eric.rktek

My desire for drawing rotation is more for 2d issues. I don't want to go through the trouble of rotating a series of layers to temporarily work in a certain orientation and then have to remember to rotate the drawing (typically a plan) back to its original position. This is because I use reference files and layer links. I don't want to have my source files (plan) out of position when I go into my elevation files and find all my reference files and layer links rotated to reflect the change in plan data. I really would like to be able to rotate the view to speed up drafting input without having it affect the original XY positioning of the vector data. Autocad 2000 had a clunky keyboard command to change your UCS to accomplish this, and Microstation had a great little button down by your zoom buttons to do it with a couple clicks of the mouse.

I understand the additional power classes provides, allowing for a group rotate, but I would really like to be able to work in an orthoginal fashion without having to change the position of my work in the file. Rotating things like that can create a whole string of complications with data and reference files, etc. The offset tool can get you by, but not as well as a view shift. One previous thread touched on complications with rotate view and the difference between the way VW handles 2d and 3d objects. I can understand if there are serious challenges with the core of the software in providing this functionality. However, if it could be accomplished with a working plane command (and or) menu for 2d, it would be wonderful. Improved referencing capabilities still tops my wish list of most desired capabilities though.

I just got into some plans with 11.5 and have had a lot of dimensioning to do today. I seem to be having a problem getting the OIP to deselect the highlighted 'Leader' text box after entering text into it. I select the cursor tool and click in the drawing, and find that it often does not unhighlighted the text in the OIP. I think that most of the OIP improvements are great, and this in one of the first glitches I've come across with it in the upgrade. Anyone else experiencing this?

Using patterns as a pen style will allow you to screen your linework instead of going gray. This will still show up screened if you are using Black and White Only or Layer Colors prefs. I use the first several on the pattern menu to vary the degree of screen I want. The downside is that I don't believe you can set this as a global preference for all objects in a layer. The line pattern has to be determined by individual object. So yes, you can screen lineweights and skip the grayscale options, but it still might not be everything you are hoping for.

Mike, I agree that Layer Link works, but not well. I find it time consuming to set up multiple refernces, links, etc. and would also appreciate a better way to keep track of them. On top of that, I really miss the ability to clip reference files. I think this is part of where the idea of viewports on design layers is coming from. Add the ability to easily turn on and off layers and classes, and NNA would probably be able to address the bulk of these reference wishlist requests. I guess the 'design viewports' just would not need to have the scale choice included in the OIP, as it could just be whatever the scale is of the current layer.

Personally, I've been focusing more of my efforts on asking for more functionality out of referencing. That said, I remember how amazingly simply and useful Microstation's rotate drawing command was. One button selected, and a click drag click, and the drawing would rotate on the spot. It made it so easy to draft angled buildings, site plans, etc in an orthoganal fashion. Autocad's UCS interface seemed clunky and hard to deal with compared to it too. This would be another great addition if the folks at NNA could incorporate it.

Dav13, It really sounds less like you need viewports in design layers, as simply the ability to best handle and manipulate layer links and or WGR. Being able to easily crop and rotate layer links would increase the power and flexibility of VW tremendously. I think this has become my new soapbox. I try to get my feedback in on this issue every chance I can. Once one has experiences these capabilities in other programs, it is very frustrating to work in an environment without them. I think they are almost as powerful as the multiple undo feature, which took many generations of MiniCad to finaly incorporate. I can't imagine working without that now.

Mike, I agree with your thoughts on how to improve the 'model' side of things. I believe that layer linking is also crucial to successfully be able to deal with referencing as well. I hope VW can split layer linking features into these two separate areas to develop and expand controls for both.

I like the suggestion of being able to see a list of layer links, etc. I can invision something similar to the Layer menu or Class Menu that would give you a list of all the layer links in a file. I'm not sure if it makes sense to fully integrate it with the WDR window. We do mulitfamily projects on a regular basis in our office, and would benefit tremendously from having better control of these features. Regarding symbols for unit plans: we typically use background files (plans, elevations) referenced into sheet files (w/ viewports, annotations, title block etc.) If we make a symbol of a floor plan to be duplicated throughout the background file, wouldn't we have to do a 'forced update' of that symbol (or multiple symbols) in the sheet file every time it changes in the background file?

Quick question and response to Mike's comments above. I didn't update my Architect workspace because I have done a fair amount of personal tweaking to it. I just tracked done the sketch feature in the workspace editor. Is there any way NNA could provide a short list of menu items and commands to track down from the editor to add back in to the workspace? Thanks.

I just want to add my thanks to the improvements offered in 11.5. I appreciate the hard work that the folks at NNA have put in to this. It's still not perfect, but another good step forward. I'm still hoping for expanded power and options for referencing, and the ability to control which side (top or bottom) of the stair can be shown by the stair tool, to properly show two stairs on top of each other without have to break the stair object into lines, etc. I'll keep my fingers crossed for version 12.

Mike, Your right about the classes providing the functionality. I've tended to stay away from using classes too much, as a matter of keeping the complexity of drawing files to a reasonable level for multiple (often new to VW) users in our office. It comes down to the question of what's more work, setting up files with special class settings for the symbols, or alternate layer workarounds until their is something better on the referencing front. I try to chime in anytime a see a question about expanding the power and capability of the workgroup referencing features. I have no idea the complexity of the software code required, but I do know the power and flexibilty referencing provides after spending years in the Microstation and Autocad worlds. I very happy to be back in the VW camp. A big part of that is VW's committment to improving and upgrading of their product, and their listening to user feedback.

