I think) that does a quick conversion of a dimension to 3D objects. It's no longer a dimension, of course, but the same text and lines can now show up in many views, rotated as appropriate. Don't know if that helps you, but it's another strategy. Cris Dopher

What kinds of planes are you making? Extrudes? 3D polys? Nurbs curve? Nurbs Surfaces? Meshes?