Fixture 2D Components - 3D vs Schematic Views

[spettitt]

I'm finding it frustrating to try and configure fixture symbols to work on upright pipes that need to look logical in both 3D, T/P and schematic views.

 

I understand (ish) the principle that lighting devices in schematic view are presented in their un-rotated state, meaning if I draw a boom on the floor left-right, hang some lights on it, stand it up and rotate it 90 to face downstage, the selected 2D component of the SV will be referenced to the orientation when the boom was on the floor (right?), which is also the 2D component names within the device symbol.

 

I seem to be able to achieve a logical display in either or TP or SV, but not both.

 

Example 1:

Symbol configured as such:

 Top/Plan: 

 

Draw a pipe on the floor in TP, set such that inputs face down. Use hanging angle to stand it up vertical. 

So far so good:

But TP view still shows the Top component of the fixture, which isn't logical.

What I actually want to see is this (contrived from another symbol):

Making a SV, the Top orientation reflects the unrotated state of the boom, fair enough:

But Front view shows the rear panel of the light with the input, which points the input upwards. It matches the Front component in the symbol.

Choosing Bottom view does show me the lens, but rotated for some reason:

If I rotate the SV fixture, I can't get the input in the right place.

 

Example 2:

I have now set the TP 2D component of the fixture to be how I want it to look in TP view, and rotated the 3D component so it hangs correctly. This would be a specific symbol for this fixture on Vertical Pipe, which would be OK if that's what we need to do.

 

Hang lights

Laid Down

Stood up

Top/Plan now as desired:

But SVs now all out-of-whack, this it Top.

 

What is the proper thing to do here to achieve the correct Top/Plan view with the rest of the rig, and then also have SVs make sense, please?

 

I just wish that each 'Lighting Device in Schematic View' object could have selectable 2D component (inherited by default, but changeable), rather than being forced to inherit from the rigging object to which it is inserted. I could then have my 'vertical rigged' JDC-1 symbol, and then just override the schematic view to what I need. The technology for this seems fairly straightforward - it can already generate hidden line renders of a named flat view of each fixture where that component in the symbol doesn't exist, it would just become selectable?

 

Even so, I need a way of making this work in the short term, so I would appreciate any help, and ideally the recommended workflow for this. Thanks.

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by spettitt

[spettitt]

Bonus prize: what should be done where lights on a boom are rigged in different directions please?

 

[markdd]

What view are you asking the SV to display?

You need to ask the SV  to display the component of the Symbol you want to see and not the view of it in 3D.
 

Have you seen this video I made - couple of years ago?

 

If you are still having problems come back.

[Kevin Allen]

Very well presented, but I disagree with you about bonus features and ANY workarounds. No one should have to think about how to get a schematic View, and to be clean, I my opinion, the SV should generally use the top/plan 2D component. Your valid point about the top view above noted. 

Maybe the concept of 2d components needs to be brought to lighting devices.

[markdd]

Hi Kevin

 

2d components is there for lighting devices, just about, but it doesn’t work with accessories yet. I filed a bug a while back about that so let’s hope there is a little more development soon.

 

there is so much that one would want to do with non-horizontal lighting that I actually think that Schematic Views need more customisable options rather than the rather cursory dialog that is offered when thay are made. 
 

I wish Vectorworks would reach out a little more on this topic as I suspect it wasn’t anticipated that their usefulness would be quite as broad as it has become.

[spettitt]

35 minutes ago, Kevin Allen said:

Very well presented, but I disagree with you about bonus features and ANY workarounds. No one should have to think about how to get a schematic View

You know what - I agree, I hate workarounds and the option for messing too much with the configuration of a schematic view could create other problems. Even so, the need to produce logical paperwork is unchanged, so I need to find something that works.

41 minutes ago, Kevin Allen said:

I my opinion, the SV should generally use the top/plan 2D component.

So, a schematic view would be a symbolic representation (somewhat like a hoist symbol in TP) rather than a true orientation of the device?

 

43 minutes ago, Kevin Allen said:

Maybe the concept of 2d components needs to be brought to lighting devices.

Unless I'm mistaken - this happens already. If I add 2D components to the standard orthogonal 2D views of a device, VWX seems to use these instead when a SV is set to the matching named view. The trouble seems to be the difference between the orientation of the lighting device symbol and the orientation of the rigging object - I want the 'Front' of the boom, which would require the 'Bottom' of the lighting device, but I get the 'Front' of the boom and the 'Front' of the lighting device...

[Kevin Allen]

8 minutes ago, markdd said:

2d components is there for lighting devices, just about, but it doesn’t work with accessories yet. I filed a bug a while back about that so let’s hope there is a little more development soon.

 

Mark, I think I saw your post and thought it quite a workaround. Accessories must be included. Of course, I think VWX defines things that aren't actually accessories as accessories. The 2D components need Loci. I need to be able to yoke back, out, or up. The 2D body needs to move with focus.

I think VWX has long thought SVs are 'done,' while the users have never been satisfied.

