kmoore1

quote: Originally posted by Ethan: Supposing an error was made on the default value, it is quite inconvenient to have to change that value for ever unit that is inserted. Is there any way to correct this? (i.e. -- Is it possible to access the Lighting Device Preferences dialogue box after the first device has been inserted to the drawing? If not, is there any other way to change the default insertion values?) All of the instrument data defaults will be overriden by data attached to the symbol you're using. If, for example, you've accidentally turned on draw-beam for all your lights you could add a field to the light info record attached to your symbols and set it to false. This should override the Instrument object settings. In general you shouldn't set anything in the instrument defaults dialog when you first insert an instrument in a document. Always just press OK. If I could suppress that dialog and never show it I would. Unfortunately we don't have that option for objects.

quote: Originally posted by lalcaraz: Kevin What do you mean by "Acme "hole" symbol"? Where do I get this? Thank you Lonnie Didn't you watch Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner when you were growing up? :-) The ACME company made everything from camouflage and plaid paint, to invisibility spray, to giant sized rocket sleds, to the Instant Hole that can be applied to any surface. Throw it against a brick wall. Step through and then reach back and peel the hole back off the wall just before Wile E. Coyote gets to the wall. He then promptly crashes headlong into the wall. By creating a 3-d symbol that consists of some 3-d locus points you can create your own virtual Instant Hole. This can then be inserted into any wall and will, as if by magic, cut a hole in the wall without all of the messy solid subtractions additions etc. I'm sorry if my tongue planted firmly in cheek ACME Hole reference confused the advice for creating a hole in a wall using 3-d locus points in a symbol. ;-)

quote: Originally posted by clmunich: I've built a wall using the Wall Tool. I need to place a hole in that wall 1/2 way up and about 4'wide and 6' tall. ....goes away. Any ideas? Better ways to put a hole in a wall? You can create an official Acme "hole" symbol to insert into the wall. Create 3-d locus points in space to define the perimeter of your hole. Insert the symbol in the wall and voila one hole in wall, Bugs Bunny would be proud. You can even create an irregularly shaped hole in the wall using this method. The only caveat is that you can't have any convex edges. Think about stretching a rubberband around your locus points and that's how VectorWorks will cut the wall. If you have a point that doesn't touch the rubberband it will be ignored.

Use the image editing program of your choice to create a square image with your text. Use the create gobo texture command to create a gobo out of this image. Create a wall or an extrude in the same plane as the curtain you're projecting on. This will be your projection surface. Insert a gobo projector into your document. You want it to be in the inverse of where it would be in the real world. So If its 18' above the floor and 16' right of center then put it 18' below the floor and 16' left of center. What this will do is distort the image in opposition how it would be distorted in the real world. Adjust the gobo projector and focus point heights etc until you get your image projected onto the wall surface the way you want. Now switch to an elevation view that is looking directly flat on to the wall. Either export as an image file, or do a screen capture to grab the distorted image. Voila, This is now a correctly skewed version of your text. Julian Carr has a tool that does all of this keystoning stuff automagically. He developed it for one of the LDs for the Olypmics in Australia. (Remember that great big dodecahedron thing in the closing ceremonies) I believe they planned out their keystone corrections and cropping masks using VW and Julian's tool. I don't know if he's released it yet but it certainly couldn't hurt to ask.

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: Kevin,If it only resets it's position during refresh it shouldn't be too much of a problem. refresh is the only function that still has a speed problem, so if it remains slow to allow for the - find position - solution I, for one, would be content to sit out the refresh to have the instrumnet find what position it is on and not have to go throught the find and modify process everytime I move instruments.Jim I'll add this to the wishlist. I'll look at what kind of performance hit this will be. Ideally the instrument will just be able to figure itself out when moved. If this is a big hit then the refresh instruments is a great place to put the functionality. Thanks.

If you first choose your printer and page size from the page setup menu and then go to the print area menu command and click in the graphic to choose one page, VW will adjust the page size to match the active print area for your plotter. The print area dialog should read "One Page" as the page size rather than ARCH D. HTH

quote: Originally posted by ArenaLights: Is there, or could there be a way to find by the rotation of the unit? For example I would like to find all units that are rotated 90 degrees so that I can assign an appropriate label legend. It would be very nice to be able to ask the find and modify function to look for a specific rotation and then modify all units with that rotation. There is no way to do this through the Find and Modify command or through the custom selection dialog. It is a good idea though and I'll have to add it to the ever expanding wishlist. It would be a pretty easy VectorScript project to make a selection set from all lighting instruments with the same rotation. HTH

quote: Originally posted by Nick T: Trying to export a 2d plan to a .bmp file, I'm losing the outer edges of the image. It looks like what is happening is that if your layers are not all the same scale it is miscalculating the bounds of the objects to export. Try making your active layer the layer with the "highest" scale (1:48 is higher than 1:24) You can alternately place locus points out at the extents of the area you want to capture and then multiply their X and Y locations by the ratio of your active layer scale to the layer scale of the layer that is being cropped. Make sense?? BTW I've entered this as a bug. [ 02-11-2002: Message edited by: kmoore1 ]

