BandA

I get a "line/plane" through my doors in renderings. It appears to be from bottom of wall. Typically, garage doors are set below the siding/wall. When I set my door bottom Z below the bottom of the wall, it shows a visible plane through the door. ANY CURE?

ah, that's where they're hiding. thanks

yep

anybody having difficulty finding the kohler and marvin libraries that are included with 12.5?

i have thought about switching to mac, but the rest of the people in our office work on PCs, and i'm not sure i have the dough to shell out for a nice mac notebook. if i were to switch to a mac, would the VW files created on a mac be compatible with a PC? are macs (specifically, laptops) faster than PCs when it comes to VW?

I'm on a PC based laptop right now, and I am toying with the idea of upgrading it. What is the best place to look for a performance oriented laptop? I'm currently using a Dell, but I am curious what else is out there. Should I be looking for specs that similar, although probably not quite up to snuff, with desktops (ie, dual core processor, ~2 Gb RAM, good video card, etc..). Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.

Don, I have experienced similar frustrations with dormers-not intuitive, flexible, or exact. Jonathan, How do you control the precise insertion point x,y, and z of the symbol in the dormer function? At creation it gives several "offset" options which only make things confusing. How do you know EXACTLY where the center of the windows in the symbol are going to be with respect to the exterior walls, for example. Maybe I haven't practiced (wasted enough time) with the function, but it could be SO much more useful if NNA spent some time with it.

MJW, We have upgraded to VW 11.5, 12, 12.0.1 all within the last 6 months as well as switching over from 2D to 3D and renderworks, so we have seen alot of new "limitations" in the 3D VW realm. To answer your latest inquiry, the only way we can confirm we have VW 12.0.1 is by using "Help/About VW" FYI We too are experiencing VERY slow rederings, bugs with title block records, window and door insertion, roof and floor tool limitations, and a general lack of beta testing. Maybe they'll get it right next time...

See "HUGE FRAMES AROUND WINDOWS" topic posted by Ramon PG below with over 60 entries to date...

Of course, copy and paste! It may not be to scale, but I just tried it and it worked. Just a little zooming-in, measuring, and scaling object and PRESTO!; a usable (reference) image.

FILE>IMPORT>IMPORT IMAGE FILE isn't working for me... I've upgraded to 12.0.1 (not sure that matters), but it dosen't seem to support importing PDFs either. Could be a iMac advantage? Perhaps.

I know, I know, AEC>FLOOR> but... When I Final Quality Render a room the ceilings (the bottoms of the floors above) are quite dark even with light sources in the room. I have made the initial fill white, but that dosen't help. Also, from the exterior, the floor shows through to the outside as a grey area. Therefore, we have to create an additional wall of just the siding thickness all the way around all exterior edges of the walls. Does anyone out there create a floor using another technique? Is there a way to asign a siding texture to the exterior of the wall, a carpet/flooring color to the top surface and stucco to the bottom (ceiling) surface? OR is the "FLOOR" function really just an extruded slab with only the top surface being editable for textures? If so, WHY??? Couldn't this function be just a bit more dynamic? I'm all ears...

quote: Originally posted by compusam: Ramon PG, ... In VW 11, extra lines and/or borders show up in all rendered modes when the window or door trim is wider on one side (interior/exterior) of the window/door from the other including Open GL, Final Shaded Polygons, Hidden Line, Final Quality RenderWorks, Artistic RenderWorks, etc. In RenderWorks, textures are rotated 90? from the rest of the wall in this same bordered area. In VW 12.0.1, there has been some improvement? the erroneous border does not occur in Hidden Line, but it still occurs in almost all other rendering modes. I too am experiencing the SAME occurances. In fact, yesterday I had a door look ok in wireframe, and hidden line yet when I "Final Quality" rendered it, there was a GAP IN THE WALL so I could see right through to the room beyond ~wierd~ I always get a texture that is 90deg out of sink with the wall texture around it. It is most obvious with horizontal siding and gets worse if you have interior trim larger than that on exterior. But I'm sure EVERYONE has heard this a thousand times already in and there have been several submits to bugsubmit regarding it. Now we wait for the cure...