With all due respect to your ability to make them work. I always ask how can I explain this 'feature' to a new user. If I imagine the new user's eye rolling backwards in their head, there is a problem. With SVs, I see eyes rolling, no spinning, like in a bugs bunny cartoon.

[Kevin Allen]

11 minutes ago, spettitt said:

So, a schematic view would be a symbolic representation (somewhat like a hoist symbol in TP) rather than a true orientation of the device?

 

In my mind, the schematic view of a vertical boom pipe would show what we think of as the top/plan. In your example of some units facing 'front' and some facing 'back,' the schematic plan would show similarly, but with the forward or back orientation indicated. Much like the kind of 2D representation I've always created for booms.

[spettitt]

3 hours ago, markdd said:

Have you seen this video I made - couple of years ago?

 

If you are still having problems come back.

 

Thanks Mark; yes, I found the video helpful, it's where I learned to build the boom on the floor and use the hanging angle to stand it up, among lots of other things. But I couldn't derive from it enough to solve this query over fixture orientation. I'll have another watch to be sure.

 

3 hours ago, markdd said:

What view are you asking the SV to display?

You need to ask the SV  to display the component of the Symbol you want to see and not the view of it in 3D.

I've tried lots, to be honest. I can get certain SVs containing a given fixture orientated in a single direction to be useable, such as the 7th image in my OP, the Top view showing the rear of the fixtures, i.e. looking down at the boom on the floor, lenses facing down. But when asking for other orthogonal views, the meaning of front, left etc is now different from that set in the Symbol by the way the fixture has been rigged, and so they are out of whack.

 

For me, drawing a 'graphical/symbolic' schematic diagram of an assembly is fine if it's very clear to the technician on the shop floor that's what it is - but as soon as those views start to pull detail on yokes, lenses, input direction etc (and other such features of fixtures that aren't generic profiles), they need to be rendered correctly to match non-Schematic views or else they can serve to confuse as well as inform.

 

It seems like:

a) SVs could potentially do with more context awareness as to the orientation of a given device - especially devices on upright pipes where the fixture is oriented different to it's orientation in a symbol, and the rotation around that pipe.

b) For the moment, this application would probably be better not using SVs and just use a cropped/filtered viewport. On packed floor packages, the ability to drag away with witness lines is valuable and often necessary, though.

Edited December 28, 2022 by spettitt

[Jake DeGroot]

I came here today because I'm having almost the exact same issue. Trying to use Schematic views for the first time with vertical booms and having no luck. Thank you for documenting it so well! I was dreading having to do that myself.

 

Am I correctly understanding that you found no real solution and had to give up on Schematic Views? How are you using viewports to do this? Are you able to get label legend labels to show in the Viewport?

[spettitt]

No worries.

 

21 hours ago, Jake DeGroot said:

Am I correctly understanding that you found no real solution and had to give up on Schematic Views? How are you using viewports to do this? Are you able to get label legend labels to show in the Viewport?

 

I definitely haven't given up on SVs for other applications, but yes, I will use other ways of doing vertical booms/towers etc until the feature set of SVs is refined (if that happens, of course). For me, it comes down to:

- The SV has a selectable 2D component view, which displays that view of the boom (as if it was built horizontal, left>right) but also the same named 2D component of the devices included. So for selecting Left, you get left of the boom and left of each fixture - either a 2D component if present or the relevant hidden line trace. This works fine where devices are in default orientation - hung on truss, hung on boom arm etc. But as soon as a device is rotated, such as to clamp to a vertical pipe, things go out of whack.

- I could use SVs to show a 'symbolic' view of how lighting devices are located up/down the boom, showing their T/P component with a witness line to their mounting centre, but this is not really of that much use and can make things more confusing.

- I want the Top/Plan view in non-SV viewports to also look logical.

 

So now, I plan to do something like the following:

- Create 'Vertical' variants of each fixture, with the T/P component as I want to see in on the plan.

- On a 'Floor Package' sheet, show T/P of the stage, with label legends shown for anything that is a standalone floor fixture, not on a boom.

- Create section viewports of each section of booms, to put on a 'Booms' sheet. Still experimenting whether the section lines should ideally be generated (and be seen) in the DL or within the VP annotations of the Floor Package sheet.

 

- Booms sheet shows a perspective of the booms and then the section viewports with label legends. Make sure 'display planar objects' is on to see these.

 

To be honest, for simpler systems, the section viewports could be placed on the main Floor Package sheet layer if there is space, minimising people having to reference between sheets.

 

Next:

 

Trying to figure out how to easily display boom bases/tank traps. The one displayed above is just a 3D symbol I made and dragged in to position, which is too slow, really. Every time I've tried to make the tank trap and a lighting pipe in to a symbol to re-use, I can't really get it to work well when inserting, since the lighting pipe is buried in a symbol. I need to have more of a play with this.

 

Downsides:

- No ability to drag fixtures away with witness lines. I can still use this in other scenarios where I use a SV to break down a packed truss with fixtures on more than 2 chords, but not for booms/towers etc.

