Art V

+1 Additionally it would be nice if the data panel would show attached records first and non-attached records after that.

+1 Not sure if it will work for all trees at the same time, but it should be possible for each tree type symbol (e.g. if you have 200 of tree type 1 then it should be possible to edit the shoulder line for all of them together)

++1 for this one. I often have arcs with a radii of hundreds of meters and an easier way of resizing them with fixed end points would be useful.

+1 Though I also would like to be able to specify the corner of the bounding box as resize point instead of just the center in case of proportionally locked H/W dimensions.

+1 on all of these. Items 4 and 6 have already been wished for, and the other ones above would be quite useful for me too.

I'm not sure if your copy of Vectorworks is loading excruciatingly slow or just the "regular not really fast but not really slow either". It is loading notably faster than AutoCAD (my "tolerance benchmark" for application loading until ready to start for use) so I'm not too concerned about the loading time. Boot/loading time is often a once or few times a day. That being said, what I would like much much more than faster booting/loading is faster operational speed (without crashing of course) on large documents. Vectorworks slows down much more than most other CAD software I am using when the file size and content size increases and that has a much bigger impact on productivity than boot/load time.

Is there a way to control the number of subdivisions? For example, I'd like to have a cube with 4 or 9 subdivisions on each surface instead of the 64 subdivisions per surface it has now. I do realize that Vectorworks is not a dedicated subdivision modelling program, but it really could use a bit more control of the number of subdivisions. In the example of 4 or 9 subdivisions per surface it would be nice if I could add additional subdivisions to an individual subdivision to allow finer adjustments in that specific part, as well as more overall control over how subdivisions respond to changes in some area.

I regularly have - and want to keep - many unused RW textures in my files: Various texture options for wood cabinets, flooring, roofing, etc. that I may have used at one point in the design and may need to go back to if the client changes their mind. Wouldn't it be more convenient to keep those in a library document alongside your drawings? It would be a bit more work to re-import them when you need them but if you have quite a few of these maybe to be used again in a possibly far future from now I'd personally rather have them in a separate file to keep the working file size down.

I've set Vectorworks not to save any renders by default, would this automatically purge these rendering generated things or would I still have to manually purge them? Ideally non-used renderworks objects/stuff should automatically be purged upon closing a document.

This would make a lot of sense, especially if other scripting related tools would be included in that palette as well.

A hundred time 0,4s makes for 2/3rds of a minute, so the (psychological) impact over a whole day should not be underestimated.

When using the other CAD the command line is still my preferred input method so I agree, but there is a limit to the number of keyboard shortcuts you can have and memorize. Unless there would be the option to have separate sets of keyboard shortcuts for e.g. 2D and 3D so that we can use the same shortcut twice for different functionality. Though it would put some more strain on the brain.

It's like an automated audit? This begs the question how it determines to become active. Do you happen to know and can you give some insight what triggers this (if you are allowed to share that information)? Maybe Vectorworks could have an audit tool in the future that can be activated by the user to inspect an open drawing for problem/damaged objects?

This is why being able to decide on "damaged" objects to be imported into a new blank file or not is so useful. Of course it is no guarantee but it may help. 3,3 MB of dark matter is quite a bit. I'm curious what this could be, but I suspect it is damaged data that the program cannot access/handle and therefore not purge either and simply "ignores" it during a purge. The downside is that it can raise it's ugly face once a tool tries to access this dark matter because it notices its existence in the file. I've had something similar with AutoCAD Map many years ago where it would crash on opening an AutoCAD Civil file. It later appeared to be some custom data info that it could not interpret but it would not ignore it either. AutoCAD LT simply ignored this data because it was so "dumb" couldn't detect it at all so that is how we could open this file. Maybe we need a "dumb" version of Vectorworks too.

++1

This would be really nice, though I'd like to have the option for it to be always on too, plus some additional intelligence aka design intent recognition so that it will show some logical options in certain situation when the selection tool is active and not just for showing options of an active tool. E.g. when the selection cursor is on a solid surface it shows the options for push/pull, fillet, set working plane etc.