I was reading along the processes you were going through and hoping that this might also resolve the missaligned textures around a new window created in a new wall using the new (12.0.1) release, but alas. any thoughts yet?

OK, I'm glad somebody else is sharing the frustration. ~phew~ I thought for a minute we were all alone in this boat.

I noticed the same. I asked one of the tech guys at NNA about it, and he said he hadn't seem one either. He said he'd ask someone about. I'm not sure whether that means it'll be release or not tho, if and when they find it.

Don't get me wrong. I think the fact that Robert's moderator of this forum is rad (or does it mean he has little else to do?). I'm just looking for the best place to put my feedback in the future. I will always resort to the techboard for questions and insight on VW without hesitation. It's great in that respect. I was just bummed after 12.0.1 came out because it seemed a bit buggier than a maintenance release should be, not to mention the fact that it felt like big items on the wish list (and threads on common problems) appeared to be largely ignored in this release. But once again, I could be wrong. If no one else was bummed with this release, you can completely ignore my posts. I'm probably missing something.

Please don't misinterpret what I was trying to accomplish here. I am not trying to do battle with anyone. Nothing ever gets accomplished that way, and more often then not, things move backward instead of forward. This is counterproductive and was not my intent at all. My point is that I personally think 12.0.1 is a bit of a let down. Yes, this is my personal opinion. I could keep this to myself, or, I can give Nemetschek some feedback. I choose the latter. If the post above appears edgy, it is because it is. I spent all of Friday trying to help our firm come to grips with the release, and yes, it was long day. Some things work well on the release, I agree. Others leave a little to be desired. Unfortunately the windows and doors don't work well in my opinion and they are essential for us. That is why I am posting here and that is why I contact NNA. My ultimate motive is to help Vectorworks move forward. Don't mistake that. On to specifics: I think the window pio is still buggy. The rectangle of misaligned textures around windows is a problem because we use texture rendering in most of our drawings. Call it a border or call it errant texture, I think they one in the same. The jamb trick works on new drawings, but have you tried it on an older (12.0.0) drawing? It causes the glazing to render opaque, at least in our drawings. I have updated all of my plug in objects, my video driver, and yes, it still happens. I also cannot get trim to render around a door in an older file as well. The trim appears in a top/plan view, and I believe in an isometric view in wireframe as well, but it will not render correctly (it just disappears). Yes, I will be submitting a bugfile, as I have done recently with my findings, but that is not the point of this topic. Bugs aside, where does Nemetschek get its ideas for the changes it makes to Vectorworks? I'm not asking rhetorically, I would genuinely like to know. My impression is that this forum was used quite a bit. 7000 users all giving feedback about Vectorworks? Seems like a decent deal for NNA. Talking to people at NNA, however, it didn't seem like this was entirely the case. My low opinion of 12.0.1 stemmed from the fact that I personally have spent quite a bit of energy to provide feedback on the forum (the majority of which were not bugs, but thoughts on how the program might be improved. Check my previous posts if you'd like), and I felt Nemetschek didn't do much to return the efforts I, and many other users put forth. If I'm simply barking up the wrong tree, cool, where do I go about giving feedback that will get noticed? And no, I am not just talking about bugs here. A lot of my thoughts are ideas that I hope will make Vectorworks a stronger CAD platform. If calling NNA is the best approach, sounds good to me. Do you have a toll-free number? Because as much as I hate to admit it, the average user does not see a huge, or at least equal return on most of the time spent providing feedback (this goes with any program). The feedback first helps Nemetschek, and, just my opinion, giving this feedback should not cost the user. Like I said earlier, my intention was not to wage war, or anger people with my earlier post. That doesn't mean, however, I did not intend not to rattle a few cages. There's only so much you can do with cute ribbons and teddy bears if you feel that your voice isn't being heard and you are unhappy about it. In this case, my voice, like many others, is expressed in the discussions on the techboard. Based on 12.0.1, my opinion is that my feedback, like that of others, was either not heard, or it was not implemented much in the development of 12.0.1. If NNA would like the feedback of users like myself, good, I would love to provide it. I think I can help. Let me know where the best place to do it would be and I will happily oblige. If it would prefer not to have my feedback, that's O.K. as well. Providing feedback takes time, energy, and occasionally restraint, and if it's not accomplishing what I hope it will, at least in part, I can personally think of 6 things I'd rather be doing with my Saturday morning. If you would like my feedback, which I hope you would, it works a hell of a lot better when it's reciprocal. I can't speak for others, but I personally will continue to provide feedback and support Vectorworks if it appears that Nemetschek is actually using the feedback we provide. My general impression with 12.0.1 is that this was not entirely the case. If I am wrong, which I hope I am, I hope Nemetschek can demonstrate that. This is a case where actions speak much louder than words. Once again, no offense or sermon was intended. Sometimes length is unavoidable. Thank you again for listening.

