kmoore1

This has been mentioned on the VectorWorks main list so I want to spread the word here. SpotLight 9.5 Public Beta 1 is now available from our website. This is BETA software meaning that there may be some bugs and issues that have not been resolved. It is not recommended that you use this software for time critical production work. (not that I've ever seen non time-critical production work, but...) I am mentioning it here because we've done a lot of work to improve the speed of SpotLight and I know this is a major concern for many users. I don't have numbers for you on what feature has had what percentage improvement. The most significant improvement should be in the redraw speed for the lighting instrument. Panning, scrolling, zooming should be much more responsive with a bunch of instruments. Re-generating instruments should also be significantly sped up when you're only using a couple of labels. Here is the URL: http://www.nemetschek.net/downloads/spotlight/index.html ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by td4stage: Now when I create a lighting key the cyc unit comes up in its component pieces instead of one "unit". How can I fix this? There is no way to "fix" this. You can manually edit the key to instrumentation and insert the correct unit, but you will have to do this each time you re-create the key. Multi-circuit instruments are on my hit list for improvements. I'm working on improving the whole situation with multi-circuit units. Easier insertion, accurate inventory counts, and the key are all on the list. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by Josh Monroe: When I select the instrument insertion tool to place a lighting fixture on my light plot. The following problem occurs: Check out the post by Haich on this topic from around the beginning of October.

quote: Originally posted by ProfLabove: Hi, I am having a reoccuring problem with establishing my prefs. for the hanging positions. Everytime I try to get to the dialog box to change position Label Prefs I get the following error: Please someone help. Thanks ahead of time, EK How many fonts do you have installed on your system? The most likely cause is that you have more than 250 fonts installed. Let me know what platform you are seeing this error on and whether reducing the number of installed fonts clears up the problem. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by td4stage: Sometimes when I have all of the units on a pipe selected, I am given the option to have auto numbering. Other times I have to number manually. Am I doing anything wrong? It sounds like sometimes you're including the lighting position in your selection and sometimes not. The lighting position has the control in the object info palette for auto-numbering its instruments. Select just the position and turn on auto-numbering. It will re-number all of its instruments according to its numbering preferences. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by davmiller2: This may sound to simplified a suggestion for a very complex problem concerning the speed issue but.... Is there a possibility to in a sense turn the data base function "off". ...<SNIP>.. Like I said, it's probably too simplified an answer to a complex problem. The idea is a good one, but unfortunately this level of event messaging doesn't exist for custom objects in VectorScript. Currently anything you do to the instrument (move, rotate, change a field value, etc) causes the instrument to Re-generate. The lighting device object in SpotLight is just code that is run each time you do something. Basically this object is just a recipe for creating an instrument rather than being an actual instrument. Sort of like the Joy of Cooking has a recipe for a pineapple upside down cake but isn't actually the pineapple upside down cake. To continue the meataphor; If the cake is too heavy you can't just add more flower and fix it. You have to bake a whole new cake with the correct amount of flower and then after 25 minutes at 350 degrees you get to see the results. (I'm sure that many users would agree that this aspect of the metaphor is particularly poignant. ) Similarly with the lighting instrument anytime you change anything, it has to go through the whole "recipe" again to create an instrument. Changing over to a new way of handling user events would take a huge amount of work both in the VectorWorks core and in SpotLight. VectorWorks would have to be re-written to tell the instrument what just happened to it (i.e "Your channel field just changed") and the instrument would have to be re-written to handle these events (i.e. "If my channel field changed then re-draw just my channel label") HTH ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by jtallen: I went ahead and tried the suggestion and it is the only thing that has made any difference to the speed that I have tried - until I went to re-assign the labels back. With 6 different label legends on the plot the time it took to re-assign the labels was about a much time as I saved working without them!! It might be faster then to change things on the other end. Either drop the legends folder out of the document temporarily in which case the instrument won't be able to find its legend and won't do anything about it. Or rename each legend, (i.e "My Legend" to "NOT My legend") This should only temporarily confuse the instrument. Rename the legens, refresh instruments, work on stuff, rename legends, Refresh instruments. The create editable worksheet command may also help with this by allowing you to edit the data for a bunch of instruments all at once instead of waiting for each instrument to regen you can update them all at once. I think its a little faster this way. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by FRED JOHNSON: Is there a way to stop the renering (final hidden line removal, quick, etc..) in progress? Command period should halt any of the rendering operations in progress. On windows ESC will do the same thing. When you save a document it retains your current view and rendering mode. If you save a document while in a rendered view it will re-render when you open the document. You can simplify this a little by saving a sheet while you are in wireframe mode. You can turn off the options for rememebering layer and class visibilty and just have it remember the view. You can similarly create a render sheet as well. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by apdavies: Maybe I should call these obsolete lights but I am sure I am not the only person using old century 6 x 9s or strand century lekolites. Are there any public domain libraries of symbols with all the 3d data and attributes available on the web or via nemeschek? The theatrical lighting stationary file that shipped with VectorWorks 8.52 does contain some of the old Strand Century lights. They are in the Symbol Folder Lights\ERS\Strand Century. HTH

quote: Originally posted by tgrabowski: I have just discovered a problem with the ETC Parnel symbol provided with Spotlight. It comes with a frame size of 7.5" in the symbol. When the color cut list is generated the frame size is listed as .625. ... This is a bug in the VectorWorks Worksheet parser on windows. On the mac this works just fine for any combination of document units and gel dimensions with units or without. On windows it is detecting that the string is really a dimension in document units and is using your VectorWorks unit display preferences to display the value. As long as the unit mark in the OIP matches your document units VectorWorks will "fix" this for you. I've entered this as a bug, thanks for the report. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by apdavies: Hi all is it posible to relocate the position lables from the choice of 3 defaults - in my case Thanks Paul The left/center/right just controls the text alignment relative to its insertion point. If you select the lighting position you should see a small black square at the insertion point of the position text label. You can grab this point and drag the position label into place. BTW, this also controls the location of your position summary information. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by pcarter: Hi Everyone, ... The main one is - Can you open a vectorworks file that has been created on the PC Version on a mac machine? and Vice versa.... There is no translation necessary and no special format you need to save it in. When going from mac to windows you'll want to append the .mcd extension to your files. This will make sure that they aren't destroyed in transit by the e-mail system. Without the extension many mail packages treat the file as if it were text and that corrupts it. The safest means of e-mail transport is to just stuff or zip the file before sending. This will both reduce the size of the file (sometimes considerably) and ensure that it gets to the other side intact. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by davmiller2: ... Is there a planned fix for the problem...in the near future? Any suggestions in the mean time? We are currently working on the speed issues of SpotLight. I don't have a timeframe yet for when an update will be ready. For now I would reccommend using fewer labels in your label legend as you work and as you mentioned, turning off appropriate classes. I think that you might see a significant speed increase if you have no legend assigned to an instrument. The lighting instrument spends a significant percentage of its time dealing with labels and drawing them. I looked at the code and the instrument skips all label drawing when it can't find the named legend symbol. The assigned legend name is stored with each instrument in the "Use Legend" field. Select all of your lighting instruments and clear out this field. Go get that cup of coffee you know you wanted and when you come back all of your instruments will have no legends and consequently no labels to draw. Not a great solution, I know, but it should help your redraws. Just use the assign legend to instruments command to restore legends back to your instruments when its time to print. -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight --------------------- [This message has been edited by kmoore1 (edited 09-28-2001).]

