Matt Panzer

An easy workaround is to group the viewport, then drag grips to scale it, and ungroup when done.

Hi Tim, We do custom plug-in development. Feel free to email me privately. Best regards, Matt

Hi Will, CameraMatch has a "Place RW Camera" feature and I remember issues like this when placing them via Vectorscript. The problem is that the RW Camera initializes some settings when it's first placed and this initialization is not done when inserting via vectorscript. The only way I could make it work correctly is to place a VW file (containing a red symbol of a newly placed RW Camera) in the same location as the plug-in file. Then have the script look for the symbol in the active file. If not present, it imports it from the external file, places it as needed, and sets the parameters via SetRField.

Hi Ride, You actually can do this with a curved wall. 1. Place a curved wall (at the desired width) in Plan view. 2. Set the Z-height and wall height as needed so that the wall is at the correct position at the lower part. 3. In a Front or Side view, use the Reshape tool to move the top and bottom of other end of the wall as needed. Sorry to be brief. I'm heading out the door...

Hi Steve, If you have not discovered it, CameraMatch 2013 (for Vectorworks 2013 and 2014) has a free 10 day trial period. All you need to do is download it , install it, and give it a spin: http://www.panzercad.com/downloads/cameramatch-2013/ I also encourage you to try this tutorial: http://www.panzercad.com/panzercad-products/cameramatch/cameramatch-2013-workflow-tutorial/ You can download the tutorial file and follow along in Vectorworks. This should get you a quick understanding of how it works. If you do get stuck, feel free to send me a file with questions. All I ask is for files to be sent via WeTranfer.com, YouSendit.com, DropBox, or other (non-direct email) service. Thanks for the kind words Ian & Peter!

I agree. All great suggestions and would make the interface much more intuitive.

You're welcome Benson. LOL! Brian, while your image is much more interesting than mine, it's missing one thing...

This is related to a bug report I reported. The bizarre thing about this bug is that the zoom level effects the severity of the problem - even on sheet layers. I created a viewport on a new 300 DPI sheet layer in your file. I then copied the viewport 3 more times. With the document zoom set to 100%, I rendered the first viewport, then zoomed to 200% and rendered the second, and so on... I've attached the results. In all 4 viewports, the settings are exactly the same. The only difference was the document zoom level at the time they were updated. Bizarre as this is, you might be able to experiment with sheet layer viewports and zoom levels until you find a sweet (or less bitter) spot. I did this for a project and found 800% gave me the best in my situation. I then placed a large note to myself (just outside the page) to remind me to zoom to that before rendering.

Hi Benson, Does the viewport have "Display Planar Objects" or "Project Screen Objects" turned on? If so, does it make any difference with them both off?

You're welcome Nick. I was also wondering if you only wanted one symbol, but figured it was easier to sum the column and find the one you're looking for. I like to take the lazy way out whenever possible. ;-)

Hi Nick, The easiest way to get what you need is to create the report as you describe, then summarize the Symbol Name column (you can also sort it as well). The worksheet will still display all symbol instances in the document, but it will list each symbol only once and will sum the quantities. This link describes how to do it: http://kbase.vectorworks.net/questions/465/Different+ways+to+organize+column+data+in+a+worksheet

You may want to try creating a Render Background out of the photo image and set that for the design layer Render Background. The trick is trying to manipulate the camera view to get the perspective to match. It can be done manually, but it can be a tedious process. The last time I did it that way was when I decided to develop CamerMatch. You may want to try the 10 day trial of CameraMatch. After the trial mode expires, certain things will no longer function (setting & tuning views, masking, shadows, etc), but the view in the sheet layer viewport, and the viewport's render background will remain in tact. So, as long as you already have the view setup within the trial period, you should be good to go.

Thanks for the mention Peter. :-) CameraMatch is certainly the best way to do this (in my slightly biased opinion). CameraMatch now has a 10 day free trial period and a new tutorial video (with companion files to follow along in Vectorworks). I think following along with the tutorial will considerably reduce the learning curve: http://www.panzercad.com/panzercad-products/cameramatch/cameramatch-2013-workflow-tutorial/

Hi Rienei, It looks like your images are using transparency. This is not supported in VW. The only way to get part of an image to import as transparent is to: 1. Make sure the areas you want transparent are pure white before importing. 2. Import as PNG 3. Select the image object and give it a fill of "None" This will result in ALL pure white colors becoming transparent. Just make sure you don't have any anti-aliasing between the white background and the image. Since the anti-aliasing is not pure white, it will not be transparent and will cause white fringing around the image.

