mpkeane

I am working on a Mac PowerBook, using OS 10.4.11, with VW Designer (Educational Version) 12.5.1. I have a problem with plant symbols ?disappearing? as I use a file. When I work in a newly created file there is no problem, but on files with a lot of data (especially files that have been sent from other offices with pre-existing data), the following problem crops up. The first time I use the Place Plant tool things work fine. The next time, however, I find the graphic for the plant has disappeared in the plant graphic palette. Sometimes infill color is there, but the black lines that define the plant are gone so when I place a plant I just get a circle of green. Is there a way to clean up this file or somehow rebuild the plant symbol resources for this one file? You can see a screen shot of the Plant Symbol palette at the following link. The symbols for CTG, G4, and OTG have gone blank. How can this be restored? http://mpkeane.com/uploads/Plant%20Symbols.png Marc

Just a little more information on this problem.... If I draw a shape and try to turn it into a polygon with the polygon tool in the problem file, it "thinks" for an inordinately long time and fails (or sometimes succeeds) in making a polygon. If I copy that drawn shape and paste it in a new blank document, the polygon tool works on it almost instantly! Marc

I am working on a Mac PowerBook, using OS 10.4.11, with VW Designer (Educational Version) 12.5.3 I am trying to turn a drawing of a long winding driveway into polygon to assess its area using the polygon tool (create polygon from inner boundary). When I click on the driveway shape (or any other shape I've made as a test, simple or complex) the lolipop begins spinning and the program freezes. When I test this on a new file, it works fine. Why would one file not work in this regard? Marc

Bill Thank you. The idea of applying the hatch through Modify>Hatch and then rotating worked like a charm. Thanks for the tip. Marc

I am working on a Mac PowerBook, using OS 10.4.11, with VW Designer (Educational Version) 12.5.3 I made a custom hatch for a decking pattern. I applied it to an oval shape I created but now I need to rotate the hatch within the shape so that it aligns to the angle of the oval. Is there a way to rotate a hatch within a shape after it has been applied to a shape? Marc

Benson; Your comment about changing the units clued me in to my (incredibly stupid) mistake. I had the file set in "inches" as a unit. What I thought was 10 by 15 feet, in fact was 10 x 15 inches. I need to rework the whole drawing. It is 1/12th of what I thought it should be. I can Scale the whole thing up but then the plants are way too small. Thank you. Marc

Benson; Just one more thing, I opened a blank document, and tried the same experiment. All the readings are correct. So the problem is not VW in general, but this one file somehow. Any idea how to correct this corrupt file? Marc

Thank you for your help Benson. Your answer made me think, so I tried an experiment. I drew a box with the rectangle tool that was 10 x 15 feet. The OIP shows 10 x 15 feet. I then traced that box with the polyline tool, closed the polyline and infilled the result with a pattern. The result should, naturally, have a perimeter of 50 linear feet and an area of 150 square feet. The OIP, however, shows 4 vertices (which is correct) but a perimeter of 50 INCHES!, and an area of 1.042 square feet!! In fact, looking back at the OIP for the original rectangle I drew with the rectangle tool, it too shows a perimeter of 50 INCHES, and an area of 1.042 square feet. The OIP, the tape measure tool, and the line measuring tool, show that the rectangle and polyline are 10 x 15 feet, but the perimeter and area readings are wrong. Any idea what is going wrong here? Or what I am doing wrong? Marc

I am working on a Mac PowerBook, using OS 10.4.11, with VW Designer (Educational Version) 12.5.3 I have a plan drawing of a park. The scale is correct when I measure objects in the drawing. Areas of groundcover have been symbolized with polyline shapes infilled with patterns. When I look at the Object Info palette for those polyline shapes, however, to get a sense of the area of the groundcover, the perimeter and area shown are way, way too small. If the scale of the drawing is correct, why is the area of the polyline incorrect? Marc

I am working on a Mac PowerBook, using OS 10.4.11, with VW Designer (Educational Version) 12.5.3 I just drew a courtyard garden design - about 8 layers of various plant types, paths, etc, 2D graphics including color rendering, shadows and the like. I needed to print out a black and white copy at 11" x 17" and so set that up in a viewport and sheet layer and exported it as a PDF. The PDF file was about 3.4 Mb in size. When I took it to my local Kinkos to print out, however, as the file was printing, it "swelled" to 60Mb while spooling and took 10 minutes to print. I was able to open the PDF in Adobe Photoshop, flatten it, and save it as a low rez PDF (191k) and then I could print it. Is there a way to export a much lighter PDF file from Vectorworks? For instance, for a B&W printout, is there a way to delete color from the PDF? Also, the image needed to "flatten" as it spooled. Is there a way to flatten the data in making a PDF? Thank you. Marc

I am working on a Mac PowerBook, using OS 10.4.11, with VW Designer (Educational Version) 12.5.1. In a garden design, I want to draw masses of shrubs and have each mass stippled within -- heavier at the edges than the center to give a sense of volume in 2D plan view. I see that the stipple tool can do this nicely but, the stipple tool seems to locked into vertex drawing modes. Is it possible to stipple within a (previously drawn) freehand shape? Marc

