Bob Holtzmann

I heard somewhere that Vectorworks uses Quicktime, which is limited to 32 bit. The web has been quiet about Vw 2014. I could not find any reference to it, except the "Needle and Mortar" page. When it does get released, be sure to use the posted wishlist to compare with the new features. I'm interested to see if the "3D hatches" wishlist item becomes a feature.

I wanted to unhide my MacOS 10.8 Mountain Lion Library files, so I used the Terminal tech tip to make it visible. https://discussions.apple.com/message/22094557#22094557

Dreilich may have resigned upon realizing that running managing board meetings involved talking to oneself. And the supervisory board wanted to attend one of those meetings.

The Sheet Layer Viewports have and Advanced Properties dialog in the Info Palette. Go to that, and you can uncheck "Show Wall Components". And then it will only show double line walls. I suspect you'll need to do some overlay 2D graphical poche for the walls in the viewport annotation, for the second part.

I don't do ANY coding when I make windows or doors - do you do something else besides clicking on the Window or Door Tool button, and clicking again on the plan? If you're referring to the Object Info Palette, I would much prefer to resize a door using sizes in fields, rather than manually re-drawing the frame, glass and muntins in a Revit family - it takes much more time to do that! There are more time-saving things I can go on about in favor of Vw, but I'm limited for time right now.

If I remember correctly, these are the only views Revit can edit objects in - the 3D views limit its editing ability. In the opposite sense, Vectorworks can edit anything at all in 3D views. I actually prefer to edit in 3D views anyway, just as I do in Sketchup.

Thanks for pointing that out, Vincent C. I've got project with a glass block partition, which uses a rounded corner piece - the Fillet worked nicely. I noticed it uses the inside radius from the input value, and creates a round wall in the fillet location. In the absence of not having a Chamfer tool for walls, the simple solution would be to manually draw an angled wall, and either Join (command-J) or use the Wall Join tool.

I was thinking, Pat, more like the custom saved views linked to Sheet Layer Viewports, to make the Clip Cube more accessible for the purpose of presentation, rather than just a design view. As it is, the custom views of SLVPs are restricted to rotating a 3D puzzle piece.

more dreams ... a newer improved Clip Cube can be put on a sheet.

When you say "construction lines", I think of Guides, which I use all the time. I like Guides because I can unlock, edit and lock them again. Anything can be a Guide. AutoCad had (or has) Rays, which start at one point, and go on to infinity. In earlier days, I would use a ray as a preliminary line, draw a crossing line and trim off the infinity length.

Sometimes Revit users rely on Rhino for modeling curved shapes, and just doing an import. Vectorworks has more of an edge in modeling tools, such as lofted NURBS curves. The Simpson website made a funny by calling Revit a "CAD system".

The way I would do it is to make a pillar with the same depth as the walls at the corner. Then just modify the 2D poly defining the pillar to have the rounded corner.

Hide in Vectorworks was first introduced in the MiniCad days, when there were no sheet layers and viewports. And it was intended, I suppose, to temporarily hide objects while modeling or drawing. I have only used Hide to see the object concealed in plan under another object. Now we can see that object by holding down the B key. And in 3D, we now have ClipCube. Otherwise, classes are the main way of permanently hiding objects. Recently, the newer features of Vw has given rise to more and more classes, so that every type of object needs its own class, just as every rendering material requires a class. So that our class list is a jumble of object and material types. I am glad that the hierarchical layout of classes has brought some sanity to this process. Without grouping prefixes under a heading in the class list to turn off that entire prefix, we might all be clicking away to hide individual classes until tomorrow.

I have this Detailer tool since I got it from Julian Carr back in the late 90s, as a part of Ozcad Pro package for Vectorworks 9. It still works with my latest software. It's very versatile. It not only makes 2D detail shape arrays, but also works with 2D and 3D symbols.

I've always used PIO windows and doors, and got them into schedules by making symbols out of them. Then you can use the symbol's attached record format (with the name) in the schedule. A plug-in object can easily be made into a symbol, and the best part is it can still be edited as a PIO. When making a symbol of window and door PIOs, just make sure the Insert in Wall Centerline option is checked.

