Lee Rose

OK, maybe it's me. I haven't been doing much with 2017. Still working w/2016. Went to create a viewport from an object but the option is not there. When choosing "Create Viewport" it doesn't ask me about using the selected object. I can't find anywhere to reset that request. Any ideas?

OK so an update. I decided to go ahead and rebuild another Instrument Summary in the drawing. Build it out and it was fine. Then when I went to the Sheet Layer for the light plot the text we overwritten again. I went back to the Instrument Summary on the Design Layer and it was OK and I noticed that it was on a Class that I use called Lights-Focus. I use this for focus notes and lines and it's not on in the normal light plot distribution prints. When I changed it to Lights-Key the text was overwritten. When I changed it back and the Lights-Focus class was on the text was normal. Did a workaround of moving the focus notes and line to Lights-Key and kept the instrument summary on Lights-Focus. Will re-address this some other time when I have time to futz with it some more. Please let me know if anyone has any ideas what might be causing this. PS: Another issue is that I put a "Note" in the Instrument summary but it does not split lines at the end of the "text width" variable. It just increases the overall width of the entire Instrument Summary to accommodate the note width.

OK, so this is a new one on me. Working in Vectorworks 2016 SP2 All of a sudden in a drawing I'm working on the 2nd line of text for each instrument type in the summary, usually the weight, is being drawn on top of the 1st line of text. I've played with the Width, Column offset, Item Spacing, Text Distance and Text width. All do what they are supposed to but nothing is preventing the weights (and/or Lamp Types) from writing directly on top of the fist line of text in each item. See attached. Any thoughts out there?

I noticed that as of 2016 the symbols are broken down into separate files as opposed to the single manufacturer file with separate folder inside. Exported some ETC folders into my personal fixture file but they ended up scattered around with my other folders. Now I'm trying to group them into an ETC sub folder of my Conventionals folder. I have selected them, but can't drag and drop them. I right click with several selected and there is a "Move" option but when I click it, nothing happens. Any thoughts, help, instructions?

OK, maybe I'm missing something. I was trying to insert symbols along a curved balcony pipe at an even spacing. Is there a simple way to do it other than duplicate array on a circle with figuring the degree of the pipe curve?

Hey Vectorworks; I recall having a conversation at LDI last October about the idea of a dialog box that would allow you to batch export files to various other Vectorworks release versions. As a Service Select subscriber, I have the current version of Vectorworks 2013 however many of my associates and clients have various other versions. It is really annoying to have to export a version for each of them separately. At the Vectorworks booth, you guys said that would be an easy addition. How about it?

In the truss object dialog box, set hang angle to 90 degrees.

Savy Symbol Key is a fabulous way to customize your legend keys. A really excellent program and a great buy as well.

Has anyone got a Vectorworks VLX symbol? Vari-lite has 2d drawings on their site but, as usual, they are way too detailed to make a decent symbol.

I just sent an email to a guy I know at Elation asking if they'd develop a library of symbols for their fixtures. Will let you know what they say.

Thanks but that is 2d. I'm looking for 3d or hybrid.

Anyone out there seen a symbol for the Martin Mac 3000 fixture yet? The Martin web site has a huge (and way to detailed) dwg of it but the light has been out for a year and I was surprised to see it's not in the Martin library in 2011 Spotlight.

Ran into a weird action in a Spotlight drawing with Vectorworks 2009. Every time I insert a lighting fixture, it shows up correct for a second, then converts itself to another type of fixture and has the data from that fixture already in the record. Different fixtures inserted always convert to the same (fresnel) fixture with the data record. Does it both from the spotlight instrument insert and the 2d symbol insert tools. There are no user script files in the drawing. Have done "save as" and it still happens. Have purged all and it still happens. Any ideas out there?

Tried you suggestion, but it didn't work. Numbered fine as AlphaNum, but then was blank when I tried Num.Num.

I've found an issue in numbering of multi-circuit lighting fixtures. When I built a Par bar of 6 and used it in a drawing, it will multi-circuit unit number in the A.1, A.2, A.3 or 1.A, 1.B, 1.C formats but will not unit number in the 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 format. Has anyone run into this? If so, have you seen a work around?

Thanks. I'll look at the script and the worksheet in-out. Appreciate the help and support.

That seems like almost more work than doing it by hand.

OK all; Here's a good one. I would appreciate anyone who can come up with a solution for this one. I have a lighting plot where the focus points are rows of tables in the audience, starting at the stage with A-1 stage left going to A-9 stage right. The next row is B-1 > B-9, etc., etc., etc. The lighting per row is the same. What I would love to be able to do is do a search and replace for the Focus field. That way I could just copy each row and update the focus positions. Anyone got any ideas?

Perhaps I'm being naive. I have just received some revised plans from another department with 5 layers that matter in my drawing. I would like to replace the current layers with copies from the new drawing. Any suggestions on how to do this?

It happens on various files. They are lighting designs for tv shows. Usually contain some scenery and then a bunch of Spotlight lighting fixtures.

I have been running Vectorworks 2008 and I'm noticing that if I export the file to version 12, it opens, regenerates and generally runs much faster in 12 that 2008. Anyone else seeing this?

I'm just started running VW2008 SP3 (13.0.0 76681) It is unusable. The slowness is excruciating. I started working on a Spotlight drawing (about 80 megs with about 4500 objects) and every object selection is taking forever. Granted this is a large drawing containing a lot of 3d objects, but the Autocad version is only 17 megs. When trying to edit a group it is taking >5 minutes to come back to the main drawing. I have set the 3d res to low. The drawing has I?m running a dual core w/2 gigs of ram and a Nvidia 7950 card. I had no problems with 12.53. I went to 2008 to use the selection highlight functions but this is in no way a usable program for me. I?ll be moving back to 12.5 immediately. Does anyone have any fixes for speeding up this molasses program?

And exactly where do you find "batch convert"?

Anyone know how to convert symbol libraries from the VW12 .mcd format to the VW2008 .vwx format? I'd hate to have to open and re-save every symbol library file I have for Spotlight. Let me know

Scotty; Doing a bunch of music tv stuff. Also designed a new UFC style show called Yamma Pit Fighting. First one was in Atlantic City a week ago Friday. Next one's supposed to be in Mexico City in June. My August / September is full with Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon in Vegas. Still trying to get local 600 to do a "High Technology" lighting seminar. Had talked to Alan Rowe about participating but Poster has been too busy to work out a date. All the best.