Chad McNeely

Sounds like you used 3d polys with a solid fill to create the DTM? If so, remove the solid fill of the 3d polys, or uncheck the button to keep the source info when you create the DTM...

Instead of extruding a rectangle upwards, how about extruding a trapezoid sideways?

Easiest method that I've found is to first group the wall (if the drawing is complex or busy), enter the group, switch to an elevation view of the wall, and then draw a construction line along the top of the wall, snapping to two adjacent wall peaks or wall ends. You can then snap to the constuction line. When you are done, delete the construction line, exit the group, ungroup (and verify that grouping hasn't messed up your object stacking/visiblity).

It needs to look good in both 2d and 3d. I reworked the window, using wide flat trims that are styled to look like the inset wall, with 2d fillers between, and setting the 3d wall break to the outside of "trim". I've done the window in a wall in a wall before, so it's a new limitation. I know it works in VW2008, and I didn't get a chance to test in pre-SP3 VW2009. Thanks.

I've put a window in a piece of wall, made them into a symbol, and the window now won't show up on the schedule if inserted into another wall. The one not inserted into the wall does get reported on the schedule. Bug?

Ugh, sounds like extra work to me! Draw the 2d poly of the whole roof face, and with the walls or bearing objects visible below, use them to create/snap your bearing line.

You are describing a workaround. An extruded polyline, or a polyline extruded-along-path, should be of no less quality than a nurbs profile along a nurbs path. From the USER's point of view. I don't give a rip what algorithms the 'puter uses to get there, and I certainly don't need to be involved in the process! The examples you provided would all be most easily drawn with simple extrudes, or easy-to-edit polylines extruded along easy-to-edit lines/polylines/polygons. That VW requires the USER to use nurbs for such simple geometries to get the best appearance and performance is what I dislike.

1) Yup, short of creating your own. 2) You can do most rectilinear rail designs with the guard/handrail tool. For scrolly wrought iron or turned ballusters or such, I create a symbol of one of the repetive units and string them along end to end as needed. 3&4) The "Style x"'s are actually classes that you need to assign class textures to, and those class textures will be applied to the bits that get assigned to those classes. They aren't "styles" in the sense of "types" or "designs".

Again, that's the computer's job. There is no good reason why I should ever have to "convert to nurbs". If VW can't draw the stuff based on the geometry I provide, IT should do a nurbs conversion in the background, in a way that doesn't involve me needing to worry about it. And if I need to edit the geometry, VW should let me edit based upon the geometry I originally provided, not the nurbs mess that it has imposed upon me.

...Which I would call a bug. Why shouldn't VW treat simple, easy-to-edit geometry with the same respect as nurbs? I always see nurbs as the 3d object of last resort, when nothing else works. Put another way, the more 3d stuff that could be made to work properly without going the nurbs route, the happier I'd be.

Of the five issues I've submitted in the last year or so, SP3 appears to have addressed 3. 1. Solved: Fascia floating above the roof edge, and disappearing when the roof is moved in the z direction. 2. Solved: Place a wall endpoint over a previously grouped and locked wall join does not automatically undo the old walls. 3. Solved: Section Viewports now respect the "use class" setting for objects beyond the cutting plane. 4. Still broken: DTM ignores the user's geometry, and "spilled dirt" remains the norm. 5. Still broken: Wall wraps disappear when symbol-ized opening PIO's are insignifanatly edited. Such as ID label, part classes, etc.- stuff wholly unrelated to the wall wrap. So thanks for the work done so far, and looking forward to the embarassingly long overdue fix to the DTM getting closer to the top of the list!

You can use "tapered extrude" on your 3d lines, set the taper to 0 and the height to 1/8" or less. It's not quite "modelling" the cables, but it gets closer and is very quick and easy.

What smoothing angle do you have set in you "Line render options"?

...or use a small crop object in a blank part of the viewport (but not if somebody else will be drawing on the file later- easter egg hunt!)

IMO, better than corrupting your roof face with subtract solids is to use the double roof face approach, holding the lower surface back a bit from the gable edge, and then using an extrude-along-path (with ends appropriately split/trimmed/subtracted to blend) for the bevelled gable fascia. You'll need to fuss with the profile alignment, but it'll do what you want.

These don't sound like survey coordinates, more like along-the-surface measurements? If so, you have some math (or geometry) to do. It sounds like you have the heights and hypoteneuse of several triangles, in a sense. pythagorean: a^2 + b^2 = c^2, where a & b are your height and horizontal distances, and c is the sloping measurement. So given a & c, b=(c^2-b^2)^.5 trig: find the slope (angle above to horizontal) between points, = sin^-1((delta z)(measured distance)), then the horizontal length is cos(angle found) x (measured distance) or just draw it out with that handy drafting and geometry producing program that we all love so well...

re: #2- try right clicking or option-clicking, and choose "Activate" from the contextual menu? re: #3- I'm not sure what you mean by "regenerate". If you have a section viewport tied to a section line instance, the section viewport will need updating if it is hidden line or otherwise rendered, if you move the section line. Try hitting "update" on the section viewport? The easiest way to be sure you are getting a good section viewport is to select your source VP, and then the menu command for "create section viewport", drawing a fresh section line.

1) Turn on all classes (option-click the "visible" column of the class organization list) to be sure you didn't class it into oblivion. 2) Double clicking on the viewport's name in the organization pallet will take you to it. 3) Deleted viewports are gone, unless you can undo back to point you deleted them. 4) The viewport is an object. Grab it and move it. If you mean the section LINE, then you can move it on any the viewports where it is visible, and then update the section viewport that it points to. I've never been able to duplicate a section line and have it point to a valid section viewport, however.

Yeah, thanks. Or I could remember to manually save maniacally. It seems hardest to remember when crunch time is on, and the focus is on getting stuff done rather than file maintenance chores. And that's when the consequences are worst, naturally. This wasn't a problem with VW2008. Consider my protest lodged.

The viewports are unrendered in the backup files. So, to use a backup file, I have to choose whether to re-render every viewport (several overnight sessions in the case of my current project), or manually cut and paste all the info that I've created between the last real save and the backup file creation. One way I will miss a deadline by a few days, with no real time expended (just remembering to set them up to cook each night), the other way I need to spend (waste) an hour or so copying and pasting from the backup to the full file, hoping I don't forget anything. I'd prefer a full backup option!

The backup files strip out the rendering portion of viewports. Can that be changed?

Perfect, thank you.

So your RCP will be a SLVP pointing to a DLVP. Can you skip the middleman and point straight to the design layers?

I know I can remove a dimension from a chain by dragging its leader onto an adjacent leader- it essentially zeroes and disappears. Is there a similar way to add a dimension to a chain, either to the end or somewhere in the middle?

VW2009 floor tool benefits: Different textures on sides (all sides same though), top, and bottom. Can do holes, or multiple objects as a single floor. Using 2d add/subtract surface commands makes size manipulation easy. Slab tool benefits: Lots more class control (although not needed if using class overrides in 2008+) Separate textures on sides (still all sides the same though), top, and bottom for pre-2009 VW users. Since getting VW2009 I haven't bothered to bring the slab tool into my workspace.