quote: Originally posted by Eric Chenault: I am having trouble with boom lights not being able to have their beams drawn (wireframe). The error "Incalculable Beam -- Vertical Angle must be > 11.5 degrees." Is this a bug? A wish list item? This is sort of a feature limitation. When the vertical angle is very low (i.e. a line connecting the fixture and the focus point is very nearly parallel to the floor.), as would typically be found on your booms, the pool of light becomes infinately large as the farmost edge of the beam is no longer on the floor. The beam is therefore incalculable. I am looking into ways to improve this so that it could draw the half of the beam it can figure out and display some indication that the beam goes out forever in the one direction. It's on the wishlist. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by Eric Chenault: The command works if only the position name is used, but not if a summary box is drawn (by using any Sum checkbox). This is the bug that has been plaguing people. The set position label prefs command sets the font attributes for the position name label and all attributes are correctly applied to the position name. The font selected here is used for both the position name label and the summary information but the size and style are overidden for the summary information. This has been buglisted. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by Eric Chenault: I just went over to my current project and tried some experimentation with the 'Position Label Preferences'. 1. The value of Style and Justification do not actually do anything. I'm not able to reproduce this here on either my win or mac machine. Is there any special font or circumstance that I'm missing? quote: 2. Values entered here do not match text that is drawn as a trial next to the position label. I went through each combination of alignment, style, and justification and it all seemed to match a sample block of text on both platforms. Is the font you're testing with a truetype font? It may be that you're using something like adobe type manager and the previews aren't being generated correctly. Does the text print correctly? ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by Eric Chenault: Kacey, Wouldn't it be cool to have a tool to draw a boom? or a ladder? Can the truss tool be customized to do this? The truss can be configured to draw a ladder. Choose the flat truss option for the truss profile and then set your lacing diameter to zero and adjust your ladder bar diameter and spacing. Voila a ladder. The hanging angle parameter will let you stand the ladder on end. A simple boom object would be a pretty good addition. I'll add it to the wishlist. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by Haich: I've been having a problem with inserting instuments using Snap to Grid ..<Snip>.. The (hopefully temporary) workaround ..<Snip>.. (obviously) takes twice the time & has the further disadvantage of not automatically assigning the hanging position to the fixture. Is there some way I can avoid this behavior when using the Inst. Insert tool? I've just entered this as a bug. It should be fixed in the next release of SpotLight. Unfortunately I don't have a good timeframe for when that will be at this point. For now, one option is to turn off the grid snap and insert the instruments "haphazardly". Then use the align and distrubute tool to place them on 18" centers. You might also try creating a grid of intersecting lines on 18" centers and grouping them together. Turn off snap to grid and turn on object snap. Now you've created your own "snap grid" which should give you your 18" spacing. You might have to send it behind your lighting positions in order to have the instrument pick up the lighting position, as the pick point may find the grid before it finds the lighting position. You can then move this grid around as if it were your user origin. HTH PS. Thank you for the excellent and concise description of this problem. It made diagnosing the problem much quicker and easier. I really do appreciate it. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by Ohran: Kevin, When I use the Key function my symbols seem to be organized by the order I inserted them on to the plot. Is there any way to get them to be organized say alphabetically? (without editing the group) Currently, no. This is on the list of things to fix for the future. If you're typically working in one venue or always with the same types of fixtures you might create a template document with all of your inventory. Insert each of your items into the document, as instruments, and in alphabetic (or your preferred) order. You can set up your paperwork formatting and label legends as well and then save it as a document template. Anytime you start a new project from this template all of your items will be sorted correctly. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by jomer: Kevin, Thanks fo rthe reply but I am unsure what it means exactly. When I click on the key in the plan it is one block. I can not click on and then alter the text as it does not highlight seperately from the key block. I have tried to "find" the kry to edit it off of the plan but can not. Thanks The key to instrumentation is a simple group of objects. Just like selecting three rectangles and "grouping" them. You can select the key on the plan and from the Organize menu select "Edit Group". You can now directly edit all of the components of the key. Anytime you update the key though, you will loose your formatting changes. HTH ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by sross: Just wondering if the summary box font scaling problem will be addressed any time soon. I use this function and the fonts currently print much too small to be read comfortably.... What layer scale or scales are you typically working in? Currently the text in the summary box is picked based on layer scale. Obviously in your case it is picking an inappropriate size. If you ungroup the position what is the reported font size of the text? What would you ideally like it to be? (ideally you'd have control over it of course) The problems with the position name overlap and the text size have been entered in the wish/bug list and will be addressed in a future release. I just took a look at the code for this to see what is going on. Unfortunately because of the way it draws things it isn't a simple quick fix to adjust the size of the text. I will look into whether there is something that can be done short-term to help with this but it looks like it will remain a problem until the next major release. In Regards to the length of the position name. The formatting for this is set through the menu command "Set Position Label Prefs." It will work on either the selected set of lighting positions or, if no positions are selected, all positions in the document. The length of a position name that will fit in the box will be dependant on the font size you choose. HTH ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight --------------------- [This message has been edited by kmoore1 (edited 09-20-2001).]

