atari2600

Any chance you can knock it down to VW2013? I'd like to take a look at it. It sounds like one should be able to accomplish what you are attempting to do. Matt

No, but you can make multiple copies of your "custom" viewport & simply change it's crop & design layer settings. (you can select multiple viewports and turn on/off classes at once, but not override.) How many sheets do you print out, typically? If its a handful, you can set up multiple printing sheets on a single sheet layer, so you don't have to keep bouncing between sheet layers. That way, you can set up one single sheet layer with all your customized viewports. You can do this under the "Page Setup" button while editing a sheet layer. You can set the number of horizontal and vertical pages once youve properly set up your printer and paper size.

Yes, by creating class overrides. First, I assume that every linetype that you wish to have a different appearance for, they are on a unique class from eachother, and you have not changed their appearance using the attributes palette. You need to make sure the attributes of the lines are all set to "by class" on this palette before proceeding. Next, if you go to the sheet layer and select the viewport you wish to edit, bring up the object info palette and pick the "classes" button. Once you get the list of your classes up, simply click on a desired class and hit "edit". Any appearance changes you make here will only affect the object on this class, on only this particular viewport. You can also select multiple classes at once and make them all look the same. And if you are dealing with a black & white appearance, don't forget you can set that under the viewport's "advanced properties." (we use this feature all the time when presenting different schemes to clients. We draw with all the walls with the same color, but have overrides set up in the viewports showing different colored walls to make each scheme appear different.) hope this helps, Matt

Andrew, Making the "base symbol" and then having a different symbol associated with the different clients makes sense to me, especially if they will all appear in the same viewport. I do this all the time, (especially with electric symbols). However, I also highly recommend learning to use the Viewport Override feature. This is a very powerful way to precisely control how you want things to look in any particular viewport, beyond simply turning classes on and off. If the objects within the Symbol are on their own separate classes, not only can you turn them on & off, but you can override both the pen of the fill of the class, giving a lot of graphic control. In other words, you can work with a simplified appearance while you are in the design layer, then create a much more graphically rich appearance when looking at it through a viewport on a sheet layer. You can then set up a handful of viewports already "tweaked" to your different clients, so all's you have to do is paste the desired "client ready" viewport into the sheet layer you are working on. hope this helps, matt

From the sheet layer, cant you create a cropped viewport with a polygon object that can be neatly tucked only around the objects you want to render? It's been a while, but I remember doing this often for isometric views.

If you add a "#" to the end of your field name, you can add multiple lines to the text box (by using the enter key), but the text wont wrap on it's own. In other words, if your field name is "S_Notes", change it to "S_Notes#" and you will have a multi-line field.

Are you importing the file directly as a sheet layer viewport, or importing it onto a design layer, to then create a sheet layer viewport of that? Perhaps try the opposite of what you are doing to see if that works. (I hope I am making sense.) Matt

Hi Rob, I was just playing with the tool, and I notice that if I turn off my wall component classes which have the brick veneer on them, the veneer turns off and the tool successfully dimensions to the outermost "visible" material (the sheathing in this case). If I turn on the brick veneer class again, the tool will dimension to the outside of the brick. The wall styles we use are all set to have each components be on their own class, thus controlling visibility. (and please forgive me if I miss-understand what you are trying to accomplish.) Matt

Before hatch attribute mapping, we used the "ceiling grid" tool for orthogonal arrangements. Perhaps that tool might help in your situation. Matt

I certainly wouldn't advocate anyone upgrading their OS on it's first day of release, but if VW is the only software not working, what gives? Fwiw: Just looking in my old service pack release folder. I downloaded the final service pack release of VW2011 on 7/18/2011. In my mind, 27 months of using a "refined" piece of software is not a long time. Our warranty to our clients is longer that that. Again, just because "THE INDUSTRY" is moving to an annual release cycle doesn't mean it's ultimately a good thing for a user. If I were to buy a car, and it took half a year for it to finally work as advertised, I'm sure I would have traded it in before then. Fortunately, cars, "in general", work as advertised, so producing them annually is somewhat a given. Sadly, people so used to new versions of "half baked" software and OS upgrades, that it ultimately leaves the customer with the short end of the stick. (Last month was the first month all our users were running VW2013, upgrading from VW2011). Some of their ongoing projects are still running on VW2011. It is NOT WORTH converting the files up to 2013, with all the bugs we have encountered. Again, this is what our office has chosen to afford to do. Matt