I made a new topic out of this so that it wouldn't be just another post on a topic that is already too long. Robert, I talked to Nathan (?) today at tech support and he replicated the window border problem with a new vectorworks file on the updated/patch version of Vectorworks (12.0.1) with his own computer. He was as baffled as I was considering a few people assured us that this bug was fixed in 12.0.1. Here's what we did so you can replicate the problem: -create a new document -create a wall (any wall) that has a texture on the outside (preferably a texture that has a vertical or horizontal element to it so it will be more apparent when a border is created and the texture mapping is rotated 90 degrees) -now create a window in that wall, without adding trim. view the window/wall from the outside of the wall in an any isometric view. -render the window. no border, correct? -now add trim. interior, exterior, or both. doesn't matter. you get the best effect with just interior trim. -now render the window. see any border? -now assuming you see the border (i've gotten it every time i've tried to make a window as such), that border is exactly the width of the jamb. try setting the jamb width to 0. viola! the border vanishes. if you need evidence of this, go to a top view (not top plan) and measure the distance from the outside of the widest trim to the outside of the border created. exactly the width of the jamb. The reason I'm pointing this out to you is because I'm hoping that if you see it with your own eyes, in a drawing you've created yourself, it'll make you a believer. I know that a bunch of work was put into 12.0.1, but my problem with it is that none of the changes made seem all that relevant to the main issues brought up in this forum by Vectorworks users. I understand that no product will be a perfect gem, and while I am really not overjoyed at being part of the beta testing for 12, I understand that we, the users, are a critical point of feedback for the program. That being said, I don't mind providing a little bit of feedback for Vectorworks, especially with fairly new version (12) out. My problem comes when it appears that the users are not a critical point of feedback, and the issues brought up in this forum go largely ignored in maintenance releases. Honestly, looking through the updates made in this release, I don't see any that stand out as recurrent Wish-List items, or even major bug fixes. Don't me wrong, I like the idea of being able to render a Section VP in perspective as much as the next guy, and yes, I think it's handy to be able to add trim to a window from the Object Info Palette, but I'd much rather be able to make a door or window that I know will appear and act properly 100 times out of 100. I know Nemetschek believed they fixed the window bug in this release, or else they wouldn't have claimed they had, but my guess is that they spent a grossly inadequate amount of time testing whether or not they had the problem licked and that is terribly inacceptable. For what it's worth, my opinion is this: I believe that fundamental areas of the program (windows, doors, etc - see forum for others) must be sound from the get-go, period, the end. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Test the living hell out of the program to make sure the fundamentals work, and when you're done, test it all over again. Test it on a lunar eclipse. Test it on a leap year. Test it while your suspended from the ceiling by wires and wearing green polka dotted pants and a clown nose. Test it while looking at it cross-eyed. Test it on a Sunday. Test it on a Tuesday. Test it while eating green eggs and ham. The basics of the program are your bread and butter. Without them, you ain't got much of a sandwich. Since this is not the case, Nemetschek must address these bugs, first and foremost, and get them out as patches as fast as they can. Making users wait months for a maintenance release that doesn't even solve the major problems is inexplicably frustrating. I am currently wondering whether I'll have to wait another four months to see if the Window and Door problem will be fixed. I don't look forward to the answer. If users like myself can pick up bugs in the program minutes after installing the upgrades, maybe internal testing isn't quite up to snuff. I personally feel a little let down because I have devoted a good deal of my free time to diligent feedback on the techboard and patient waiting, and I have seen very little, if any returns, for my effort. I know I can speak for many users when I say that the least gratifying solution to finding a true (big!) bug in the program is to post the problem on the website, hope it is read, and then wait months to see whether or not it is included in the next release. My first response is to throw the computer out the window, my second is to call up Vectorworks and tell them how highly I think of them. I've done Nemetschek the courtesy of skipping number two. More sensibly, I have resorted to posting the problem on the techboard (is this not the place for it?). I sincerely hope Nemetschek will return the courtesy in the future by working a little harder to use what we give them. I apologize for the long post, and if you've gotten this far, thanks for listening. Unfortunately, my best guess is that in the overall scope of things, this post will make very little difference in the way things are handled with future releases of Vectorworks. Being a dedicated user, I sincerely hope I am mistaken. Thanks again for listening.

