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.

I was wondering, first, if it is possible to write vectorscript that would keep all text within a symbol horizontal, regardless of how the actual symbol is placed, and second, if this would be difficult script to write. I know virtually nothing about vectorscript, but now might finally be the time to wade in. Thanks in advance.

Currently, when one changes the data record attached to a given symbol defaults, it only affects the record of those symbols that will be placed from that point on. The data record of the existing symbol instances remain the same. It would be great to have an option to change the global symbol data record and have the option to apply it to new and existing symbol instances when one edits a symbol (in addition to the default option of applying it only to the new, yet-to-be-placed symbols).

Thanks for the info. I worked with someone at tech support and we seemed to get it running at a decent speed. In rough terms, what we did amounted to trashing all preferences that 2009 had stored, without reinstalling the program itself. I am wondering if it was an old workspace that I imported from 2008 that slowed down 2009? I also believe that it might have something to do with the fact that, without knowing wither or not Windoor 13 worked with 2009, I installed it anyway. My guess is on the latter. Stupid error, I admit. Does anyone know for certain whether or not Windoor 13 will work with 2009? I have an email in to OzCad, but with the time difference, I'm not sure when I'll hear back.

I know my post was a little lengthy, and I am working with NNA to see if there is a way to fix my problems with 2009, but can any Macbook Pro users out there tell me how 2009 works on their systems? Do you get choppy panning and zooming? I'm not experiencing a lag of seconds when I pan, but it's enough to be annoying and I do get a longer lag when zooming. Just a quick post if you use VW2009 with a MBP to say if it is choppy or not would be helpful. If you can, include your system specs. Sadly, I'm trying to decide if I need to update my computer. Thanks.

I can see why you would want to be able to apply separate data records to the same symbols in that case. Thousands of symbols is generally not a great thing. I wish they would have a setting that would apply the settings globally to a symbol definition as well though. I will look into learning some vectorscript to see if I can thrash something out. Any advice you have would be very helpful. Thanks

I'm currently testing vw 2009 on my macbook pro and I have noticed that there is a certain choppiness when scrolling around the screen, as well as zooming in and zooming out. This occurs in design layers as well as sheet layers, and it is much more pronounced in larger drawing files with lots of 3D geometry. I have compared a few drawing files in both 2008 and 2009 and the lag/choppiness occurs across the board on 2009 in comparison to 2008. It is even apparent, to a lesser extent, when panning around an new drawing file. I know there was talk of the screen redrawing lag when vw 2009 first came out and I was aware of this when I bought the program, but I had not seen much talk of it recently. For my larger drawing files, the screen redraw can take anywhere from roughly .3 sec to a full 3 secs. In this current state, the program is unusable for me. I have tried turning off all of the smart cursor cues, snaps, etc, to no avail. the only thing that seemed to help was putting the screen at an absurdly low resolution (640x480 - i have the 17" model with the native 1680 x 1050 resolution). For reference, I asked a colleague to open one of the larger files I am using on his current Mac Pro and he says the delay is no different (or only slightly different) than the delay he has on his other, smaller drawings. He said the maximum lag he has is about .25 secs, maximum - roughly on par with 2008, or slightly slower. Has anyone else encountered this problem? Is my laptop outdated for vw 2009? Does anyone know if the latest MBP can handle vw 2009 and potentially vw 2010, onwards (within reason, of course). This sounds like a video card (GPU) issue to me, no? Any way to fix this? Thanks...

Thanks for the responses. I still fail to understand why you would want separate data records for the same symbol. If I were to use slightly different info for a symbol, I would just duplicate the symbol (or create a new symbol). In my case, I am creating a window schedule from the data attached to the window symbols. If I need to change one field in the symbols in the field, it would be nice to not have to change every instance of the symbol in the drawing in order to get my schedule to appear correctly. That seems a bit counter productive to me. I would like to learn vectorscript, but that might take a little while and I need to be able to move ahead with these schedules in the near future. How would either of you change data globally for a given symbol? Vectorscript? That sounds inefficient, especially if you are changing the data regularly (which I would be). In my opinion, there should be a setting in the data field of the symbol applies the data globally, or semi-globally. I've worked around a lot of issues, but I am bit surprised that the data issue can not be set globally by a preference, if not by default.

I have noticed the same delay on my computer. I am trying to run 2009 SP4 on a Macbook Pro 2.33 c2d, 3 gig ram, ATY,RadeonX1600 video card with 256 in vram. it's not as bad with smaller drawing files, but i have a larger file that i am working on (~120 mb) and it's painfully, un-workably slow.

I'm having an incredibly tough time attaching a data record to a symbol in a reliable fashion. Maybe someone here can offer some advice because the way these two items interact is anything but intuitive. It's quite frustrating. Here's what I have and what I am trying to accomplish: I am designing a moderately sized house with 35 windows or so. All of the windows are PIOs inside of symbols. There are probably 7 or 8 unique windows/symbols. I am looking to attach a data record that I created to the windows, and store information about each unique window type with their respective symbol. from this, i am looking to create a custom window schedule. i am also looking to place an custom id tag or a simple bit of text linked to the record within the symbol. i am also looking to have the ability to edit the data values from either the window schedule or the window itself, and for the other data instances to automatically update themselves. I created the custom data record, and attached it to the symbol as a 'symbol default' according to NNAs instructions. however, further changes to the default data record will NOT change the data record of other symbol instances if those symbols are already in place. the vw manual actually confirms this: "The attached record(s) is included with the symbol each time the symbol is placed in the drawing or imported into another drawing. Symbols already present in the drawing are unaffected. Change the record values of the record format resource to set the default values for the symbol when placed in the drawing." i was blown away. maybe i am misreading the last sentence? if this is the case, if i place a window and later change the symbol, it won't actually affect the other instances of the symbol that are already place. or to be more precise (from my endless experimenting), it will affect the "symbol defaults" that you see while editing a given symbol (placed or not placed), but it will not affect the 'exterior' data record of the placed symbols (what you see when you exit the symbol editing). what's the point if that's the case?

I am having the same problem with the section lines losing their fill/attributes and it is quite annoying. I am using VW2008. Is there a solution to this problem?