willofmaine

Okay, forget that. Evidently, the lights need to have names (as shown in the top Data panel of the OIP) in order to be controlled in the Visualization Palette. But, my first post still stands... Can lights in symbols have viewport overrides, or not?... Thanks!

Further, I seem to have found that whether on a design layer or in a viewport, the visualization palette has NO control (including turning on and off lights) over a symbol that includes two light objects...

It seems it would be helpful if floors, like walls, could have textures independently assigned to their tops, edges, and bottoms. Particularly in residential construction where there is rarely a suspended ceiling and it would be nice if a single floor slab (instead of a floor slab and an extruded ceiling polygon) could be used as both floor and ceiling.

It would be nice if the profile shapes saved as symbols could be extruded along paths. Then, for example, if you have several extrudes, say of a roof edge gutter, you could update the profile symbol and instantaneously change all of your gutters, rather than having to edit each extrude-along-path instance to replace the old profile with the new one.

The best solution would be for NNA to make it so that floors, like walls, can have textures independently assigned to their tops, edges, and bottoms. Particularly in residential construction where there is rarely a suspended ceiling and it would be nice if a single floor slab (instead of a floor slab and an extruded ceiling polygon) could be used as both floor and ceiling. Those are my thoughts...

Hi, When I have a light in a symbol and try to edit it in a viewport using the visualization palette, "Edit" is grayed out, yet when trying to do the same thing from a design layer, it "Edit" is not grayed out and changes can be made to the light. Am I missing something?... Thanks!

Was the Space Object changed from 12.5.2 to 12.5.3??!!?? Is there any way to control the precision of the displayed area of a Space Object (other than changing the precision under Units for everything in the file)? How about the suffix? It used to be "SF" and now it's "sq ft" ? And when creating a Space object, I can't access the "Settings" dialogue, and selecting the "Additional Data" dialogue brings me to a semi-complete window that can't be closed, requiring a force quit.... Thanks, Will

Thanks, Robert. Another question... My experience with the standard criteria editor interface ("Custom Selection") is that changes can only be made to items on the active design layer. For example, ALL of the Space objects throughout a project can be selected, but only the ones on the active design layer can have, for instance, all of their perimeter polylines turned on or off simultaneously. Is this true with "Custom Modification" as well, or can changes be made to all select objects throughout an entire project file, regardless of whether or not they are on the active design layer? Thanks! -Will

I'm considering upgrading to 2008. In 12, I use the Info Editor plug-in extensively. Does anyone know if this works with 2008 and/or if the "Global Object Editing by Criteria" will accomplish the same thing? Can Global Object Editing be used to select all the symbols of a particular name, and then to change some or all of the records associated with those symbols? Any thoughts greatly appreciated! Thanks, Will

Thanks for the response, Taoist. It's not terribly slow, just noticeably slower than when working in design layers. I think for now I'll probably just accept it; as far as I know it doesn't get much faster than the 2.6 GHz CPU that I know have. Thanks again, Will

I can zoom in and out very fast when working on design layers, but on sheet layers with viewports, especially lots of them and/or complex ones (such as elevations of large and/or detailed buildings), zooming is slower and jumpier. Is this something that a faster and/or more RAM imbued graphics card might help with? Any thoughts much appreciated! Thanks, Will

Hi Katie, Thanks for your response. I did both of what you suggested, and it still didn't work. But it works now. I suspect that when I first tried setting the Attribute palette, unknown to me I still had something selected. I was in a rush... Thanks! Will

How do I make it so that when Callouts are place in the drawing they have a fill (to obscure stuff behind them)? Changing the default attributes doesn't seem to help, and I can find a setting in the callouts tool. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Will

Hello, Is there any way to export worksheets, such as window schedules, to AutoCAD? They don't show in the exported DWG files, and it doesn't seem possible to Apple-K them or change them to Lines. I'm not sure what, if anything, to do with the files produced by the "Export Worksheet" command as far as AutoCAD goes. I'd be perfectly happy sending schedules to AutoCAD just as simple lines and text. Thanks! -Will

Thanks for the responses. I'll probably go ahead and get more RAM; certainly won't be bad for the computer! And if it makes a noticeable difference then, of course, it wouldn't be bad for the wallet either... I'll go to the NVIDIA website and see what I can find regarding updating my video driver. Thanks! -Will

Thanks for the responses. It's not so much that complex sections can take longer, its more that sometimes they take SO much longer than they (the same sections) usually do. Maybe something occasionally goes awry - maybe with VW or the computer itself - such that it demands more physical memory than it should. Maybe more RAM would reduce the frequency and intensity of these episodes... Anyway, thanks again!

