IanH

Will 2009 run on Lion? I need Piranesi ePix export and was hoping that I could fallback to 2009 which I also have PanzaCAD Photomatch for.

I awaiting the imminent arrival of a MacBook Pro. First time that I will have used a Mac in anger in over 20 years so I'm not really up to Mac terminology like OS name but I guess it's the latest. I use a Logitech M705 on my PC and like that. Long been a fan of Logitech especially after the 705's 4 year old predecessor (along with it's combined keyboard) was replaced by Logitech under warranty. The Logitech M505 that is on our Windows laptop is smaller but probably OK for longer term use too. Been looking at Logitech M555b as it's Bluetooth so won't use up one of the USB ports. Any one used this mouse? It gets mixed reports on Amazon reviews. Size and use of Bluetooth are my areas of concern. What is Bluetooth like for mouse on Mac. Prefer not to have to install any software for it to work - not much of a fan of Logitech mouse software so prefer not to install it if possible. Any other suggestions? I presume the Apple Magic Mouse is a no go with VW due to its seamless non tactile multi touch surface causing confusion between press and scroll operations? Do I even need a mouse as I have the trackpad which I am not a fan of in the PC world? Will be used with full size apple keyboard when in desktop mode, probably with case closed on larger monitor. Assume this will work Ok as keyboard will be plugged in. Apple store guy implied that this needed extra software but found Apple FAQ implied it was fine if keyboard was plugged in via USB and could wake the MacBook.

I thought that I would throw this one in to the arena before I spent too much time investigating. But has anyone seen a mismatch between foreground and background renders of scaled symbols. I had a symbol scaled by about 10% and the foreground render was correct but the background render was the original symbol size. Centre statue is scaled by 10%, others are normal size. Scaled statue is same symbol as right statue. PS. The pony tails have gone!

It may be broken or I may be doing something stupid... For a default stake object at X=13774, Y=11374, Z=0 and running your script I get: GetSymLoc = 13774.2, 11374.4 & GetSymLoc3D = 3700, 4200, 0 Having recently upgraded from 2009, its not as if I am up with the intricacies of layer planes and screen planes, but no matter what I set, I don't get anything matching the 3700, 4200 values. Although Z appears to be correct if I change the value in the OI. If I create another stake, X=12100, Y=12900, Z=100 on 3D plane, then I get: GetSymLoc = 12099.8, 12899.6 & GetSymLoc3D = 2025.6, 5725.2, 100

Hi Miguel I have just got around to changing Get3dCntr to GetSymLoc3D and found that the resulting points are considerably (meters) offset from the results given by Get3dCntr. However, using GetSymLoc yields the correct answer. For the time being, I can use the non 3D function, as this gets around the original issue of inconsistencies between the different modes of the stake object, but when I fully expand my tool to use3D space, I'm going to be back at square one. Is there any reason why PROCEDURE GetSymLoc(pioHndl:HANDLE; VAR x,y:REAL); or PROCEDURE GetSymLoc3D(pioHndl:HANDLE; VAR x,y,z:REAL); would yield different results for X and Y for the same stake object? Thanks

Thanks Miguel. I will update my tools to use those functions instead and can revert to show 2d symbol where not appropriate for site models such as feature heights relative to surrounding ground level rather than datum.

Looks like my previous duplicated post suffered as a result of the board downtime glitch and are not visible. So third time lucky with this is my definitive question. I am a regular user of the stake object and have noticed enough oddities/inconsistencies with it in the past to have to rewrite some of the VW functionality (specifically import survey file) that operates on it just to work around the problems. Having recently moved to 2011 and updated some of my scripts, I cant find a work around to either of these issues. I suspect that they were not 2011 or script related specifically, just that I have spent a significant amount more time in 2011 in testing. 1. When moving cursor near stake object insertion point, it invariably snaps onto the endpoints, along line snaps etc of the stake object shape - ie style cross, making it difficult to quickly and accurately draw an object at the insertion point of the symbol. I don't care that a stake may be made up of lines, I just want the snaps that are relevant to the stake object. I think this possibly got worse in 2009-2011, possibly with more irrelevant snaps available? 2. When using Vectorscript to determine the X/Y coordinates of the stake object using vectorscript Get3dCntr, if in 'include as site model data' mode, then this correctly returns the X,Y,Z coordinates of the stake objects insertion point, however in 'Use as 2|D graphic only' mode, then it appears to return a point, possibly central to the stake rather than the insertion point. So there is an inconsistency in returned values of the Get3dCntr function between a stake object in the different modes. Any setting that I missed for 1 and is 2 a bug or by design and if by design, what is the correct way of getting the X,Y of the insertion point? Thanks

Thank very much for your assistance Raymond. In the end, for the special case of only 2 vertices, I simply drew a line between start and end then converted to polyline with the aid of the very useful LNewObj function making it a cinch. Oddly enough, it created a 2 vertex polygon! Thanks for the pointer of adding functions. In a past life I spent 20 years with coding Pascal being a significant bit of my job! Unfortunately for me, Vectorscript is feature poor and function rich so I spend most of my time either finding out what Vectorscript cannot do 'properly' or having to scan through the host of function calls available. Unfortunately the inadequacies of Vectorscript as a language means that to design reusable code properly is an uphill struggle and it will be, for me, simply be thought of as its name suggests, a scripting language which is more full of kludges rather than something that allows elegant modular reusable code that a 'proper' programming language facilitates.

Thanks Raymond Was hoping for something simple as the documentation says "A minimum of two vertices must be created" which would, to me, imply it could be done. I will probably just put in a special case when I only have 2 vertex and create a simple line. Thanks for the code BTW. I was not aware of LNewObj. That may well prove to be quite handy.

