Tom G.
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Posts posted by Tom G.
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Agree with MHBrown that the terminology is obtuse and leads to too much
clicking around with many getting the message that the tool doesn't work as advertised.
Tom
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Forget about trying to use Vwks Stories. Just put everything on one layer and move each 3D element relative to "0" feet: plus or minus, up or down. Vwks should have a default setting for people such as yourself so you don't have to learn about "elevation types" and worry about this feature which serves certain users well and others not so much.
Tom
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I want to edit my first post somewhat. I said that on the OIP, Sheets also showed in a Stacking Order by default and that that caused me problems when I moved items from Layer to Layer. I user Layer-to-Layer on the OIP to move items from one to another, not Layer-to-Sheet or even Sheet-to-Sheet (although others may find some utility in the latter two options).
Tom
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In v.2013 Vwks "forgets" my Sheet settings numbering order, typically ordered to comprise a printed set of drawings--Sheet Number first, then Sheet Title-- and reverts to the Stacking Order, 1,2,3, etc., apparently favoring the order of creation. This makes no sense. I never consult the stacking order of Sheets as it is irrelevant to my process of sorting pages. As an organizing principle, why should Sheets be favored as the dominate order? I create many types of sheets along the way to my final set that I never intend to be part of a planset.
This out-of-order order also shows up in the OIP when selecting items from one layer and attempting to move them to another. It simply kills readability and slows me down substantially as I hunt and peck to find my lost layer. NOTE: If I reset my Sheet Number/Title to be the dominate sort on the Navigation palette, the OIP shows the order in favor of the Stacking Order. The OIP DOES NOT respond to my preference change.
I found that one can TRICK Vwks by dragging the stacking order to correspond to the sheet numbering order. This is an unwelcome realization.
Why can't Vwks 2013 simply remember my preference after a restart? This can't be by design. Please allow Vwks to remember the user's last ordering of Sheets on the Navigation palette and make the OIP agree.
Tom
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Unfortunately, if the door is a slab with subtractions versus one built up of parts, you can't get the wood grain to flow in the standard fashion thus losing a lot of realism when using strongly grained wood textures.
I agree these should be in our library.
Tom
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Thanks, Kevin.
Just to be clear, my problem is that when restarting my file, Vwks in v.2013 "forgets" my Sheet settings numbering order, typically ordered to comprise a printed set of drawings--sheet number first, then name-- and reverts to the Stacking Order, as Kevin suggests, in the order of creation. This makes no sense. I never consult the stacking order of Sheets as it is irrelevant to my process of sorting pages. As an organizing principle, why should Sheets order themselves as originally created? Is anyone that dogmatic and pedantic to go from A to Z without deviation, never creating test sheets or jpeg sheets or other misc in between?
This out-of-order order also shows up in the OIP when selecting items from one layer and attempting to move them to another. It simply kills readability and slows me down substantially as I hunt and peck to find my lost layer.
I found that one can TRICK Vwks by dragging the stacking order to correspond to the sheet numbering order. This is an unwelcome realization.
Why can't Vwks 2013 simply remember my preference after a restart? This can't be by design.
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From the Allplan review:
"Another key visualization enhancement in Allplan 2013 is a new ?hidden line image with shadow? function, which allows shadows to be displayed in hidden-line drawings"
Vwks has this already. Use Realistic Color White below Hidden Line.
Tom
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In v.2013 Designer, I find that the order I've left my Sheets in, as shown on the Navigation palette, change to another order scheme sometime during my usage of the program. What causes this unwanted re-ordering of Sheets?
Thanks
Tom
Mac OS 10.7.5, newest Vwks build.
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Use a Virtual Wall? It's invisible.
Tom
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The Format Text command (Menu Bar: Text > Format Text) can be used to setup text at any time and also allows the creation of Text Styles but the act of creating Text Styles from this palette is not clear. Please add terminology to the top of this palette that shows actions that will Create Text Style. Currently, the terms are too vague and do not suggest immediate action, in my opinion.
Can we get a button on the OIP to Create Text Style? As it is (if I'm playing the part of a newer user) we're forced to find another command somewhere that must read "Create Text Style". I might guess it's located under Text on the Menu Bar but don't see it. There is the term Format Text. Perhaps this menu command has something to do with Creating Text Style? I open the palette but still no offering of the term other than saving something or other.
My point is most users will not find their way to creating Text Styles without struggle since terms are not offered or the term that is--Format Text--is too far off for most people to make the leap.