Adding a little more to what I wrote (above) I see that the disappearing internal lines were due (in part) to my have chosen Edit Plant Appearance > Render > Mass Overlapping Plants. When I tried adding some plant symbols in a newly created file, everything worked fine. However, in this problem file, turning off Mass Overlapping Plants didn't help. The internal lines are still missing. And, each plant symbol I choose through Set Default Plant Tool Options or Replace Plant, disappears -- in other words that symbol (i.e., OYD, OTF, OTM, OTP, etc) becomes a blank box. So it seems as if this particular file is corrupt. This file, by the way, includes my data plus data imported from from two other designers. Could there be a conflict with the imported DWG data (classes problem?) Is there a way to clean up this file or somehow rebuild the plant symbol resources for this one file? Marc

I am working on a Mac PowerBook, using OS 10.4.11, with VW Designer (Educational Version) 12.5.1. When I place a plant with the plant tool, the fill color, outlines, and shadow all appear, but none of the internal lines particular to that plant type appear. What's more, when I go back to try another plant, the symbol for the last plant I used has gone blank (just a white box). I have already "blanked out" 10 different plant symbols trying different plants this way. What's going on? Marc

Peter; I was able to print out clearly using the method you suggested. Thank you. The settings of sheet size and scale, however, were possible in VW's Design Layers, not the Sheet Layers, which is what you may have meant anyway. Again, thanks for your help. Marc

Thank you, Peter. I will give that a try. Marc

I am working on a Mac PowerBook, using OS 10.4.11, with VW Designer (Educational Version) 12.5.1. I am having trouble printing a file that was sent by a colleague who created it in AutoCAD and sent it to me as a DWG which I imported into VW. The file may have been originally created to be printed on a large sheet (24 x 36?) and I am trying to print it on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet, or an 11 x 17 sheet, just to show the client the gist of the design. The lines of the drawing, although very clear and separate on the computer monitor, print thickly black and squeezed together on the inkjet printer. Is there a way to adjust the setting to print a small sheet clearly? Marc

Thanks Jan The Autodesk Viewer, unfortunately, does not run on Macs. At least, I cannot find one that does. There is a web-based viewer for DWF (http://freewheel.labs.autodesk.com)but I do not know of one that will run on Macs.

I am working on a Mac PowerBook, using OS 10.4.11, with VW Designer (Educational Version) 12.5.1. I am having trouble importing files sent by a colleague who is using AutoCAD Inventor 2008. 1) Trying to import a DWG file, I get the following error message: "Opening DWG Library Error 8: This DWG version is not supported" 2) Importing the same file saved as DXF I can import it but all the sheets are blank 3) A model made of the same drawing and saved as a DWF is not recognized at all by VectorWorks. Is this a known problem? Is there a fix? Thank you. Marc

To "force" open the file is simple -- just go File > Open, open the file and it gets converted. Marc

Thank you so much propstuff and islandmon. Islandmon, the imge you rendered is exactly what I am trying to do. I see that this should be the easiest thing in the world but... I find the VW manual is too cursory to really understand how to accomplish these things. For instance, I see I can make a ring by drawing a rectangle and then "sweeping" it around a locus point, and I can make tabs by drawing a rectangle and extruding them to a thickness, but how then to arrange them all? In 2D I would use a circular duplicate array to arrange the tabs around the circular ring, but I don't see how to do this in 3D? marc

This should be fairly simple to do.... I want to draw a steel ring and show it in 2D (plan, section) and 3D. The ring is made of 3/16" x 2" stock and has an inner radius of 1' 1 1/2". There are 8 evenly spaced tabs protruding in at 90 degrees from the bottom edge (each 1/16" x 1/2" x 3/4" in size) and 8 evenly spaced tabs (same size) protruding out at 90 degrees from the top edge. Can this be drawn in 2D, assigning thicknesses and heights to the parts, and then rotated into 3D? Marc

Thank you Ray and Jim Ray's file was made on an older version of VW and wouldn't open with just a double click so I was confused, but now that I understand I was able to force it open and save it as a newer version. Works great. Thank you! Marc

Thank you for letting me know about your files. I downloaded them and assume I must put them in some folder and then restart VW to access them but do not know where or how to do that. Could you let me know step by step how to use these files please.

I would like to introduce a symbol for a wood screw on a section drawing. I have found the Hardware Tool Set and the Fastener Tool but this seems to only allow machine screw shapes. Is it possible to also draw a pointed wood screw image somehow? Marc

Thank you, Jonathan, for the tips. Exporting one sheet at a time works fine -- a little time consuming but it works. Thank you. I downloaded the eDrawings viewer but found it didn't work so well for me. The images were either (1) in reverse (white lines on a black field), (2) just solid black (in the case of a sheet that had a large jpg on it) or wouldn't open at all (in the case of a complex drawing). Thank anyway though. Marc