brudgers

Straw bales? Seriously? Maybe we'll get advice to use shipping containers in 2011.

The obvious answer to long redraw times for 3d text is to have a user preference for it's rendering. When speed is critical, render the bounding box. When quality is critical, render the full text. When draft views are necessary render the text quickly but without a guarantee of accuracy. BTW adding 3d dimensioning in less than perfect form wouldn't be a big issue...if the limitations were honestly discussed beforehand. The super-secrecy and hyper-marketing of new features may work in consumer electronics, but long term customers feel they deserve more from their software company.

Make sure the "sills" class is turned on.

What arguments, such as filename, if any will vectorworks accept on the command line in Windows?

Portrait/landscape setting? Also, are you using a windows system printer in Autocad or an autocad plotter driver on your HP? Vectorworks runs through the system printer. Historically this has been less common in Autocad.

I watched the video regarding enhanced wall joins. http://www.nemetschek.net/designer/designer-feature-list.php?feature=architectural-features What I found odd was that it showed joining walls on top of each other rather than joining components. Maybe with the new parametric constraints the way to build complex walls is with multiple constrained simple walls?

Yep. I think that NNA does cross licensing fairly easily, though what your local distributer does may be another matter.

What is the pen width?

Try changing it back to white.

Generally, exporting data from vectorworks into another format such as .dxf and then reimporting that data is likely to give less than statisfying results. Information is always lost in translation. To put it another way, if you exported a vectorworks file as a .jpg you wouldn't expect vectorworks entities when you imported the .jpg back in.

If you want to name an object, you have to call NameObject first. At least that's what the function reference says.

Does VW 2009 support sketchup 7? Have you tried saving the file as sketchup 6 and importing it?

The reality which you describe is that of the developer. But the user's reality may be quite different. They were expecting an improved stair tool, not a new stair tool. In the long run, the new stair may prove to be better for them, but the reality is that this remains to be determined. In the short run, the users may have real dissappointments due to ufullfilled expectations and real logistical headaches due to the existence of multiple stair object types. As an aside, being able to inherit vectorworks object types from existing vectorworks objects could be a real boon to development...and potentially avoid this sort of issue in a really cool way.

The stair object may have needed replacement, but the ability of objects to automatically represent themselves within the building context is an important feature of the tools architects use to create their data for BIM. IFC on the other hand is not an application, and I doubt anyone wants to use an application wholly limited to the specification. While there are many buildings that do not have simplified stairs that can easily be modeled using floor to floor heights, that does not mean that simplifying stairs for all the others is a waste of time. The expectation that the new stair object would inherit the major functional features of the classic stair was not an unreasonable expectation.

I realized the problem. Information regarding the previous tool/command is likely to be available on the undo stack, but I be surprised if that information is accessible. Thanks anyway. As for Tools and Commands:

I'm trying to modify one of my kludge tools. I would like it to restore the previous tool. After posting I tried push and pop, but since my kludge tool has already been called at that point the previous tool was not restored. Essentially, was not making the previous tool active. What I'm looking for is

Though I am certain it will be insufficient for what you are trying to do and will only demonstrate my ignorance and stupidity... The Solar Animation PIO has parameters for latitude and longitude. As a bonus it will get me insulted. Most definitely.

Is there a simple way to retrieve the ID/Name of the currently active tool within vectorscript?

Vectorworks font selection method is an example of outdated interface design.

Unless you make classes for spatial divisions, I don't see how you can do it...since symbols cannot contain objects on multiple layers.

Wall styles are in 2008.

Calculating line thicknesses based on vantage point is a complex rendering operation. It's somewhat analogous to rendering an object in 3d. That's the reason for the warning. You might get real time response, but you might not.

Here's a webpage: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1089337

The annual upgrade cycle was brought in to benefit CAD managers and corporate users. The goal is to facilitate yearly budgets and at least in the US allow the entire cost of the software to be depreciated or written off every year for tax purposes. It's part and parcel of a shift that was announced some time ago: http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=20986&Number=97992 Personally, not keeping on the yearly upgrade cycle with Autodesk and facing a full price purchase was the reason I looked at Vectorworks in the first place. When I face a full price upgrade with Vectorworks, I'll certainly be looking hard at competing products.

What your consultant expects and what they get may not be the same thing. You can export Vectorworks objects in 3d to generic AutoCAD 3d objects by exporting to .dwg from a 3d view. But I do not believe there is a simple way to create ADT proxy objects such as doors and windows directly from Vectorworks. Once an object leaves the original application, you cannot expect it to maintain intelligence.