Art V

Anything that is or contains a smooth polyline, nurbs or bezier curve will convert as a spline when exported to dwg. The same may happen to some 3D polylines if they are not planar depending on a few variables. There is a tool to fix such problems for CNC use , and I think it included fixing dxf files, but I'll have to look it up at a later time, as it was on another forum for a different piece of software.

Not just that, but also quite different use of Vectorworks than the majority of users. E.g. building and landscape/garden architects are probably the largest user base by far if the kind of requests for new features are a reliable indication, but Vectorworks is also used in other areas that are quite a bit apart from the average use scenario. We use the same tools but sometimes in quite different ways and then run into limitations/issues that may not show up as frequently as with "normal" use. An open beta would imho benefit from an as wide as possible usage variety so that any hidden bugs have a better chance of showing up early and hopefully be fixed before release, and that will in the end benefit everyone.

Are you perhaps referring to a so-called connector line, e.g. as they have in Visio and other diagramming software. Once connected to a shape the line adjusts when one or both of the connected shapes are moved/resized etc. but the line segments are always horizontal or vertical? That would be nice to have, though my experience with Visio is that those lines tend to get a mind of their own at times and go all over the place. :-) It would probably require either creating symbols with a point object to connect to or an automatic magnetic snap at certain object points such as mid of a segment, corners, quadrants etc.

Some tools have automatic classing for their components. E.g. the road tool has two, paving and curb, and normally I don't need them to be different. In fact I want all components to use the same class as they are created in. E.g. if I have classes main road, maintenance road (narrower than main road), local road, highway etc. each with different fill/line colour settings, the roads tool still uses roads-paving and roads-curb to control the looks. I can update the class settings for these to match the class I am going to put a road in and it will maintain that setting, but for a different road class I have to adjust these settings first, and again etc. it would be really useful if it would be possible to have the road simply take on the class settings at creation and not have to adjust these two automated classes every time they are in a class that has different settings than the then current one. This should also be possible for other objects with autoclassing of their subcomponents. Ideally classes should have an option to control the subcomponent appearance of such objects in use in the document, though that might become quite messy, so for now a simple override as mentioned above would be an improvement.

Ah, now I get what you were thinking of. Yes in this case some "flip switch" to set all subclasses to use by-class for properties would be a big help in case they're not already set that way. Which reminds me I have to re-submit my default class override request

Vectorworks has 2D constraints which could be very useful if they would work reliably/predictably. Unfortunately they don't so I'd like to see at least the 2D constraints to be improved to a good level and also to add 3D constraints as there too they can be very useful to have. A program that has good 2D/3D constraints that work predictably and reliably, and allows for multiple constraints to work in unison, that you could look at for the kind of constraints implementation is Bricscad. Their constraints work nicely, though even in Bricscad some combinations may take some trial and error depending on the complexity. Briscad's 3D kernel is a direct modeling kernel similar to Parasolid kernel in VW which will hopefully make it useful for comparison.

Don't worry, we, the users, will back you up on this

Thanks for the advance support on this Would it be possible for you to take a look at the 2D/3D constraints in Bricscad. They also have a parametric kernel that is similar to Parasolid. Their 2D/3D constraints are decently documented and so far work as intended (even though it is sometimes a matter of trial and error for more complex combinations to figure out) Often I have objects at fixed positions and distances that need to be updated together, but it works better in Bricscad than in VW, as some things just down't work in VW, so that is why I am suggesting to take a look at Bricscad. I'd like Vectorworks to implement constraints in a similar way. Maybe I have a sample document laying around when testing the constraints in Bricscad in order to figure out how it could work in Vectorworks (at a time when the documentation was too skimpy on that).

These can be quite useful, as a kind of semi-parametric property without having to create actual parametric plug-in objects. For example if you have a circle and an arc with their centerpoints aligned and you want the arc always to be at a fixed distance from the circle outline you can use constraints for coincidence (centerpoints) and distance (between circle and arc, or two circles if you prefer). When you change the dimension of one, the other changes accordingly while the centers will remain aligned. It is just too bad certain combinations don't always work as expected or hoped for and not in all situations. Maybe I should make a wish list item for this to have it improved.

Automatic changing of attributes to by class will only happen if "use at creation" is enabled and creating a new object. It will also work automatically when changing the class of an object to a class that has "use at creation" active and you answer yes the very first time you get asked if you want to apply the class attributes. In all other cases you'll need to change the settings manually. That being said, if the intent is to change all attributes to by class automatically when opening a file then I'd be very cautious to use it as it may be our own office standard, but client's standards could be quite different and you don't want to mess up things with an automated setting to by class. The best way to get this done imho, would be to set up templates where all classes have "use at creation" activated. What might be more useful is an option to set new classes to automatically have "use at creation" activated as a default when creating a new class (currently the default is not to set this active). It is easy to forget to activate the "use at creation" when in hurry.