Perhaps "Format Text/Create Text Style" could be the command placed in the Text Menu Bar?
Tom
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I want to add to the post above. A big part of my frustration is that we are expected to convert a dashed line to a solid line not by selecting a solid line from among the graphic choices, as we did in past versions of Vwks, but by selection of the solid color block that is at the top of the chain of actions on the Attributes palette. This wide separation of actions is very unintuitive and time consuming. The wide color block, looking exactly like the color fill block above, suggests no particular action by its shape. Often, the solid color block is not available, having been changed out of its form by an earlier visit, thus more hunting in pecking is required.
Solid line selection can't be located outside the container of line types. If I want to change the TV channel, I shouldn't have to leave the living room and enter the garage after going through several doors to do it but this example is analogous of its current setup in v.2013.
Continuing, the Attributes palette is split in half, essentially, with Default content on the bottom half and with a sign at the middle that says Default but on first reading, is it referring to the group above or below? The group above has no reference name (it is the line group in use in the current file). Both groups need names with a marker indicating the direction of ownership. (You'll find this same weak naming scheme where textures are displayed.)
The load to learn Vwks is high. The most basic of tasks, line selection, HAS to be made simple.
Tom
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I'm disappointed in having the line selection process fractured into two locations which don't work well together. My Resource palette sits on a second monitor and reaching for lines--something I do all day--means an unusual amount of traveling across screen real estate given the way the Attributes palette has worked in the past. However, now the Attributes palette forces many more clicks to get into the line selection box.
Resource palette--too far away
Attributes palette--too many clicks to open
To make things worse, there is no solid line in my Attributes line selection as a choice*. It is possible when clicking between the Resource palette and the Attributes palette to lose contact with a solid line choice requiring me to leave the palette and use a Line tool from the Basic palette to get drawing again.
In the Attributes palette, the bottom half of the lines shown are labeled (poorly since it lacks a directional symbol) as Default Content. The upper lines (which are unique to the project) have no label. NV: Please label these line sets for the benefit of non-experts.
I'm thrilled with the new line content, customization, dragging and dropping and all that. But day to day, not happy with the current configuration. If someone has a palette of lines that float on the desktop, please let me know. I've trolled the plugin sources and don't see one offered.
*Does everyone have a solid line available as a default in your Attributes palette?
Is it just me?
Tom
PS (edit) Yes, I know you can click on the solid indicator for lines, outside of the selection of line types, to create a solid line. NOT intuitive.
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Exactly what is the workflow NV imagined that created the current bottleneck in choosing lines in the Attributes palette in v.2013? One should be able to slide off of a line weight choice and tag a line type choice in one move or nearly so. Making this v. 2013 awkward-selection process much worse if the fact that it is possible to lose the solid line* completely and not be able to find it in the Attributes line palette. You then have to leave the attributes palette, select the line tool and draw a solid line to get back to terra firma. Again, there is NO solid line option offered on the line palette (!). (At least not on my palette, v.2013 Designer, Mac OS 10.7.5)
Many of us do not draw lines by Class. This is the only scenario I can think of where the NV engineers would make line choice more difficult than it has been in previous versions of Vwks.
*If you choose lines from the Resource Browser and then return to the Attributes palette, you can lose the ability to select a solid line since none is offered. And please, I hope no one suggests that I should be editing the line palette to add in a solid line.
Tom
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OK, DWorks, I tried mine against your suggestion and they aren't the same.
In your version, you suggest placing a filled poly between the colored background and the hidden line foreground. The only way to do this is by using a color fill--white seems most neutral--which then can be reduced in opacity.
Trouble is, the fill color overlay mutes colors residing in the background image. The jpg import placed behind the hidden line image in my example above and reduced in opacity retains the original, now subtle, coloring, with no white-washing effect.
Let me know if I missed something.
Thanks,
Tom
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Great tip. I'll try it.
Tom
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Dude, I'm old school! I convert my rendered Hidden Line Viewport* to lines (Convert Copy To Lines), send it back to a Design Layer, scale it up 48 times (1/4"=1'), ungroup, clean out the rubbish lines, set lines that missed my Classing process to the proper weight, add missing lines, and then I create a Viewport of of that Design Layer.