quote: Originally posted by AndyM7777: Why doesn't the curtain object obey the class attributes? I also am unable to apply a texture to a curtain. The only thing I can do to it is change the attributes in the attribute pallet. It doesn't pick up the object's class attributes because of a sort of technicality with the way VectorWorks handles classing and containers. Think of a custom object as a container, like a piece of tupperware in the fridge. All the stuff you see when an object like the curtain draws, all the pleats and folds are all drawn inside the container. To further the analogy we'll say that the stuff inside our container is green beans from last night's dinner. Now lets say we pick up our tupperware container and we want it to be red. We take the container and spray paint it red and lo and behold our green beans are still green. They have their own set of attributes and are nicely insulated from the cruel outside world by the container. When you apply class attributes to the curtain they get applied to the container and aren't filtering down into the objects inside the container. This is sort of a bug and sort of not. If I made the curtain so that it picked up class attributes then it would have to always use class attributes and you wouldn't be able to override any of the attributes. As it stands now you can set individual attributes and they get picked up but if you try to set them by class it fails. I'm working on resolving this for the future but it isn't easy and we may need some special VectorScript calls to make this happen. Now to solve your texturing problem. If you change to a 3-d view and ungroup the curtain you will end up with a 3-d extrude which you can then apply your texture to. You loose the parametric nature of the object container but you now have complete control over texturing etc. HTH [ 02-11-2002: Message edited by: kmoore1 ]

quote: Originally posted by jeff: Why is it that I lose the lighting position and Z height information when I rotate a unit on a pipe as I'm clicking the lighting instrument tool, and the Z height information when I rotate in the object information palette? I'm using VW Spotlight 9.5.0 in OS X. This is a VectorWorks bug with custom objects. When in Top/Plan view it doesn't seem to realize that there is in fact 3-d information attached to the lighting instrument and 2-d objects cannot have a Z height so the height gets set back to Zero when you rotate. If you switch to a 3-d top view and rotate the Z-Height will be preserved. This has been entered as a bug.

quote: Originally posted by Swift: I have had a recurring issue where I move lights from their original position to a new position, ...Is this an error in the software, or am I doing something wrong? This is a design "flaw" in SpotLight. The intention was that it only figured out where it was on insertion so that if you accidentally nudged a light off of a pipe it didn't loose its position information. Given some of the speed issues people have with SpotLight I'm not sure how big a hit it will be for the instrument to try to calculate where it is everytime you change an attribute. What it should do is on first insertion pick up the lighting position and height. From then on it should check to see what it is inserted on. If it isn't inserted on something it should stay where it is and keep the current info. If it is on a new position it should pick up the new position name and position height and fix itself. This is on the wish list. HTH

quote: Originally posted by *Claes: I guess you could do it without Renderworks by tracing the image and then extruding it. Depends on the kind of picture if the result will be adequate. If the image is simple enough and has enough contrast, you might be able to use VectorWorks Trace Bitmap tool. This works similarly to many of the "find edges" or "trace contours" routines you see in graphics editing packages like Photoshop. The result is a series of polylines and polygons that can be filled and then extruded as Claes mentions

quote: Originally posted by Scott A. Miller: 1st I would like to know where the truss tool is located? In the SpotLight workspace on the Truss Palette. It should be just below the lighting tools palette. If you Go to the palettes menu you can check to make sure the palette is turned on.

quote: Originally posted by enorris001: The "tricky" part is what I am talking about!!! I am currently trying to set the Color/Channel/Unit Number of a Fixture inside a PAR 64. I have nudged myself to death!!! A nudge hear and a nudge there. The labels will not end up in the center of the light!! They end up on the edges. My BIG question is what is the reference point in the LABEL LEGEND MANAGER. Is it the center of the unit??? There are three reference points for the labels. It is based on the dummy instrument found inside the legend definition area. It is definately on the wishlist to allow this dummy fixture to be replaced with a user defined symbol for easier layout. Things that are placed near the origin of this instrument will be placed at the same location in reference to the origin of the symbol you are using. For labels placed near the front of the fixture they are referenced to the front of the fixuture. (likewise at the rear) This is what allows SpotLight to scale the label legend to fit instruments of different sizes and to (although there may be much dissention on this next point) intelligently rescale the legend to fit your instrument. You might want to check to see if you have grid snap turned on. It may be that it is on and snapping on 6" or 12" centers. This would account for the jumping around behaviour you are seeing.