-- Another take on the Hide Objects script -- Hide Unselected Objects: ___________________________________________ {Developed by Julian Carr - 1997 Hide Unselected will hide unselected objects. To return to the previous visibility status, deselect everything then go to the Class menu and choose the active class (the one with a tick).} Procedure HideUnselected; Procedure FEO1(hn2Obj:HANDLE); BEGIN hn2Obj:=FIn3D(hn2Obj); REPEAT SetSelect(hn2Obj); hn2Obj:=NextObj(hn2Obj); UNTIL hn2Obj=Nil; END; Procedure FEO2(hn2Obj:HANDLE); BEGIN SetDSelect(hn2Obj); END; BEGIN ForEachObject(FEO1,(T=Wall)&(Sel=True)); Hide((Sel=False)); ForEachObject(FEO2,(Sel=True)&(T=Symbol)); END; Run(HideUnselected); ________________________________________ I tried Julian's original tip of selecting the active class to show all objects, and it doesn't seem to work. What does work, though, is simply hitting the Previous View button on the window bar.

It seems no one mentioned the Hide script in Vectorworks. I have an old one written by Julian Carr, and I still keep it handy as a Menu Command. Here's the Hide Selected Object one: ___________________________________ {Developed by Julian Carr - 1997 Hide Selected will hide all objects that are selected. To return to the previous visibility status, deselect everything then go to the Class menu and choose the active class (the one with a tick).} Procedure HideSelected; VAR hn2Obj : HANDLE; BEGIN IF (NumSObj(ActLayer)=1)&(GetType(FSActLayer)=11) THEN BEGIN hn2Obj:=FInGroup(FSActLayer); REPEAT IF Selected(hn2Obj) THEN Hide((Sel=True)& V); hn2Obj:=NextObj(hn2Obj); UNTIL hn2Obj=Nil; END ELSE Hide((Sel=True)); END; Run(HideSelected); ______________________ --- and then to Show All Objects, I use a simple script: _______________________ Show((ALL)); ______________________

Regardless of whether Revit is good at 2D drafting, Autocad is still needed, because Revit does not adequately import Autocad drawings for editing. That was "the void" I was referring to. As a rule, offices using Revit rely on Autocad as well. And I do applaud the civility of the discussion over this touchy subject - I know we are all passionate about our tools.

It doesn't - for Revit, you need Autocad or something similar to fill the void. And if you want a spreadsheet or table in Revit, you make an Excel file, import it into Autocad, and then reference the Autocad file into Revit. But look on the bright side - Chris D has his automatically updating viewports!

Chris D said in his second post he wants to keep Vectorworks for 2D Cad - I applaud his decision, it's much better than AutoCad. And it's much easier to put spreadsheets and tables on drawings.

The Renderworks Styles are really nice - they have some realistic ones of various kinds, ready to use. And rendering a viewport doesn't stop you from working elsewhere.

I usually use Sheets with Viewports for exporting to DWG. The biggest problem I had recently was with Elevation Sheets - the DWG export made a line mess, to say the least. Eventually, I found a workaround: select a Sheet Layer Viewport of the Elevations, and make a Convert Copy To Lines group of it. This will make a Hidden Line rendering of the Elevations - all single lines. Then make a separate sheet and export to DWG. I imagine doing a Convert Copy to Lines of a plan in a Sheet Layer Viewport might fix your problem.

The other thing to check would be the MacOSX System Preference panes. I've had some problems running Hyperdock and Default Folder, and turning them off seemed to limit the Vw13 crashes I had before.

You need to check 2 things. First off, the glazing needs a class called Glazing-Clear or something like that. And the Glazing-Clear class needs to have for its "Other" texture (instead of Walls or Roofs) a glass texture. Then assign the glazing for the window wall from the Object Info Palette. Second, make sure the Window Wall is "in the wall". I occasionally have to hilight the Wall Insertion Mode on the toolbar, and put the window in the wall. A true window wall, however, is not a storefront, which is actually what this tool makes. I usually instead insert individual windows in an array for a true window wall. Hope this helps.

Nice work there, DM, and very thorough. I noticed your images in the Window Schedule were not showing properly, as black boxes. I had that problem too, with the image elevation of my Door Schedule, so instead of exporting the PDF, I used the Mac print dialog, and printed to PDF. The images in the schedule then showed up fine.