So what is a small business owner to do? Ditch their computer's operating system, or ditch the one piece of software who's creator decides it's not "viable" to support their two year old software on a new OS release? Ever since NM went to this single year software version release, I've seen more and more people complain about bugs and compatibility issues. By the time they are resolved, "POW" a new version comes out, and the whole thing starts again. As an employee in a large residential remodeling company, we don't even have the infrastructure to handle annual upgrades, even though we pay for them through our annual subscription. We simply "choose" to upgrade every two years. Back when NM would spend several years updating and refining the current release, support for evolving operating systems was obligatory. I think you owe it to the single license owners (and Mac users) that you reconsider this position. There will be a tipping point where more people will choose another competing software, not because VW is bad, but because they cant depend on the customer/technical support being there in a year or two. my 2 cents... Matt (p.s. Just because other software companies are doing this annual upgrade thing does it mean that it is a good idea for the user.)

I've had similar issues with text in title blocks before (although mine had more to do with text changing font.) What I discovered is I needed to select the text in the title block symbol, and change the text's pen style (through the attributes palette) to "solid" - and not "By Class" like I would normally do. I believe I also changed the pen's color to the actual color I wanted and not "By Class". I can't explain it, but this helped resolve my font issues. Matt

If you create a template file (with a design layer set up, a sheet layer set up with your title block in it, and a viewport already in it of the "work area" from your design layer) then you are ready to print once you've drawn your objects, properly adjusted the viewport on the sheet layer, and changed the title block accordingly. In general, create a template for all the stuff you don't want to do over and over again in a new project. There is no reason to create new viewports over again if you don't have to, and if your projects are similar in scope. (File/Save as Template...)Next time you create a new drawing, it should be there to select. Matt

I always thought that this is an issue only when you have "Enable Auto-classing" turned on under the Standard Naming feature. (File/Document Settings/Standard Naming). If not, you can also check in the "VectorScript Plug-in Editor" (Tools/Scripts/VectorScript Plug-in Editor..)for the specific plug-in object you are using, and see if a default class is assigned under the "Properties" button. I would suspect that you "should" be able to change this here. While I personally appreciate VW's attempt toward helping me organize my classes and layers in the way that IT sees fit, I appreciate even more the ability for me to control the classes & layers to serve my own needs, depending on the scale or scope of the project I am working on. hope this helps. Matt

Mark, I'm afraid I don't fully understand what you are attempting to do. Is the issue with what angle to rotate the group at, since you are wanting to "align" the rotation with another triangle? A picture could help. (If I "think" I understand you, one thing you could do is drag a copy of the triangle (with the correct rotation angle) on top of the rotation center point of the group. That way you have it as a graphical snap reference. Then delete it when you are done.) but again, I feel like I might be adding to your confusion. Matt

For what it's worth, we haven't even messed with using "stories", and simply set our design layers at the respective "z". (Some of our designers are still using v2011, which doesn't even have "stories" anyway.) For split story houses, you can easily set design layers to overlap. If we were to do ten story buildings, then I could see some value in utilizing stories. But at the scale of a simple house, I'm not so sure it would ever prove to save any time, especially on a house with many levels occupying the same "z" but different "x" and "y" space.

It sounds like Cinema 4D reminds me of working with Archicad. So much so that we used an entire separate application for Annotating/Viewing/Printing drawings from the Archicad software. What was nice about this method was the second app was free, and could be installed on any machine. (This was mid 90's, so I have no idea if it still works that way.) "Sofware that doesn't get in the way" should be the mantra of any successful program.

I am tired of new "innovations" being designed around antiquated tools and concepts. For years now, Sketchup has been such a breeze to work with because one isn't bogged down with having to understand "layer plane" "screen plane", "UCS","planer objects",etc... My son has been using Sketchup since he was about eight years old. Time and time again, I see many of these cad companies simultaneously loose sight of both the user's needs of the software, and whom the users are using the software for. If; at the end of the day, we are essentially drawing stuff in order to effectively communicate something, is the software actually helping us do that, or getting in the way? Every tool, both old and new, should answer that question before it's employed. "Screen Plane vs. Layer plane"; is it really relevant anymore? (To be honest, I'd love to see software keep track of how many times a particular too is used or not used. What if we just paid for the software based on the tools we actually used? Of course I have wished this of my cable company for many, many years.)

