theob

Updating 45 viewports in 2 minutes doesn't necessarily sound that slow, but maybe there is a hint of sarcasm that I'm not picking up here? At least your viewports are showing up. My Hidden Line viewports don't work on my Mac Pro. They just show up as wireframe or don't show up at all.

Hi Jim, Sorry that I am just getting back to this. I believe that I answered your question earlier, but a hidden line viewport will not render at all, even when that is the only component being rendered. The frustrating thing (as I mentioned in the previous post) is that the hidden line viewport will update just fine with my Macbook Air but it will give my Mac Pro all kinds of trouble. The MBA should theoretically be the one having the problems. I kind of need to figure something out because the Mac Pro is my work machine and it should work well with vectorworks, at least on paper. The MBA is not a long term replacement for the Mac Pro. I can send in the drawing file, but it is much too large to send via email. Do you have a preferred means of getting the file to you? I can share a dropbox folder if that works.

I am working with a complicated drawing, but it is not overly complicated. The frustrating thing is that the HLR component of the exact same viewport in the exact same vectorworks file will render in my 2011 Macbook Air (1.7 GHz dual i7, 4 GB ram - supposedly an inferior machine) and WON'T render on my maxed out 2008 Mac Pro (specs listed below). I am trying to figure out why.

Hi Jim, Unfortunately, no. If I render a viewport in just Hidden Line, it comes out as wireframe only. I'm wondering if this has something to do with the ATI Radeon HD 5770? Apple doesn't list this card as being officially compatible with the Mac Pro 3,1, but I know that this is a pretty common card that people have put in the earlier Mac Pros. Does anyone want to chime in that has this card in a Mac Pro 3,1 or earlier?

Does anyone have any thoughts? I can work around the slow rendering times (begrudgingly) but I don't know what to do about the hidden line rendering not showing up on my viewports

I should include that I don't believe that this is a new issue with vw2014. I had similar issues with vw2013, but no such problems with vw2009.

I am having issues with the general speed of vectorworks (all across the board - panning, zooming in and out, drawing, etc), but in particular this is apparent when I go to update a viewport. I am working with a complicated building and a larger file size, and I set up my viewports to render with a "realistic exterior fast" background and a hidden line foreground. The viewport takes 5-10 mins to update the background, but it doesn't look great (or finished) when the update process completes and the hidden line rendering does not show up on top of it. This is probably the biggest issue. The thing that bugs me is that if I drag the same file over to my 2011 Macbook Air, which should theoretically have much less horsepower than my Mac Pro, the viewports come out faster, they appear normal, and they are complete with hidden line on top of the rendered viewport. This is pretty frustrating. Does anyone have any thoughts as to why this is? In general, everything in vectorworks seems faster on my Macbook Air and I am puzzled as to why that is. Thanks in advance. Specs on the MBA: 2011, 1.8 GHz i7 4 GB Ram 256 GB SSD

I don't know how that extra EAP object got in there, but sure enough, there it is. Still, I tried scaling down the profile by 1/4 and it still wouldn't create the profile. However, when I scaled down the object a further 50%, it could create the EAP. Maybe the problem lies in the beginning arc (the tight radius one). It's odd because i actually recreated the path object when the old one was giving me problems and this new path is what I put into the drawing file I posted. Odd. Footnote - AHHHH! Found the problem. It indeed was the tight radius "beginning" arc. My guess is that the path caused the profile to loop back on itself and didn't like it. Thanks for the help Michael.

Thanks for the quick response michael, but my problem is that vw gives me an error message when I try to create the extrude along path object (from scratch, using the path and profile objects I put in the file) OR, when i try to flip the profile object rightside-up in the *existing* extrude along path object. The error message says something to the tune of "Invalid path or profile object. Would you like to delete the object?" When I accept, it deletes the entire extrude along path object (if I am editing the existing extrude along path object), or it just doesn't create the object if I'm starting from scratch with the path and profile I provide. I have no idea why this is happening. I am using exactly the file I have posted online. Sorry, I should have clarified this in my first post.