This has been a wish of mine as well and would save a lot of time. BTW: If anyone comes across a specific need for this often, a custom plug-in command can be written to do it now. If interested email me privately with your specifics.

Checkout the New CameraMatch Tutorial Videos & Files Get a jumpstart on CameraMatch with our new video tutorials! The Vectorworks and image files used in the tutorial are available for download so you can follow along! The videos cover everything from tips on taking photos all the way to the final rendering. CameraMatch 2013 Tutorial Try CameraMatch 2013 (for Vectorworks 2013 & 2014) Free for 10 Days! Not sure if CameraMatch is for you? Give it a try with our new tutorials (or your own project) for free! Visit www.panzercad.com to download and give it a spin.

Hi Tui, Yes. The SDK uses C++. The advantages of Python over Vectorscript is that it is a widely used language with many resources (documentation, example code, libraries, etc) available. Even more advantageous is that you're running full blown Python from VW. This allows you to do anything that Python can do outside the confines of VW. This means Python has access to many more abilities than Vectorscript does. That all said, I have yet to make the leap to Python myself. So I may not be the best person for recommending how one should start. Maybe some of the early adopters of Python VW scripting will chime in.

Miguel, You're right. I spoke too quickly(and thought too slow). It's really the need to have more 3D interaction and 3D control points. I've done quite a few custom plug-ins where those abilities would've made them far less cumbersome to use. The 3D interface for solids has gotten SO much better over the years. It would be awesome to see this carried over to PIOs. Vlado, if you're listening: I know, I know... The SDK... ;-)

This has been a LONG running wish of mine. Kevin is right. You can create 3D control point via SDK and you can also constrain their motion (when moving them) along a predefined vector. From what I understand, the cone object uses that functionality. We REALLY need this and other 3D PIO types (3D line, 3D poly, rectangular extrude) for Vectorscript/Python. This would be a HUGE leap forward. All existing Vectorscript/Python PIOs have no 3D interface. This is very constraining in today's 3D BIM world.

Hi Jeff, I cannot remember exactly what I was doing when I asked this, but I think I wound up using a resource list. Something like this to get the list. PROCEDURE MAIN VAR symDefList : LONGINT; symDefNum : LONGINT; BEGIN symDefList := BuildResourceList( 16, 0, '', symDefNum ); END;

I was going to mention scripting, but thought it might be a bit too much. Depending on the complexity, a script might get you what you need, but I have a hunch that it would be a bit too involved - unless you plan to do similar animation projects often. There are some low cost (and even free) 3D animation apps out there. One free one is Blender (www.blender.org). It imports a few different file formats that VW can export. It looks pretty capable and certainly worth a shot.

Hello Conrad, OzCad's Animation Works plugin can do some animation of objects directly in VW, but I'm not sure it can handle everything you're after. I have a feeling you may need to export the model to more capable 3d animation software. Cinema 4D would certainly be perfect for the task, but it might not fit the budget.

Hi Tui, You have to use the "Pos" function to look for a substring within a string. The function returns the position of the first substring found within the string. If the substring is not found, it returns zero. The example below will ignore the layer if it's name begins with 'NNA#': IF NOT( Pos( 'NNA#', GetLName( handleToLayer ) ) = 1 ) THEN BEGIN {do stuf here} END;

And that ideal world monitor would have 4x the resolution of a retina display to accurately see those line widths. And, of course, faster graphics cards to drive those beasts. ;-)

Hi Grant, The monitor resolution does affect the soon line thickness quality. The real problem is that monitors can only show so much variation in line thickness due to their dot pitch. IOW, VW is trying to display the line thickness on a monitor that uses a certain number of pixels per inch. The pixels would need to be much smaller in order to display subtle thickness variations accurately. That said: VW COULD do more to simulate line thicknesses by lightening thinner lines (basically, more anti-aliasing), but I don't know how much this might affect performance. If you export a VW document to PDF and open it in Apple's Preview app (Adobe Reader also does this), you see what I mean. The thinner lines display lighter in color to better simulate the thickness. I'd love to see an option for this so we don't need to zoom in so much to see the thicknesses.