Art V

Yes the offsets remain the same if you drag them simultaneously. You may want to experiment with the various UIOP settings to see if that could make enough of a difference though I think what you want may require a feature request, e.g. a drag and scale combination.

The dwg file imports ok into my windows version of VW.

My other cad program imports the DWF, so there are two possibilities: 1. The file itself is ok but it contains something that VW cannot handle. 2. There is an error or an object that the Teigha library cannot handle but the other cad program ignores it and imports the rest of the objects. If it is the former then getting a new file will not solve the issue. If it is the latter then getting a new file may or may not help depending on whether it is an error or an unsupported object that is causing the import to fail. Which is why I suggested to the OP to check the converted to dwg file to see if the contents are as it should be. Maybe it could be possible to have an option to ignore (yet) unsupported objects in dwf (and other) files to at least have something imported. Especially if it is a limited number of objects that are not relevant that cause the import to fail.

+1 This would be really useful to have. (I thought there was already a setting somewhere in VW to ignore small gaps but that is in the other cad program)

I made a short video of what I meant. The movie had to be put into a zip file because it was just a little bit too large for attaching here. If this is not what you meant please feel free to clarify further.

Tom, Thanks for the clarification, yes for those who need this it would be quite useful, not just for Architects. Even I might find a use for it in some of my projects.

Only if it is an option, even though today's computers are fast enough to handle this it also causes some clutter that not everyone would like to have. +1, as well as importing ECW files Well.... it may look a bit old school but I actually like it as it is quite clear and uncluttered compared to some of the fancier 2016 era GUI's. I think the Windows 10 look is not the best as it does have its downsides when it comes to icon and menu(bar) separation, sometimes it is really hard to see what you are clicking on. So a GUI change/update is for me way down on the list compared to other needed improvements. +1 It is already possible by using the reshape tool for 2D polylines but I can imagine that a bit finer control may be welcome.

Yes that would be nice to have as display mode for the heliodon. Regarding the solar hour rendering, VW 2016 has that as I've seen it at the VW user day over here, but the workshop that shows it is not yet on youtube unfortunately. However, if you select the heliodon then in the object info palette the last item is "solar animation" and that should do what you may be looking for. You'll get a dialog window with two tabs, the first one for the day and time settings and the second one for the export and interval settings etc. and to export it as a movie. When exporting it will also show in Vectorworks. An example movie is attached

It looks like there is an error in the implementation of the DWF import. You may want to file a bug report. Another program that I have also uses the Teigha libraries and can import dwf files, there it worked so I have saved it back as a dwg file that you can import into vectorworks. (see attached file below) If you know what this file should contain you can check if the import went correctly or that something is missing.

Jim, thanks for the video links, they make it a lot easier to understand how it works. Maybe you could do this for all tools using all settings to show how things work? The help file has improved a lot but there are still times when I get a bit stuck because some details are not mentioned or that things work slightly different than one might think based on the text of the help file. Having videos showing how a tool works might be a better solution at times than a blurb of text.

Please be aware that Adobe is "cheating" a bit with EPS files generated by Illustrator. The default is to have editability of EPS files on. This will save all Illustrator information in the EPS file in addition to the actual EPS part so that you can edit it again later in Illustrator. (Other software may not recognize the AI part in EPS files and will then ignore it) EPS files created by other programs do not do this and as such generate a "proper" EPS file as it is meant to be by the EPS file format definition. It could be possible that Rhino recognizes the Illustrator part included in the EPS file and may generate the same result as with a plain Illustrator file.

Will this be for VW Architect only or for all modules? I can see this functionality being useful for Landmark and Spotlight as well. Currently I see it listed as included in Architect and Designer, I will inquire and see what they think about making it available for all design series modules. Thanks for checking out. This feature is something that can be used for things other than architectural structures as well, even though it is quite similar. For those using Landmark for Civil Engineering it would be useful to have it as I run into structures quite often (e.g. racks, equipment platforms etc.) and having this functionality would make it easier to change those items if all structural members would update automatically and I can imagine those using Spotlight will run into some structural steel setups as well for attaching their lighting elements or setting up locations from time to time.