- Have to have different symbol variants for vertical truss towers and vertical pipe, with a 24mm offset, because there are fundamental inconsistencies in VWX between using the outer extent of a chord/pipe and it's geometrical centre. //Background: As I understand it, this comes from the fact that the lighting pipe tool (and most theatre devices in the library) use the geometric centre of a pipe (as would be logical), but connecting an object to a truss uses the outer bounding box size of the truss as defined in the cross section, meaning the insertion point of the light locates to the underside of the truss chord. Therefore, all of my lights are set up with the insertion point as the lower extent of the chord, but then it forces me to rotate around this point as well, so I can't rotate a fixture around a chord without additional move commands. I hope in the future VWX could intelligently recognise the logical geometric centre of a tube as the connection point - whether it's a truss chord, pipe, boom arm, whatever. IMO the cross section data should be used for background calculation only, and the Customise Truss Symbol Data dialogue should have values to input the location of the centre of each truss chord, which are then used to generate NURBS for connection, or something else that can be used in both TP and 3D.

 

IMO, for the future of SV, it would be ideal if (sorry for repeating myself):

- SVs are enhanced such that the 2D Component Selection box of the SV becomes the 'View' of the rigging system (top/left/front etc), and each device inherits this by default to maintain current functionality. But the user can then click on each fixture and pick a different 2D component view if appropriate to make an accurate representation.

- The rotation of the fixture clamp around the pipe is respected.

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by spettitt

[Jake DeGroot]

Thanks! I recently Zoomed with @markdd about this, as I believe you maybe did too. He is so generous with his time!

 

I share most of your goals and challenges, but landed on a slightly different solution. For my booms full of vertical striplights, I drew them on their side as shown in Mark's webinar. Then, when I flip the positions up with a 90° roll angle, the lights rotate naturally. And when I make a SV of the position, and select Top, it shows everything as I would hope.

3D: 

 

Schematic View (dropped on top of a 2D section drawing of scenery):

 

 

The big down-side of this is that in normal Top/Plan view, the position looks silly and is unusable. 

 

What I really want is for that Top/Plan to show me a "footprint" view of the lights, so I'd see their Right or Left 2D Component. But there is currently no way to do this. So what I'm doing instead is keeping the 3D geometry on a separate "Lights - Vertical" design layer which I keep invisible in most cases and only turn it on when I specifically need to work with these positions. Then, I make a Horizontal Section view on a design layer. I give it no crop and have it only show stuff from that "Lights - Vertical" design layer. This gives me one big full-stage viewport containing the proper 2D components (or hidden line renders) of my fixtures in the proper orientations.

I keep this viewport visible in both my normal design layer work and in my sheet layer viewports. It's working pretty well.

 

 

I have found one bug that design layer section viewports or not showing 2D fills. I wish the footprints were filled in gray, but they're not. Alas. Hopefully VW will fix this soon.

 

And I do wish this whole thing could be made so much easier and more intuitive if VW would adopt your suggested change where we could select a light in a Schematic View and manually change which 2D component or 2D view we want to see it in. In fact, I would even suggest taking this one step further and making it possible for any lighting device anywhere on my drawing, not just in a Schematic View! Give us a toggle in the OIP of a lighting device to let us select which 2D component we want spotlight to use for Top/Plan! Then, in my example, I could just change the Top/Plan component to Right and I would see my footprints the way I want to. Basically, we could come at it from either side and we could make the Top/Plan symbols of our lights show the geometry that makes sense based on the light being rotated in 3D.

 

 

[spettitt]

On 1/6/2023 at 10:37 PM, Jake DeGroot said:

And I do wish this whole thing could be made so much easier and more intuitive if VW would adopt your suggested change where we could select a light in a Schematic View and manually change which 2D component or 2D view we want to see it in. In fact, I would even suggest taking this one step further and making it possible for any lighting device anywhere on my drawing, not just in a Schematic View! Give us a toggle in the OIP of a lighting device to let us select which 2D component we want spotlight to use for Top/Plan! Then, in my example, I could just change the Top/Plan component to Right and I would see my footprints the way I want to. Basically, we could come at it from either side and we could make the Top/Plan symbols of our lights show the geometry that makes sense based on the light being rotated in 3D.

 

That's the one - toggled for SV and toggled for Top/Plan. Then for things like a JDC-1, I wouldn't have to have symbols of:

JDC-1 Hung, and then:

JDC-1 Vertical Boom

JDC-1 Vertical Truss

JDC-1 Outrig

Possibly another for clamping to a vertical of a Doughty Modular drop

JDC-1 Unclamped (ok, I'd still need this one)

 

I have the rest of our non-moving-light rental inventory to go...X4 Bars, JDC Lines, Sceptron, P6/Q8, a million other LED thingys...all with Top/Plan and 3D set up for different orientations, which would be nicer as one symbol with multiple 2D components configured.

 

I understand that the developers are aware of this thread, though, and are looking in to it, so thanks to those guys.

Edited January 8, 2023 by spettitt