Robert, The layer link option can get the job done, but any streamlining of this function would be greatly appreciated. We handle a fair amount of multifamily projects, and need to have unit plans show up in multiple places. It's time consuming to have to set up all the units into a building plan file, and we then have to set them up again in a sheet file. I've never liked using the symbol option, because you loose the ability to separate out your data into different layers inside the symbol.

Jonathan, Is the zoom line thickness menu option something from your manuals? I have the tool plugin for preference toggling from VectorBits, but it would be even handier to have it incorporated into the right mouse button.

This is the tip of the week (maybe month) for me. I just went and added layer visibilities and several other menus commands. I can't wait to refine the command choices as I proceed. What a huge help.

Not sure if this will help, but I found a similar probelm when setting up a detail sheet using viewports as part of a construction docs package. Hatches were really slowing down the redraw. I was able to go into the advanced features of the viewport command and adjust the hatch scale which greatly increased the redraw speed.

Again, my thoughts exactly on the export end. I am trying to send files to my consultants in the least disruptive way from VW to aCAD. Having a exprt settings that is remembered would make it so much easier and efficent.

Say you had all the appropriate reference files in a destination file 'B' matching those of source file 'A'. If you copied the viewport from file 'A', could it be made possible to do a paste in place and have it carry forward the crop, annotation, and layer/class info to file 'B'? Or at least have some kind of intelligence to know that it is supposed to have certain layers and classes shown even if they were not present in file "B'? When you came and reference the file in after the paste, they could show up in the viewport then. That would be very useful, and possibly satisfy the request posted above.

I second this wish. I am constantly having to go in and reselect line weight/color combos when exporting to aCad. Is there a default file that can be tweaked?

Quick question about an old and recurring problem. I use the polygon reshape tool often. One problem that happens frequently is that as I am stretching a vertex, or group of them, I often hold down the shift key to maintain an x or y axis alignment. Sometimes, but not every time, when holding the shift key down, it aligns some dimension off the 'original' axis that the vertex is on (and not what I wanted). Once this happens, the x or y key ins consider this new offset to be of a zero value as well. Has anybody else had this problem, is it a bug in the system, or is there some kind of setting that can be deactivated to prevent this from occurring?

Is there any possibility that NNA would be able to incorporate a sensitivity setting in the preferences window for scroll speed?

I think the issue manager could be tweaked a little bit to make this much more user friendly. I have a slanted view, because I only have one sheet and title block per file, but I would really appreciate it if the last step of Issue Manager (dates & stuff) would pull up a series of fields that showed you the previous dates and issues. It would be great if it defaulted you to fill in the next available one, but allowed you to edit past issue dates without have to go to the data pane of the OIP.

I have 2 cents to add to this discusison. I've been pretty happy with VW referencing functions. We are a small office and use referencing and viewports extensively. Both my partner and I worked on Microstation and Acad for a while in past jobs. We went back and forth on how to set up our files in VW to best suit our needs. We have ended up using the basic setup that we used for Acad. We have all our vector data (walls, fxtures, linework, etc.) in a 'xref' file. We then have a separate sheet file that the 'xref' gets referenced into. We use the viewport to show what we need to in paper/sheet space. This is really helpful in breaking out files in a way that makes it easy for multiple people to work on them, as well as keeping information well organized in various files. The crop and annotations windows for the viewports are great features, much better than Acad. The big downside with referencing we have is when we want to reference a plan into an elevation to draft in. (We don't believe in the overall benefit of creating detailed elevations from 3D models). The Layer Link function does provide an intricate work around that allows you to make a link of the layers you are interested in. Reference the (plan) layers you want into the elevation file (make sure you select the show 2d objects box). unlock the link, and move, rotate, or mirror the linked data into the desired position. We find it best to turn off all the original reference layers in from the plan and bing the layer link into a new layer we typically name a 'Plan View 1' or so on. We set up View layers for each floor plan (1st, 2nd, etc) and make sure the links are lined up between view layers. It's a lot of work, but great when it is set up. Oviously, there are uses for this beside plans and elevations, but this example was used to help explain the situation. The big complaint we have is that it is relatively complicated the first time through, and it is time consuming everytime you need to set up a file. This function could benefit greatly from some development of a dialog box or better tool options. The other feature lacking from the reference capabilities is the ability to crop part of a layer link or reference in a design layer. This is extremely useful in the elevation drafting described above when you want to hide part of a plan that would be in the way of your linework. The whole referencing and viewport thing has been somewhat difficult for a friend and former employer that has been using VW since Minicad 6. He has developed office standards based on the past decade plus of work that don't take advantage of these new features. It's worth looking into. I can't imagine working without it. There have been several times in the past year that we would have had to resort to some painful, inefficent workarounds in drafting sections, section details, and elevations laid out on our sheets that came out great in the viewports. Hope this helps, Happy New Year.

I'm with Peter on the use of the eyedropper to handle attributes in files. One thing that I think would make that tool even better would be the ability to pick up attributes from a certain object, and have those become the 'default' settings in the attribute palette for new objects drawn.

That would be helpful, as would the possibility to have two (or multiple) lines of text over the dimension line. Another handy method would be the ability to pull the text up and above the dimension line but have it connected by a leader line.