quote: Originally posted by grantvz: I'm trying to make a hybrid symbol, something that I've done before many times. It's a simple stair unit, that will show an arrow running up the tread in plan view. When I make the symbol, vectorworks "creates" a symbol, but there's nothing there! Also, with the same objects, when I group together the 2d drawing of the stair with it's arrow, the newly created group disappears! Check your class visibility options to make sure you aren't in Active only mode. When working with nested objects where the parent container and children objects aren't in the same class you will never be able to see the objects because either the container containing the objects is set to be invisible or the object is set to be invisible. If you are in show/snap/modify others class visibility mode then check you class list to make sure the classes for your objects are in fact turned on. One of the classes may have become inadvertantly turned off causing objects to "disappear" HTH

quote: Originally posted by ArenaLights: Also I was curious if there is any way to transfer the Symbol Atributes from an autocad symbol into a VectorWorks instrument? I have Noticed that if you look in properties of the symbol in VW and than click on the data tab you can often find the attribute data there. There may be no solution but any insight would be greatly apreciated IF you make the field names of the attribute info attached to the symbols match the field names in the SpotLight lighting instrument then it will automagically import the data when you use the convert to instrument command.

quote: Originally posted by kmoore1: I've heard some reports of the data getting rearranged but haven't had a clear description like yours and have not been able to repeat it. Thanks for the good description and detective work. I'll look into this and see if I can make it happen here. Thanks for the research Lonnie. I figured out what was going on. The command is not sorting the last column in the worksheet. I've fixed it and should have a patch up on the website either today or tomorrow. In the meantime you can add an extra field that you're not using to the worksheet. This field won't be sorted, but as long as its empty this won't matter. HTH

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: Kevin,I have tried using both Internet Explorer 5.5 and NetScape 6. I have tried on both my office, Win98, and on my home, WinXP,(at least 6-8 times over the last 4 months). At my office we have a DSL, and at home I have a 56K.I am able to download other things from other web sites on both my computers with no problem!!***I go to the download page. I click on the "Download for Windows" link. Wait several minutes and get this: You might want to check your settings for enabling / requiring passive FTP. I have I.E. 6 here at work and successfully downloaded and installed using win 2k. If you'd like I can e-mail you the download file. Its 13.5 megs though, I don't know if your e-mail system will accept an attachment this big. Let me know.

A new patch for SpotLight is now available for download from the following URL http://www.nemetschek.net/downloads/spotlight/index.html Details of the issues this resolves can be found there. We are recommending that all SpotLight 9.5 users download and apply this patch.

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: Has anyone been able to download the PC version? I have been trying for months. Where in the process is it failing for you? Were you able to get to the download page? Does the installer download successfully and then not work, or does it not download at all? Which browser are you using? If you're on NT/2k/XP you'll need to run the installer as administrator. (hold down shift and right click the app, choose "run as..." from the context menu) HTH

quote: Originally posted by lalcaraz: I have grouped my Key, Title Block and Notes separately When I ungroup they stay on the right class but when I group them again, they switch to the None class. Is there a fix for this Thanks Lonnie I believe the group is in the none class but that if you enter the group you'll see that the stuff in the group is still in the correct class. I think if the contents of the group are in dissimilar classes it makes the group in the none class but if the selection is all in the same class the group takes on the class of all of the objects. HTH

quote: Originally posted by lalcaraz: Create Editable worksheet....The 1st time I used it, it was fine. I updated it and used it a few more times.<SNIP>The spreadsheet would only sort the Column that I asked to sort -- ie. Position. This would be like selecting only 1 column in excell and then sorting. Thus all of the rest of the columns stay the same and just the new sort would change. This causes all of the information to get mixed up. Has anyone realized this, or am I crazy. Thanks Lonnie I've heard some reports of the data getting rearranged but haven't had a clear description like yours and have not been able to repeat it. Thanks for the good description and detective work. I'll look into this and see if I can make it happen here.

quote: Originally posted by lalcaraz: When sorting by Channel, the numbers would appear as follows:110 This is a seeting in Excel and LW deals with this problem -- is there a way to fix this? Thanks Lonnie At the very bottom of the list are the fields Alt-Chan, Alt- Dim, Alt-Circ. IF you add this as a worksheet column and sort by these fields it will sort correctly in the worksheet. These fields aren't editable as the instrument only pushes data into the field, it never reads from the field. Because of this you'll also want to add the corresponding regular field to the worksheet.

quote: Originally posted by bhorowitz: Any suggestions concerning truss corner blocks? I can create one by drawing a piece of truss the same length as width, but structural members will not be correct. Is there an easy fix, or do i have to build the corner block? There isn't a really easy way to do the corner block. You can create the short section of truss as you describe and then ungroup the truss. This will kill the intelligent features of the truss and turn it into a plain group of geometry. You can then easily edit this group to add and remove the features you need for accuracy. Then select this and turn it into a corner block symbol.

quote: Originally posted by Dave Barnes: I'm not sure this goes here, but I figure you'll steer me in the right direction.I've imported an image (both BMP and JPEG) and want to turn it into a "drop" on my plot... (make it 3D). Is there a way to do this?ThanksDave Barnes Yes but you'll need RenderWorks. You have to create a new RenderWorks texture using your image file and the apply that texture to a vertical surface or a wall face. HTH