Markus Barrera-Kolb

Jonathan, thanks for your reply. I'd tried =ZCENTER before and got no value in return -- VW doesn't seem to interpret it as a function, at least not 2008, which for better or worse is what I'm still on. Is it perhaps simply that VW can't obtain a Z value for a stake object but would be able to do so for a 3D locus? Though if I understand it correctly, the stake object is positioned using a 3D locus. Or is it functionality that was added with '09 or '10? Thanks, Markus

Can anyone enlighten me as to how I might be able to obtain the Z values of stake objects in a worksheet database row? I need to do average building elevation calculations for which the elevation at points every 10' around the building perimeter need to be averaged. Thanks! Cheers, Markus

Peter, thanks for your reply. Your suggestion about how to crop the site led me to discover the reason for the strange behavior. I did find that if I created the site model from 3D polys with one closed polygon as the crop object, I got just what I wanted. I then discovered that one of the polys in the source data for the problematic DTM hadn't been converted into 3D, so VW must have been trying to apply it as a crop object at random... Which means that so far I haven't found any VW2008 behavior that's been problematic with OS10.6 (at least any more than with 10.5). Thanks again, Markus

Yes, I'm still on 2008, but I hope I can get some feedback on this nonetheless: I'm having a bit of trouble getting my DTM to work well. The contours generated from the source data keep going wonky at the perimeter of the model, as you can see both from the top/plan view and the oblique view in openGL. It's rather annoying and makes it difficult to fully utilize the model. I've also run into problems with the model suddenly going crazy and mostly disappearing, leaving just a strangely shaped remnant (see DTM before & DTM after screenshots) -- all I did was double click the model and then click OK in the properties dialog box. I thought it might be a buggy model, but I rebuilt the DTM several times from scratch, with the same results... Any words of wisdom? Thanks! Cheers, Markus

I realize that I'm adding to a one-year old post, but for anyone out there who's also been too financially strapped to upgrade since VW2008: I've been encountering the exact same problem with the cabinet pull placement, but have found that if you make the pull settings in the cabinet's OIP while you are in TOP view, they are placed correctly -- in any other view they seem to get placed correctly only about 1% of the time... Cheers, Markus

We've always included window & door IDs in the elevation views of our permit & construction drawings (great reference for clients, contractors, and window vendors alike), and coordinating tags between plan and elevation views has always been a chore -- a real BIM program should do this! If I've gone through the trouble of building a 3D model with all relevant data already attached to its parametric components, and I then still have to go through the chore of coordinating tags manually, something is seriously wrong.

Up until now we'd been drawing our projects in 2D, but I'd assumed that this functionality was a given -- after all, the data is there, attached to the PIOs, and coordination between plan views and elevation views is one of the key ways in which BIM functionality would really make the chore of constructing a 3D model worthwhile... is it truly not implemented yet? Seems kinda pathetic.

Does anyone know whether it's possible to display window & door ID tags, using either the native VW PIOs or WinDoor objects (preferably the the latter, actually), in elevation views? I haven't been able to find a way to do this, but for us it would be a huge benefit in generating our permit and construction drawings! Thanks, Cheers, Markus

Once again, thanks Pat!

Thanks Pat, that makes sense! Of course most of the time I'd probably want to have that option turned off, so that I don't have to look at all the 2D objects I've drawn on the plan layers while I work in 3D -- would it perhaps be possible to set up a shortcut key (Vscript) to toggle this option? I looked in the VW reference appendix, but I didn't see a pref code for it.

OK, so I think I've gotten my arms around how to edit the NURBS path once the object exists -- what I just ran into yestderday, in my continuted attempt at my first full 3D model, was difficulty in drawing a path object in a side view. I wanted to extrude a downspout along a polyline path, but of course VW wouldn't let me draw a polyline in stacked layers mode, but without stacked layers, I couldn't see all of the building's floors, and without that, I couldn't tell exactly where to draw the polyline. Any suggestions? Thanks, Markus

When I stack straight walls and they're perfectly aligned, I get a seamless elevation in 3D -- however, I can't seem to make that happen with curved walls (a line shows up at the seam). Am I doing something wrong? If not, did this get fixed in 2009?

Is it possible to get elevations out of my 3D model that include siding patterns if I don't have Renderworks, and if so, how? I'm just diving into using a full model to generate the elevations and sections (still have a long way to go on those), and I'm definitely fighting the learning curve -- and that's after having gotten pretty proficient at working in 2D. Thanks! Cheers, Markus

Thanks michaelk -- I found the same thing while playing around with the extruded objects after posting my question. Now I just need to get a bit better at 3D reshaping... Cheers, Markus

So you can edit the profile object, including replacing it entirely with a new one (cut the old one, paste a new one), but it doesn't seem you can quite the same thing with the path object -- the polyline/polygon, having been turned into a NURBS curve, can't even be modified with the 2D reshape tool in the way that the original object could have, nor can you delete & replace it with another one. Am I missing something? Seems like this makes it much tougher to modify the path in relationship to other elements in the drawing, especially because the rest of the drawing disappears once you edit the path object.