- posted 11-28-2005 10:50 AM "This is a units problem that I overlooked. This will definitely be fixed by 12.0.1. " Sincerely, Dave Fortin.

- posted 11-28-2005 10:50 AM for dfortin This is a units problem that I overlooked. This will definitely be fixed by 12.0.1. Also the hidden line rendering problems have been addressed and will also be in the fixes for 12.0.1. Sorry for the inconvenience at this point in time. Sincerely, Dave Fortin. Has anyone seen these issues resolved in 12.0.1?

The more I use VW12 to do BIM, the more I see a how a document or class based texture origin would be useful. Say I created a 2x6 stud wall with sheathing and siding. To create the sheathing and siding that would cover the outside of the decking below (or above), I would simply make a thin wall around the outside of the decking and set it's outer texture to that of the wall above and/or below. If I assigned all the walls that would be visible from the outside to the same class and a class or document based texture origin option existed, I could have a consistent texture map from the wall surrounding the decking to the wall above and below. This would eliminate the need to go around to each wall and manually adjust it's mapping so it's texture (say siding of some form) lined up with the other walls. Just my $0.02

Robert, I have tried many combinations of windows and doors in new files with 12.0.1, and the bug does not appear to have gone away. In fact, in some cases it appears to have gotten worse. I updated the plug in objects, and the border around windows with trim has gotten smaller, but is indeed still there. Furthermore, trim does not appear correctly on a door in an existing file. It may or may not show the trim in wireframe rendering, but when you render the drawing, the trim disappears and the border is visible on the wall behind where the trim should be. It even looks like the jambs/frame is extended beyond the wall, but no trim. I have not used the new release long enough to know the whole story, but I have to admit that my first impression of this release is fairly low. Is there anywhere we can see a full list of the bug fixes in this release? It's not in the Release Notes in the Vectorworks 12 folder like it implies it should be. Thanks.

Since floors of our wooden structures are typically made of a group of standard components, I was curious if there was a way to draw a floor similarly to the way we use the "Wall Type" function with pull down types with standard components. In other words, if a wall is created using the "wall type" tool (made of 1/2" sheetrock, 5 1/2" framing, 3/4" sheathing, and 3/4" siding) why can't a similar tool be used to create a floor (made of a 1 1/2" plate, 11 7/8" floor joist, 3/4" subfloor, and 3/4" finished floor) [Confused]

If you ungroup the revision cloud, you can resize it. However, for some reason, changing it's class or line thickness may change it's' shape slightly