Yes I have the same bug, it can be solved for now by changing the display setting in VW2017 from Best performace to Good performance and compatible. Please do a bug submit, as that will give tech support the necessary information in helping to track the cause of this. If you do another operaton on the object, e.g. a fillet, then it gets properly displayed and then using the reshape tool works ok for that object. At least it does that with me.

You can try using SHIFT-ENTER to create a linebreak instead of a new paragraph for the time being, until they update the forum for single spacing.

If you are using windows computers then running VW2017 as administrator (to be set in the properties tab of the shortcut or the actual program) will solve this problem for now. They're working on a fix to be included in SP1 but that can take a few weeks according to @JimW Edit: overlooked you are using a Mac, but the above does work on windows so if you have access to a windows machine as well you could try using that if you want to be able to update libraries at startup.

Just checked, I had already removed the Extensio libraries and plugins, the only remnant left was the license code and just removed that as well, but that should not have an impact. So it are only a few parametric objects left. Switched back to the normal Landmark workspace instead of my custom converted workspace and it still hangs at 2% when updating the libraries catalog and giving the error message of making sure that the libraries exist and that an internet connection is available. So at least we know the Extensio plugins don't play any role in this.

All the more reason to get UV mapping in Vectorworks if one wants decent textures on Subdivision objects. I know there are budget constraints and priorities etc. but it seems to be that subdivisions v2 would have been a perfect argument for introducing UV mapping into VW. so +1 on this and UV mapping

That would be nice to have, as it would expand our texture options quite a bit, as there is a lot more available for C4D than VW.

Except for a few parametric symbols in the plug-ins folder and the extensio plugin-in items I do not have any custom libraries installed in VW2017. So what is installed by the extensio plugin is probably quite small compared to a regular library, i.e. less than 20 MB.

Combine it with maglev and autopilot and you could start/continue working when you leave from/for home to/from the office. "People Managers" would love the increased efficiency (In case you are wondering, there are motorscooters available that look very similar to this chair minus the computer stuff, though you would have to do the driving yourself, add Tesla autopilot and...)

@Kevin Cif you are referring to my run as admin additions, no, it only means that on Windows there is a possible "way out" of this issue. The strange thing is that my PC account is an admin account so it should not have a problem accessing the folder. Running the software with admin privilege does seem to solve the not being able to update the library folder. My totally undeducated guess is that it may have to do with the "all applications packages" entry not having write access for updating files in the folder, there might be something similar on MacOS. Since you don't seem to have a "run as administrator" option on MacOS you're kind of stuck. We'll have to wait for Jim to let us know that the actual problem is once the engineering people have solved it.

Think of "slowfood" , mindfulness etc. and this thing would fit right in. Not so sure about "zen" at the end of the day (or week if one can persevere).

Well... Graebert claims that their Ares Touch for tablets has a userinterface which allows for reasonably precise drafting as it autozooms when snapping etc. so one day this might be the norm for 2D drafting Though mouse/tablet (wacom style) and keyboard will probably be more effective for 3D etc. Plus you can't put your caffeine on this digital desk, so that is a major downside.

One thing I forgot to mention, when using "run as administrator" the problem does not happen, then updating the library catalog etc. works ok

@Bas Vellekoopyou may want to take a look at Bricscad, aka B-thing as @zoomercalls it, as a possible alternative for Solidworks. It's direct modeling features put it halfway between AutoCAD and Inventor, has assemblies in the Platinum version and it also has an optional sheet metal module that is said to be very good at unfolding. If you need sheet metal/unfolding it might be an adequate alternative for Solidworks to use alongside VW. They'll also be adding BIM based on the ODA library (Microstation's BIM module was originally developed by them as well many years ago).

My account is an administrator No - just standard install No errors during installation No Me (admin group) - full access except for special permissions / Common users - Read only and execute VW There is also an "all application packages" entry for the VW main program folder , the settings for that are: read & execute/list folder/read , write access is not enabled for the VW main application folder for this entry. The settings of the user folder are the same as under item 5 above. The DXDIAG file is already available with support. (will reference to this thread in my reply on the submitted bug earlier this week)

@FRDRAY, Alan's suggestion is probably your best bet to solve your issue. Afterwards you could still make a copy and turn that into a generic solid if you want and keep the original for further editing/updating. Just tried, and Alan's version works quickly so that should not be a problem. If Alan's version is slow on your machine as well then you may have a hardware issue.