Alright! Now we just need some profitable projects to roll in, i.e. for the darn economy to pick up again, and then we can upgrade! Of course, by then NNA will be on 2010...or higher?... Thanks Jeffrey -- Cheers, Markus

Does anyone know whether it's possible to use a gapped section line but not have that annoying center section show up in the line? I'd like to just have a segment of line at each marker, without the little segment of line that will just end up looking lost in the middle of the floor plan. For the time being, I'm hiding it with a filled polygon with the lineweight set to zero, but it sure would be nice if I didn't have to resort to such a silly workaround. Thanks!

Thanks panthony -- would that be Modify > Convert > Convert Copy to Lines with the Hidden Line option selected? And then do I use the resulting polygons (lines) to create roof faces using the Roof Face command? Since switching to VW some time ago from AutoCad we've still done most of our drawing in 2D, but I'd very much like to make the jump to full-on 3D -- I'm just finding the learning curve a bit daunting, especially since VW's 3D functionality is really not intuitive for me (been spoiled by Sketchup) and it's not at all a time-saver to settle on a half-baked 3D model and then have to fake in and compensate for all sorts of stuff in 2D in our viewports.

Is there any way to allow seperate roof PIOs to intersect or cut each other? I've got two gable roofs with different bearing heights and need to cut away a portion of one where the other occurs. I'm assuming that what I'm trying to achieve would not be doable with a single roof PIO -- am I wrong?

There was a post recently about modifying multiple PIOs simultaneously, and while I don't know whether this functionality has been improved in 2009 (I'm still on 2008, and until the economy improves we'll be hard-pressed to spend money on an update), I've found it very spotty, even using the Custom Modification command, which sometimes even crashes the app. As I said in the aforementioned post, is there any reason why multiple PIO modification through the OIP is still so poorly supported? Seems like it should be part of the basic program functionality and would be fundamental to ease of use & user-friendliness. Regarding doors and windows specifically, we've started using WinDoor , which makes a lot of things easier, including making modifications to multiple WinDoor PIOs...

Is there any reason why multiple PIO modification through the OIP is still so poorly supported? Seems like it should be part of the basic program functionality and would be fundamental to ease of use & user-friendliness. Why force the user to create a worksheet in order to do this -- or is NNA still working on implementing this functionality?

Although I have yet to do a project in full 3D (generating all of my elevations and sections from the model), I anticipate that even when I get to that point, some of the drawing set will consist of 2D geometry (such as details or structural drawings). To me it makes sense to distinguish between the layers that contain the actual 3D model data and those that contain supplementary or 2D information. Once again, it seems like in VW there are dozens of possible workflows and solutions -- at once an advantage and a challenge...

I was kind of assuming that, but thought it'd be worth putting the question out there. Too bad -- it's something I would use quite frequently. Actually, if I could display both at the same time I would, since I use a dual-monitor setup, and one of the screens is dedicated to palettes anyway. Maybe something for the wish list... Thanks Pat.

Does anyone know whether it's possible to set up a keystroke for toggling between the tabs on the OIP? I know clicking on them isn't that big a deal, but I keep wishing that I could do it with a keystroke (haven't been able to find a way to accomplish this on my own).

After using DOS & Windows systems since the early 80s, I got my first Mac a little over a year ago. Obviously, both are computers, which means things can or will go wrong with either, and you may end up with a lemon of either flavor. If the app(s) you need to run are supported on either platform, then both are a viable solution. That said, I've found OS X to be more stable than XP (never made it to Vista, thankfully, and I've tried hard to forget ME), with a whole number of little touches that make it more fluid & user-friendly. Want to find where your email client app keeps its data? The Windows folder structure was always a complete clusterf**k in my experience -- in OS X this is much simpler. Want to install an app? Easier in OS X as well. Want to access foreign character codes (I happen to type in more than one language on a regular basis) -- just hold down and hit a modifier key (I've long since fogotten the 4-digit ALT codes that I'd memorized for doing the same on Windows). Etc, etc. The aesthetics are of course secondary, but IMHO always more enjoyable on the Mac. Finally, while base systems are to be had for a lot less in the IBM-clone world, you'll find that once you put together a system that's truly on par with a MacPro, or a MacBook Pro, you'll be looking at comparable prices. p.s. I don't put apple stickers on anything I own, and yes, the Mac marketing hype can be a bit nauseating...