I've had a little bit of difficulty getting this extrude along path object to work like I want it to. Can anyone tell me why? The railing is upside down in the one extrude along path I was able to create (not sure what happened), but I would like it right side up. Thanks!

This is my first attempt to rotate the text within the many symbol instances of the same definition so that the text appears horizontal universally, but I realize that if the vectorscript works at all, it is trying to rotate the text within the original symbol and in that symbol it is probably aligned properly anyway. additionally, in my drawing the id symbol for the window is a symbol within a symbol, and I realize that I did not address that in the vectorscript as well. Any feedback would be very helpful. Thanks! PROCEDURE RotateSymbolText; VAR textHdl : Handle; objHdl : Handle; textIsMirrored :Boolean; textOriginX, textOriginY, textAng, objAng :Real; BEGIN objHdl := FActLayer; while (objHdl <> nil) do begin if (GetType(objHdl)=15) then begin textHdl := FInSymDef (objHdl); if (GetType(textHdl)=10) then begin GetTextOrientation(textHdl, textOriginX, textOriginY, textAng, textIsMirrored); objAng:= GetSymRot(objHdl); HRotate(textHdl, textOriginX, textOriginY, -objAng); end; textHdl := NextObj(textHdl); end; objHdl := NextObj(objHdl); end; SysBeep; END; Run(RotateSymbolText);

If there are multiple instances of one symbol definition, would this script work at keeping all of the text horizontal? How would you target the text handle to the text of one symbol instance, and not the entire definition? Is that possible?

The standard PIOs don't rotate the text appropriately when nested in symbols. However, I did notice that the "Adjust Flipped Text" setting in the vectorworks preferences does affect all of the text in the document, but it does not place all of the text horizontally. It appears to place it horizontally and in one direction vertically. If only I could get access to that script to modify it! That might do the trick. I think i figured out my problem with the id symbol not auto-updated. I specified the "TagSpec" field in the Tag Schema Record as the field I wanted it to point to as opposed to leaving it named "ID". I think that might solve the problem.

I assume, however, that placing a pio within a symbol will fix the text at the orientation it is given? One of the benefits of placing the tag for the window within the same symbol that contains the window pio is that it saves a bunch of time tagging all of the windows in the drawing (there are a lot in the current drawing I am working on). I believe the ID pios have the same text problem when placed in symbols. The biggest problem I had with the ID symbol pio is that it didn't seem to automatically update its label when I updated the data record for the window symbol it was identifying. That was the biggest show-stopper for me. Did I set up the custom ID symbol incorrectly? I believe I added all of the pertinent data in the Tag Schema in the ID symbols file, directing the id to use a certain field of the symbol it is identifying through the 'TagSpec' and 'TagText' fields in the data record, but regardless of what I tried, the ID label would initially pick up the correct ID that I had specified for the window, but would not update that ID if I changed the data. That kind of defeats the purpose for me.

I see. In my case it is actually text within a symbol, which is within another symbol. Since we use window pios nested within symbols, we haven't been entirely happy with the current id tag (it doesn't seem to update when data for the window symbol changes, you have to place them manually for each window, etc). Hence, we've resorted to applying a custom data record to a custom symbol we use to id the window symbols, and we place those identifiers with the window pio inside of a symbol. Therefore, a symbol within a symbol. This quickly populates the drawing with the appropriate tags for the appropriate window symbols, but the text becomes vertical when the window symbol is placed in a wall running page North to page South. Here's an example: If there's another way to accomplish what we are trying to do, I would certainly be open to it. However, I've spent the past few days trying to sort out a quick and easy way to do windows with ids, create and schedule, while maintaining a good dynamic between the schedule, id and window so if data changes in one place it is reflected everywhere else at the same time. This seems like best solution thus far. Thanks for the input.