*My original Viewport is a complete model--I simply set (rotate) the side I want to convert-to-lines via the OIP. Thus I have Sheet Layers which comprise my plan-set with elevations of front, left, right, back, etc., but below them sits the 3D model or models that are transitional in function, holding the current model, which is updated automatically as the model changes.
The inability to 'explode' a model into lines and edit lines individually is a big loss that occurred in the BIM shuffle, in my opinion. In the process I use, if the model changes, I simply re-render in Hidden Line, Convert to Lines and send back to the Design Layer holding the original. I change the color of my new line set, overlay the original, ungroup and add/subtract the needed lines. Magic wand-select my colors and convert back to black. Model drawing changes done.
I never need to mask line-work. A kludge and a work-around, yes, but I get sweet looking hidden line drawings as a result.
Tom
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Here's an example.........
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Here's another method:
1.Render your model front view with colors, textures on, in Open GL. Then export image to your desktop (jpg or other).
2. Ignoring the jpg for the moment, create a Viewport of the front view, re-render in Hidden Line.
3. Import jpg. and place it over your Viewport's Hidden Line image. It'll be one-to-one so should scale exactly.
4. Select the jpg and set the opacity slider (Attributes palette) way down.
In this way you get very subtle shading/texturing behind your linework which may be better for your planset than a more brightly lit rendering ala foreground/background render combinations. (There is no Viewport opacity slider on the OIP so you won't have options of softening the image below the Hidden Line linework.)
If you are after this look, the extra work of creating, then importing the jpg is really rather small.
Lastly, buy Renderworks.
Tom
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Bob-H
" But the design of the Revit logo is a very sorry looking R. Just looking at it tells me they could have done a better job."
Bzzzzz........bzzzzzz..............FWAPP!!!
There's your design, Revit!
T.
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Wes said:
"And please, do EXACTLY like you've described - CLASS EVERYTHING."
I disagree. My advice would be to class only what you need to class at the moment. Keep it simple. As time goes on, your need to class additional items will grow. Classing everything will needlessly slow you down. If you don't have a good reason to move something out of the None class, then don't. Eventually you may, but that is a day coming in the future. Today you need to get your work out efficiently.
I see by your post above that you have gotten the idea so my advise may be for other new users of Vwks. In that case, carry on.
Otherwise I agree with Wes.
Regarding the second part of your question, I would create 5 classes, one each for each design scenario. Select the relevant components from your Layer and move them into Class 1 (using the Object Info Palette), duplicate (or copy and paste) and/or add additional elements and move to Class 2 and so on until each design scenario has the correct elements created and in place in the correct Class. Turn one set on and the others off (invisible). Create a Viewport of your floorplan. You may choose to duplicate that Viewport (or a crop of the key area) 5 times on the Sheet. Select each one in turn and in the Object Info Palette, turn the key Class to visible and the others to invisible. Each duplicated Viewport view will only show the preferred elements of that scenario.
Putting Viewports on a Class leaves me queasy. Anybody else?
Tom
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Oh god, I hope that's only Freudian, Jim Smith---"Everyone ate Nemetschek".
T.
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I might suggest that in your copying and pasting, you've been introducing bad whatevers--text, textures, titleblock jpg's, templates or other--from work done in old to very old versions of Vwks.
Review your process of introducing older work into new drawings and see if you don't notice some funky stuff in there. Recreating it might be costly time-wise but may get you where you want to go.
I've suffered from periods of multiple crashes daily (v2012 & v2013), where files became more and more unstable as the day went on but have, in the last several months, emerged and am now sailing in pretty smooth water. And I have no idea what I or Vwks did that changed the behavior.
I'm confident you will break through.
Vwks Designer 2013, newest build
Mac OS 10.7.5
16 gigs, MacBook Pro i7
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If the expert users above can't seem to agree on how to set up stories AND do it in a just a few sentences, then something needs to be done on NV's end to improve understanding by recoding along with creating better learning content. Wasn't this thing tested on users prior to its roll-out?
Wes: Please give us a better video than we have on explaining Stories.
Tom
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Elevation benchmark weirdness
in General Discussion
Posted
Oddly, I've just added a benchmark symbol to a V.2013 Designer file and found that the underline is dashed. I don't remember this happening ever.
Selecting the benchmark symbol and clicking on a line style either on the Attributes palette or the Resource browser line styles library has no effect on the underline BUT DOES CHANGE THE LINE STYLE OF THE CIRCLE at the underline's end.
My advice would be to ungroup and change elements individually and post this as a bug to NA.
Tom