Personally I don't mind mentioning other software on a software vendors forum to create some awareness of alternatives to other competitors (e.g. B-cad vs A-cad) if it offers required functionality/compatibility that in this case Vectorworks simply does not offer at the moment. Vectorworks has enough advantages on quite a few levels that I'm not going to abandon it, unless it starts making a big mess of itself. That being said, I agree with you about looking at Modo, Rhino and Bricscad to see how their user interfaces and tools work. For example, in Bricscad (and probably Modo and Rhino) if I create a solid and want to put another solid on one of its surfaces and then extrude it into the first solid it creates an opening in the first solid. Automatically. With Vectorworks this would require some extra steps (at least in Landmark, maybe the Designer version is better in this area). I'd like Vectorworks to do the same "trick". B-cad is probably one of the programs that Vectorworks should keep an eye on, as unlike Modo/Rhino it is a dwg-based CAD program and if Vectorworks wants to increase its userbase to 3 million then it needs to compete with AutoCAD and its "alternatives" and make sure it can be a viable alternative. It is just too bad that AutoCAD has such a brand recognition that people buy it just because it is AutoCAD (apart from the much larger user base). Regarding the Quad Cursor, it is a matter of getting used to and also a matter of personal preferences. But I agree the little pause is can be quite annoying if you want to work quickly, though it is still faster than having to go to the menu or tool palette, otoh its "slowness" prevents the palette to expand every time you move the mouse quickly over it.

:grin: "B-thing" just released V16 for their Windows version, the Mac version will be a bit later so you'll have to try V15 for now but you may want to try it again with V16 at a later time. If you don't need 100% absolute guaranteed file compatibility with AutoCAD then Bricscad is probably your best option on the Mac for a dwg based program given that AutoCAD on the Mac still has less functionality than its Windows counterpart (I still remember the days it was the other way around some 20+ years ago). Ares Commander/Draftsight is too limited in the 3D area compared to Bricscad. But that is just my opinion.

^^+1 A pop-up might be better on a case by case situation, though having the choice of a pop-up or default approach could be a VW preference.

I can't tell for sure if it has any relevance, but when auditing the drawing it audited 123 objects but found no errors. When auditing an empty drawing it finds 108 objects. In both cases purge said there are no objects to be purged. Considering that there is only one object in your drawing, it does not explain where the remaining 14 objects are coming from. In another dwg based program the difference is 124 for your drawing vs 117 for an empty drawing, but no errors either. One thing, the top left corner is at 0,0,0 is this correct? If not then this may be something to look at for support.

This may or may not work, as it depends on how the drawing is set up. Some standards specify that items should be put on layers based on their lineweight and linetype regardless of their function. In Vectorworks we tend to put items in classes based on their function and not necessarily their appearance (lineweight and linetype). Class and Layer mapping may not going to be of much use in such cases. It comes with the "deficiency" of AutoCAD and the likes having only a single layer type system.

Definitely number 1, 90% of the cases. Often project standards specify that in the final deliverable any non-used layer needs to be purged, sometimes with exception of the not-yet-used discipline specific layers. Ditto for blocks. This does not solve the problem if you get the drawing at a stage when it is not a final deliverable.

Thanks for this bit of information, didn't know it even existed. I'm using Autodesk DWG Trueview for file version conversion but that is currently windows only. I'll book mark the link for those not on Windows.

Does the viewer you are using support the dwg version you are exporting to? This is the most common reason for viewers not being able to open a dwg file. That being said, it could be that the Teigha converter in VW2016 is newer than the one used by the viewer and if this converter is a shared resource then it is possible that the viewer cannot use the converter as it is too new. (The Teigha libraries have recently been updated) You could try using the AutoCAD 360 app to see if that can read the dwg export. Can you open it in Draftsight (or Bricscad/Ares Commander demo)?

Text styles? The text size will be kept until the size is changed for a tool, which may cause different tools to use different text sizes. The only way to set a default size for tools for a document that at that time do not use text styles that I am aware of is to set the text size before using a tool, then this text size should be used by all. Though I have not really tested this on all tools that use text, so I could be wrong.