quote: Originally posted by jomer: Also having some problems with the key. I have adjusted the size to suit but the text is wrapping when it does not need to as there is enough room for the lamp type to be written in one line not three. Any ideas? If you enter the Key group and select the appropriate text block(s) you'll see a parameter on the object info palette for text wrap width. It sounds like you just need to adjust this width to match your resized legend or turn off wrapping. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by jomer: OK this thing is really starting to get to me. The problem seems to reside in the Generate Paperwork, Header Configuration. .... If I do that it will crash the program with a runtime error. Good night or good morning to all. The only thing I can think of to help get around this crash would be to delete the worksheet "Schedule Formats" from your document. Save the document. Restart your machine and see if this improves the situation. (you'll have to set up your schedule columns and formatting again) There is nothing that I can think of in SpotLight that would lead to this crashing and I haven't heard of this problem before. Are you seeing this problem on just this file or is it most of your files that are doing this. If it's just this file then please send it to me so I can use it for testing. If purging this worksheet doesn't fix things then there may be some other sort of subtle corruption in the file that is making things unstable. You might try copying everyting in your document into a new file to see if this alleviates the problem. If none of this solves the problem or you're seeing this in many of your files you might want to try re-installing SpotLight. One of the libraries, dll's, etc that VectorWorks uses might have become corrupted or overwritten by some other software and be the root of the problem. HTH ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by lalcaraz: I am attempting to drop Seats into a theatre. I followed the manual and created a Polygon and then go to Spotlight>Utilities>Create Seating Layout but when it gets to the 'Create Seating Layout' window where the "Root" appears and other items are supposed to appear like "Chairs", so I cannot bring in Chairs. How do I add the directory in that window? Thank you Lonnie Just import the symbol you want to use into your document. There is a small library of common chair symbols that is installed in the VW SpotLight folder. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight ---------------------

quote: Originally posted by Eric Chenault: I was excited to hear that v9 worksheets are able to be editable. Then I tried one ... Why can't I just edit the Instrument Schedule or the Channel Hookup and have the results update the drawing? There were a couple of reasons for this. First, it would require that you generate a complete channel hookup with all x hundred instruments to edit the information for the dozen instruments you are interested in. With a seperate command you can make a selection of instruments and edit just that information, or make no selection and edit all the instruments. Second, it would have required some technical restructuring of the paperwork generation command to implement and the time to do this and properly test the implications was just not available. Third, the way the editable worksheet keeps track of which instrument is which is through the unique ID which it inserts in column A of the editable worksheet. I then set the column width to zero to hide this column. If this field were added to all of the paperwork schedules and similarly hidden it would still print either a vertical line at the side of the paperwork or dots down the left side at each row intersection. quote: SECOND ATTEMPT: - Unit Number - Purpose Result: all the lights sorted by unit number, except here is the order VW sorts by: 1, 10, 11... 2, 20, 21,... This is the reason that the paperwork command takes so long, had problems under 8.52, and would have required alot of work to get editable worksheets into. The unit number field in the lighting instrument is a text field so that it can accept unit numbers like 1a, 2b, etc. Because of this, VectorWorks treats it as an alphabetic field and sorts it alphabetically. So 10 comes before 2 when you sort this way. I wrote an algorithm for SpotLight to process the unit number and turn it into a string that would sort correctly by padding spaces at the front of the number.(you'll notice the alt-chan, alt-dim, alt-unit, alt-cir fields at the end of the instrument's record info) SpotLight uses these fields to key its sorting for paperwork. You could add the alt-unit field to your worksheet and use that to get a list that was correctly sorted by unit number. Multi-field sorting, intelligent sorting, remembering column choice and order, using the selected position to edit all instruments on the position, and possible integration with the paperwork command are all wish-list items that are under consideration for future versions of SpotLight. In my original design for SpotLight 8.52 I thought that the Find & Modify command would make the editable worksheet mostly unnecessary. I was wrong. My other reason for eliminating the command was that previous versions of the command had a clumsy user interface and relied too much on the user to keep track of where the good data was. The beta testers of SpotLight 8.52 said they missed the feature but at that point in the process it was too late to add the feature in time for 8.52. After comments from the beta testers and early SpotLight users I felt it was important enough to get it into 9 as it stands rather than having it be bumped to a future release with better functionality. Thanks for the comments, I'll make sure we get these on the list of things to fix. ------------------ -- Kevin Moore --------------------- Product Manager VectorWorks SpotLight --------------------- [This message has been edited by kmoore1 (edited 09-05-2001).]