That's interesting, because I can manually create a polyline with 2 vertices and it remains a polyline. However, looks like I may be confusing the poly stuff which, as you say, seems to create a polygon not a polyline. So, how do I mimic a polyline in VS? Looks like the things that works on polylines need handles to objects. Sorry for it appearing that i'm not putting too much thought into this, but its late Friday and I only just logged in to confirm the 2 vertex polyline bit.

I've written a script that basically joins up points of objects - but like dot to dot. However, if there are only 2 vertices, I appear to be getting no poly created. The documentation states that "A minimum of two vertices must be created" which I am doing - I'm effectively creating a single line in this case. I wonder if anyone could quickly eyeball the example code extract to see if there is anything obvious (like a basic misunderstanding) that I am missing - I would hate to have to write a special case to handle just 2 vertices. VW11 SP3. IF objCount < 2 THEN AlrtDialog( 'Two or more objects need to be selected' ) ELSE BEGIN BeginPoly; OpenPoly; Smooth( 0 ); FOR obj := 1 TO objCount DO BEGIN hand := listOfObjs[ obj ].h; Addpoint( x, y ); alrtdialog( concat( 'Add point ', num2str( 3, x ), ', ', num2str( 3, y ))); END; EndPoly; AlrtDialog( Concat( Num2str( 0, objCount ), ' objects joined' )); END; There is a pre populated array, listOfObjs, which holds objCount handles of the objects that I am joining. In the case that does not work, there are two objects and this confirmed by the debug dialog correctly displaying the coords of the two added points. Just when the script finishes, there is no line/poly created. It works fine for 3 or more vertices. Thanks Ian

Having been away from the board for a short while due to illness and being involved in other projects, I have suddenly got time again on my hands. I am an experienced Vectorworks user who already does CAD work for a number of established garden designers. I am ex-BBC Computer Graphics Workshop and my work has been used by NNA in their printed literature. I use Vectorworks Designer/Renderworks all PC versions from 2008 to 2011. Do you have a temporary shortage of Vectorworks staff or a project that needs to be turned around quickly? I am offering my services in the UK for ?30/hr for short time frame home based work (?200/day rate available) or negotiable for longer term work at your location (I am Surrey based). Happy to work outside the landscape sector.

A real shame. At least Piranesi comes with Vedute so can still be used but not as simple as setting up a Vectorworks camera - I guess that saves me having to upgrade photomatch which I used to great effect with Piranesi for being able to paint on a composite 3d model/photo. What about PDF export on PC or is it just quartz on Mac?

Has the Piranesi/EPIX export function disappeared in 2011? I could not see it in one of the preview shots of the 2011 export command. Likewise export to PDF. Shot I saw said Quartz only. Is this a Mac/PC thing? The shot I saw was probably a Mac shot. Hopefully its all still there on the PC version?

I use the revision cloud for this. In 2009 and later, in some versions, the landscape area tool covers this and more, but unfortunately runs very slow as a result. With the revision cloud tool, you can ungroup it into the raw poly lines and clip as required. Object from polygon is your friend.

There is something not quite with viewport scales but I can't put my finger on it and cannot reproduce to send a bugsubmit. I was looking at a viewport which I knew was 1:200 but the oip said 1:200 in custom (but was greyed out so I could not change) and incorrectly 1:100 as the scale. Its not the first time I have seen this. Luckily I put a scale bar and title in the viewport annotation so could see that it was not as it should have been.

Running two versions is pretty standard stuff, however file formats are quite different (and between 2010 and vw12 you will find the file extension different) so files will need to be exported each time to the older version. This also means that some functions may not translate very well, so don't expect full 360'ing. Personally I would not recommend using different versions of VW for the same project, but sometime it is unavoidable.

Thanks for doing that. Nice demo.

If possible, any chances of exporting to 2009 and posting for those of us that do not have 2010. I assume a version earlier than 2009 may not be as relevant due to lack of Parasolid.

Actually thinking about the page shift. The referenced file was a survey file which if I remember, the survey was not near 0,0. When the viewport was opened, we did need to set the origin of the referencing file/move the viewport to bring the survey data back around 0,0. I can't remember the survey read world coordinates, but it was 5 something, so even if this was the cause of the page shift, it does not account for an additional shift of around 1000km.

I was doing some training with a new 2010 user last week and found what appeared to be two bugs, possibly related. Unfortunately I do not have 2010 to reproduce and send in a bug submit. The user was suing 2010SP1 with an Ati chipset on a Windows XP laptop. Firstly. We created a new file and a referenced viewport to another file. As we had not saved the new file yet, we had to set the reference location as absolute path. I then went back to show him how to update the reference back to a relative location. On doing this, the viewport immediately disappeared. Secondly Towards the end of the session we went to export the design layer to PDF but I could initially locate the page. It was eventually found 4000000000mm (4000Km) and similar in Y axis off 0,0 of drawing. Obviously this is so far of 0,0 that it was not a simple matter of the user moving it slightly off screen. It would have taken about 5 minutes with the move page tool to move it this far off 0,0. I would be happy to submit this as a bug, but as I don't have 2010, my helpfulness in doing this is very limited.

The Space Navigator takes skill and dexterity to master. Unless you have the masters touch, it may well appear to be a waste of time. But in the hands of a master, you will glide through your model in style.

Check through your backup files assuming you have a decent number of auto saves enabled. You hopefully will find a file where some of your lost work is still present.

You need to create a DTM (create site model) from the stake objects to create a surface. You can then view this in 3D and create a section viewport from the DTM.

brain fart. Lesson noted. But I was still right in the first place that 1.5km x 1.5km didn't equal 650000 points.