russh

Lightworks supports both of these. It would be nice if Renderworks did. People migrating from ACAD often have libraries of RPC objects which are then redundant, and they ain't cheap. They are also superior (I think)to Image Props. As for LWA content, well that just makes sense.

Sounds like the resolution in ACAD is too low. Try the VIEWRES command in ACAD. Type VIEWRES at the command prompt, hit ENTER and then enter a value of 1000 or greater and hit ENTER again. The bigger the value, the smoother the arc. Edit: you may have to REGEN to see the result, if REGENAUTO is not enabled. Or just zoom all.

Unlike AutoCAD, lines, arcs and such in VW are purely 2D. Annoying isn't it? If you want to view them as you would in AC then you must convert them to 3D polys. The best way is to learn that VW just doesn't work like AutoCAD. In some ways it's better and in some ways it's worse but in most ways it's just different.

Or, even better, an RPC. Except that Renderworks doesn't support RPCs for some unknown reason..........

True enough, the ADT interface isn't very user friendly (to put it mildly), but it works and is vastly more capable than the Vectorworks offering, or Windoor for that matter. When you get your head round it, that is. It's that sort of ability that we need in Vectorworks.

Yes. I have wishlisted this just a couple of days ago. As well as doors, we would need the ability to insert panels of differing materials into the curtain grid, and to create custom grids, possibly from 2D linework (as ADT) and mitred corners. The possibility of creating non rectangular grids (sloped heads for example) would also be appreciated. We do a lot of commercial and industrial work and such an improvement would save an awful lot of time.

I couldn't agree more. I wishlisted this a couple of days ago. The current tool is an embarrassment. Windoor is the best way around it at the moment but even that isn't what you'd call ideal.

I second that.

Wouldn't it be nice if the Window (curtain) Wall tool actually did something useful? At present it's about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. We need the facility to insert doors and opening lights into the curtain wall grid, be able to create custom grid layouts and to insert panels of differing materials into the grid. Oh, and be able to have mitred corners of course. Other CAD programs have been able to do this for years so perhaps it's time for VW to catch up.

If there is, I haven't found it. No doubt there is some arcane workaround, but it should do this sort of thing straight out of the box. The window wall is next to useless in it's current form. Yet another baffling omission from VW. Get yourself a copy of Windoor from Ozcad.

No, it doesn't. Neither does Renderworks support RPC (annoying as I have a stack of RPCs left from my Accurender/ADT period). Even though Lightworks does. I suspect we'll be waiting a long time for either of these things.

Seconded.

I do appreciate your concerns and if you're not comfortable then don't do it. And of course there's nothing wrong with leaving those numbers in as long as you've got space for them on the drawing. I've done it so many times for so long now that it's second nature. No ups in 25+ years suggests that it is safe, though.

If you include the first 3 digits, you are providing the full OS coordinate. Although this is correct it is also unnecessary. It is almost certain that, on your site, those first 3 digits will be the same for every easting (and northing respectively). So, we disregard them, and so will the setting out engineer - he doesn't need them once he's set up his stations. Unfortunately, the available plugins won't knock off those first 3 digits. So what I do is move the OS sheet (and the building) or create a new origin..... In your case you'd move it 533000m west and 183000m south. Then all your coords will read correctly, but without those first 3 digits.

I don't know where the OS origin is (Land's End?) but your site is more than 533m away from it, I'd guess. 533000m maybe.

Petri's coords are right. You need more decimal places though. E.g. 533362.000, which is shown on the drawing as 362.000, the first 3 digits being disregarded.

I think i do. Sorry, Christiaan, I did misunderstand the problem. OS coords are in the 100000s in metres. But usually we leave off the first 3 digits when coordinating a drawing, because, unless the site is abso-bloody-lutely ginormous, those 3 digits are superfluous - they never (well, almost never) change. Sorry for the confusion.

Doesn't work in Windoze.

I've just realised what it is you're after. It's doing exactly what I would expect it to do when I import into VW or ACAD. The coords are not wrong, they're just in mm now instead of the m that you expected. You'll either have to manually insert the point where you need it or change your building units to m.

In AutoCAD I import as "unitless". And of course there is no layer scale to contend with. Still have to scale the OS by 1000 for our purposes, but then we have to do that with engineers drawings also.

We provide setting out coordinates and dimensions for all aspects of the job. That way everything is where I want it, not where the engineer thinks it should be. It's the engineer's job to size the structural elements and to make sure it ain't gonna fall down. I've done it that way for 25 years now, and it seems to work, not least for my peace of mind.

Why have 2D objects at all? Never quite figured out why VW has this hybrid arrangement.

Yes, we can do this, and it's incredibly tedious. An idea would be to create a library of closer styles which could then be applied not only to doors/windows but to the ends of free standing walls. For example, internal block return could be style A and Thermabate closer could be style B. Insert a window/door/whatever and simply state A or B for the closer style. It's something I got used to on ADT and it beats the hell out of the current method.

Thanks all. It appears there are many ways of skinning this particular cat. Jan15's method will be my weapon of choice I think.

Thanks. I was looking in totally the wrong place.