Hi Jim, Ok, think I am now realizing the issue. I can make it happen with my styled walls, too. They don't have to be unstyled. Therefore, I "believe" the reason why it works for me and not for you is due to the possibility that the "Fill" settings of your wallstyle components are not set to "use class attributes". (I am certain that we have changed our wall components at our office to be controlled by the class.) Infact, I now realize that many of the Vectorworks default wall styles don't use set attributes for their components. Therefore, they will likely not change in this way. I would suggest duplicating a wall style you typically use, and try setting the components fill attributes to be controlled by the class. Then this override should work for you. What's nice about this method is you can always keep control over those particular attributes for any wall style, so you can change the wall's internal appearance (and scale of a hatch) depending on the scale of the viewport (show insulation in the wall, for example.) hope this helps. Matt

Hi Jim, This should work all the time, assuming you haven't changed the wall's attributes in the attributes palette. Make sure all the attributes of the wall are set to "by class" before proceeding. Here's a step by step after this is confirmed. 1) Go to the Sheet layer viewport where the viewport of your walls is. The view should be set to "Top/Plan" view for this to work. 2) Select the viewport, and look at the OIP (object info palette) 3) At the bottom of the OIP is the "Advanced Properties" button. Select it 4) In this box is the option to "Show Wall Components" 5) deselect the "Show Wall Components" button, and hit "preview". You should see your walls take on the default color/fill/hatch of whatever class the walls reside on. 6) Then you select the "Classes" button in the OIP, select a class you want to override, and hit the "edit" button. 7) You can now change the wall's class to be whatever you want it to be (solid, hatch, gradient, tile, etc... This will not affect the default appearance of the wall. I hope I am explaining this well enough, friend. Let me know if something doesn't make any sense. Again, when I have seen this fail, it is due to an attribute overriding the wall style in the design layer. I always make sure my walls are all set to "by class" before proceeding. good luck! Matt

Great presentation! I guess it could be a useful too for the potential client who doesn't easily see the "value" associated with the work we do. The more out there that promotes the value of professional, informed design, the better it is for the industry as a whole. For those that may have a hard time paying for "value", perhaps this will get them to either sh!t or get off the pot. Like any tool, it is likely not going to help everyone and could have the potential of creating fear and uncertainty in some potential clients (that won't proceed because it "isn't so simple".

You don't have to recreate anything new or change anything about the wall(s). There is an option when you pick the "Advanced Properties" button (Toward the bottom of the properties window when you select a viewport) called "Show Wall Components". Just deselect that and your walls will all take on the solid fill of the class their on. Furthermore, you can override the properties of each and every class through the viewport if you want to (in case you are going for some special poche' color for all walls which is different from your normal colors.) I would typically have some viewports already "pimped up" with snazzy wall colors in our template to do this to happen right out of the gate. Its a great way to speed things up, and still encourage some uniformity among multiple users. hope this helps, Matt

Although there has always been negativity associated with this list, it seems that ever since NM pushed the "annual release schedule" on VW, there now seems to be a constant flow of negativity. In the past, it would take almost a full year of bug fixes to flush out the issues with a given release. That duration hasn't changed, and now "pow!" there is a new release out to begin the bug fixes once again... Whoever thought it would good business practice to push annual releases will wake up one day realizing their had had been slowly nibbled off by thousands of frustrated clients.

I guess the fundamental issue boils down to you needing each database row to be able to have a different formula. I understand that the two databases are pulling from two different things, but could you create a single worksheet with all four columns in it? That way the "percentage" column should work. (just guessing, hope it helps.)

I think you should try "Tools/Utilities/Change Symbol Attrs..." I just played around with a symbol and modified it's colors, and this tool seemed to accomplish what you are trying to achieve (I think.)I made sure to select the "Use the document's current default attributes". You could knock all the acad symbols to their own folder, to better control the outcome. good luck!