On windows the location is at: C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2016\Libraries\Defaults\Standards For Mac it is most likely similar, i.e. in the program folder of Vectorworks and then the subfolders as listed above. Putting your file in there as either a template or a vectorworks drawing should make it available as a standard from which you can import classes etc. as with the AIA and other standards files.

if the AI file is saved with PDF compatibility then renaming it to PDF might work to import it into VW. Some other software simply imports the PDF part of such files instead of the actual AI file. You could try this if someone sends you an AI file instead of a PDF file. That being said, bezier curve control like in Illustrator, CorelDRAW and the likes would be welcome in Vectorworks as well as it would make editing curves quite a bit easier for finetuning purposes.

Yes! Another thing to take off my wish list I agree these previews contain quite a few welcome improvements. Great work and compliments to the VW people.

This sounds really nice. Does the webview file need to be on a Nemetscheck server or is this a file that I can send to someone and they can view it through their browser? The reason I am asking is that clients may not want their (concept) designs/Intellectual Property to be hosted on 3rd party servers.

Yes, yes, ooohhh yes!!! :grin: Finally some really needed speed improvement for large complex files. I assume this will increase the requirements for graphic cards? e.g. the more GPU memory the better? (One thing I can take off my wish list, assuming it is what I think it is based on the videos)

Will this be for VW Architect only or for all modules? I can see this functionality being useful for Landmark and Spotlight as well.

Yes, for solid colours it would be useful as well to be able to print greyscale. For now (meant for Josh) a workaround is to create a gradient to mimic a solid colour. E.g. yellow is R255 G255 B0 and will print as white If one makes a gradient of R254 R254 B0 to R255 G255 B0 it will look yellow but it can be printed as greyscale. It will even show as greyscale when the viewport is set to BW. (see attached file) In the long run this is an unsustainable workaround though if a variety of solid colours is used as it will become increasingly unwieldy.

Jim, When using the BW option in the publish dialog as per your screen capture I still get B/W only and not grayscale. Screenshot of publish setting and the vwx document and published pdf are attached below.

One way to solve this would be an option to set the units in a dimension style, i.e. you can set a dimension style to use feet only and another dimension style to use inches only or feet and inches. Not sure if this has been wished before.

An explanation that I have been given is that the DTM triangulates the terrain and sometimes the triangles are of such a shape that Vectorworks has trouble connecting the line(s) across the points and then "jumps" to the next best point. I'd have to check previous DTM's to see if it only happens with concave areas or not. If it does maybe that could give the software engineers something to work with. When you look at the terrain itself it pretty much follows the original contour lines, but the regeneration of the contour lines by the DTM is going wrong. So the only option for now is to disable the showing of contours as per DTM and overlay your original contours for top and top/plan views by putting them in a separate layer above your DTM. This contour issue is something that should be fixed by Vectorworks as it may make people wonder how accurate the DTM actually is, especially when it comes to e.g. cut and fill calculations in areas where the contours are cut off.

The issue is with the DTM itself. When generating a DTM you can have it show the contours in 3D view. These contours are not the original ones used for creating the DTM but re-generated contours by the DTM. The latter contours have a tendency to get clipped/truncated/merged in ways you don't want. When you edit the DTM data then the original contours do show up. See attached examples, the first one shows the contours as generated by the DTM, the second one is with an overlay (in blue) of the original contours. You can see that the DTM contours are cut of or merging areas as being one elevation while that is actually not the case.

It would be nice if there could be an option for editing records through a dialog window after double-clicking on a symbol with attached records. If possible with a tab for each set of records if multiple records have been attached. Having to switch tabs in the object info palette either upon insertion of a symbol or afterwards can sometimes get tedious. Especially when multiple records are attached and one has to be careful not to accidentally attach/detach a record when switching records in the object info palette.