MikeC

Does anyone have some tips for lighting interiors if rendering with radiosity. I started lighting as I would for FQ renderworks but with ambient turned off. The results are not good.

Another work around might be to avoid using sheet layers and print from the design layer. Lets hope they release that patch soon.

It has been suggested it might be a gaphic card issue, I have tried updating drivers. This did solve another unrelated problem but failed to resolve this one. Perhaps at he age of 3 my card is just over the hill !

One thing I did not mention. When I zoom in in the sheet layer I can see the symbols but when I zoom out they vanish. They do not print eithr way. The attached file is set on the sheet layer. I can see 3 symbols in the smaller square on the left, one in the cente but no others.

After some more work I can now reproduce the problem in a new file. It works like this: Create a new file with three design layers Place some objects in two of them, include 2d and hybrid symbols as well as others. Create 2 design layer viewports, one for each, and place in the third design layer. Set both to top plan view. Place a symbol directly in this combined layer Create a sheet layer viewport of the combined layer At this point I can see only the symbols that are present in the fist DLVP that was created, none of the others are visible including the direct symbol. In the SLVP uncheck 'project 2d objects'. Now all symbols with a 3d content become visible.

I have done some more investigation. It seems to have something to do with the sheet layer viewport looking at a designlayer viewport (or a layer link) within a larger design layer. I recreated the file with a number of layers, all the same scale. I located the first design layer viewport in place, this showed correctly (ie with symbols) in both design layer and in the sheet layer viewport. I then located the second DLVP, symbols would appear in the design layer but not in the sheet layer. I then made a layer link to the same layer, again no symbols. The original file is a little large to post, about 13MB

Thanks gmm18, I have already. All classes on in the viewport and I have made sure the objects within the symbol are on none. As you suggest I have just moved some symbols to none but they are still invisible !

I have a big problem with symbols in viewports (either sheet or design layer) The symbols cannot be seen in the sheet layer viewport. This is not a class issue, it applies to most symbols no matter what the class (but some are visible !). Most are in design layer viewports visible in the design layer but not in the sheet layer, some in layer links, and some directly in the design layer. I have tried to remake the SLVP and also as a DLVP, same result both times. If I convert the symbols to a group the problem goes away but there are a lot of symbols ! If I zoom in while in the sheet layer I can see some symbols, zoom out they vanish again. Either way they will not print. At this time all I can think of is start a new file, import the design layers, and recreate the sheets. Any other ideas out there?

I seldom use worksheets but the first time I have since upgrading to VW2008 I found a problem that is insidious and potentially damaging if you rely on worksheets. I found this when doing some simple floor area calculations. I drew a polyline over a floor plan in the floor plan layer, gave it a name on the data tab, then extracted the area from the named object using a worksheet. The area was 3 times what it should have been, exactly 3 times ! The problem was that the floor had been used in other layers via a design layer viewport. The worksheet was finding the original object and every DLVP copy, adding them together, then returning the combined total. I do not know if the same happens to other object types but if you use both worksheets and DLVP then you should check your numbers.

Draw an extrude over a terrain then send to surface It's the middle of the extrude that goes to the surface ! Same thing with pillar and floor objects. Convert to a group then send to surface, the bottom face goes to the surface, same thing with symbols. Is this a bug ?

I export to dwg with 'export 2d fills' checked. If I then open the file in acad everything is as it should be. No problem so far. I then xref that file into another acad file, boxes appear around any text that was created with a background fill. Because these boxes do not appear in the first acad file I assume there must be an acad setting to turn them off. Does anyone know what it is ?

I have now updated to sp3 but it didn't help. I will report it as a bug as you suggest.

I have had some problems with objects vanishing when rendered. This is what I have found Create any 3D object, give it a class. Create a design layer viewport of that object layer Give the DLVP a class but not the same as the object Edit the DLVP in the OIP making the class of the DLV invisible. ie this class should be visible in both layers but not visible in the DLVP Change to a 3D view, the object will visible in wire frame but if you render it it will vanish ! I first came across this when working to a tight deadline but now that I know what is happening I can avoid it. There is also something similar going on with symbols in viewports but I have not got to the bottom of that yet.

iso 13567 and 16792 I also have a client that uses http://books.dougseidler.com/downloads/autocad_standard_layer_name.asp I would do anything not to have to use these standards

Well sort of. AcadLT does not support this or at least that was the case last time I checked

This is a very big subject but I will try to keep it short 1. Talk to your consultants, what do they want from you? often it will be only plans with no text or dimensions. For this reason and many others you must use classes. If the text and dimensions are on separate classes they can be turned off and you can export visible classes only. There is nothing worse to an acad user that having all objects on one class(ie acad layer). You should also remember that anything hidden by a filled object becomes visible in acad so you might want to send a pdf to show what it should look like. 2. I usually export from design layers only. In that way I create a number of small files that can be xrefed into a larger acad drawing. I find it better to avoid exporting sheet layers or viewports. 3. Always import to a new file and if you are likely to get later updates then wgr that file into your masterfile. 3. When importing it is better to avoid dwgs with xrefs embeded but if you can manage it a dwg can be created comprising a number of xrefs that you can import separately. Talk to your consultant. 4. If you do want to import text then agree a common font 5. Get your consultant to assign lineweights to the acad layers. It makes no difference to the way they print but it eliminates the need to map lineweights to colours on import.

I am not sure exactly what your problen is but as a long time autocad user I suspect you are seeing a problem where there is none. As Jan15 pointed out this is an autocad issue and occurs acad to acad as well as vw to acad. In a metric enviroment architects and most others use mm as a base unit, surveyors have to be different, they use meters. Foe example if an architect creates a building 7004x7004, scales it by 0.001 and imports to a survey drawing it will probably report the dimensions as 7.00x7.00. This does not indicate a loss of accuracy but simply that the dimensions have been rounded off to two decimal places. If you want to see 7.004 use the 'units' command to restore the third decimal place. Were it me I would take a slightly different approach 1. Create a new acad file using your usual template (I assume units would be set to show no decimal places, as would be the case if mm were intended to be the base unit) 2. xref in the floor plan 3. xref in the survey plan applying a scale factor of 1000 4. zoom to extents. You can also do something similar in VW

The easy answer is to ask whoever sent them to bind the xrefs to the drawing and send them again

Why do you want to export at 1:1? What ever scale you export at it will convert to full size when it gets to autocad because autocad supports nothing else. So the answer is export at layer scale.

If you are gong to move between the two the best thing you can do is start with a font that is common to both.

If select all, copy and paste worked then chances are the offending object is in paper space. Probably a title block. You need to twist some arms. The best method is to create the drawing entirely in model space then xref the whole model into a paper space drawing. That way it is easy to send the model space drawing only.

Sorry I didn't notice you have already tried audit. You could 'select all' then copy and paste to a new file.

It sounds like the file might be damaged. Do you need all of it? if not wblock out the parts you want to a new file, then import that. If you do want all of it then try to repair the file with the audit command.

Purge using autocad then import again

I tried this to see what would happen. When the image is exported it is saved as a separate bitmap file and placed in a folder along with the dwg file. It views OK when opened in autoad.