Hi Katie, I did not realize that would be a problem; my apologies. Did you alread remove one? I was wondering what happened to it. You can remove the other one. Thanks.

I sometimes have lots of trouble cutting viewport sections. (Failures and/or excessive time (compared to what I know it can do time-wise)). Also, When working in elevation viewports of a somewhat sizable and complex building, there tends to be a hesitation that is most noticeable with moving about, zooming in and out, and so on. Are either or both of these thing likely to be helped by increasing my RAM? Thought I'd ask before spending the money... I'm assuming (please correct me if I'm wrong) that because I have the original video card that came with my Mac that its drivers are kept up to date as long as I download and install the updates that my Mac periodically finds for itself... Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Will

I sometimes have lots of trouble cutting viewport sections. (Failures and/or excessive time (compared to what I know it can do time-wise)). Also, When working in elevation viewports of a somewhat sizable and complex building, there tends to be a hesitation that is most noticeable with moving about, zooming in and out, and so on. Are either or both of these thing likely to be helped by increasing my RAM? Thought I'd ask before spending the money... I'm assuming (please correct me if I'm wrong) that because I have the original video card that came with my Mac that its drivers are kept up to date as long as I download and install the updates that my Mac periodically finds for itself... Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Will

Thanks for your response, Peter. I ended up creating my own Room Name symbol and Record Format with room name, number, and all of the finishes, and my own finish schedule. So far it's working very well, and easy to do global updates with Info Editor. -Will

I think you should be able to find the Record Format in the resource browser, right-click on it and edit it there... HTH

I have space objects, and now I'm assigning finishes to them. 1.) I was able to delete the zillions of default floor finishes, and the base finishes, and replace them with the several to actually be used in the project. But now I can't delete wall or ceiling finishes without getting an error message. Whatever. I gave all their Keys a "Z" prefix so they're at least at the bottom of the list and out of my way. 2.) After doing several rooms, I've now discovered that if I change one of the finishes, for example "GWB - Gypsum Wallboard" to "PLSTR - Plaster" it only changes for the space selected, not all of them. So am I to take it that the listed finishes only function as defaults when assigning finishes to a space, and that they are not an updatable database?... I guess I could use Info Editor to change them, but that seems to involve slogging through hundreds of unused columns and also having to change both Keys and their related Finishes... Another PIO to abandon?? (Along with stairs, doors and windows - all of which seem 95% excellent, but it's that last 5% that seems to render them only 5% useful..) Sorry, but this after spending yesterday trying to successfully cut sections... Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Will

Hi Shaun, Thanks for the suggestion. While I do have some column symbols with sweeps, I haven't added any since well before these problems started, so I like to think it couldn't be them... Thanks, Will

Hi Peter, thanks for the recommendation. I think I may have found the right memory at "memorytogo" - 4 GB for $264, which seems pretty good... Islandmon, In one of my projects I once inadvertently linked (attached) some resources (I'm not sure if this is the same thing?) and then finally figured out how to un-link them, but, otherwise, no WGR files. I'm glad to hear that 101mb isn't that large... it's only a 3 story, 6 unit apartment building (with some fair amount of detailing, including classical columns, but still...). I only discovered the OSX Activity Monitor this morning, and didn't really know what to make of it, actually. When I just opened up VW, and only VW, though, it showed the remaining 75% of RAM (except maybe 12 mb) turned blue. VW is kinda greedy, huh?... And a general update... I purged my file and deleted half the floors, which didn't help. I fixed the registry (? - replaced the preferences file) which didn't help. I forced daily/weekly/monthly Mac maintenance, and, voila, I was able (albeit excrutiatingly slowly) to successfully cut sections in both files! So, at least maybe they are not corrupt, and maybe more RAM is indeed the answer. At Mike m oz (?) 's suggestion I changed the 3D conversion res to low, and then even got acceptably fast section updates. So, progress!...

I do just have 1 GB RAM, yes. So, it seems it would probably make sense to increase that. But I guess what I don't understand is why before I could cut sections, and now I can't, with only a minor increase to the file size. And, worse, why the older file that previously did work now doesn't! (Even with all other apps shut down and the computer freshly restarted, the problems persist). Do you have any good sources for RAM? I understand that getting it from Apple is maybe unnecessarily expensive... Thank you for your response! -Will