Why aren't my slab component offsets working?

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Trying out making a slab to represent a traditional brick foundation, where each course steps out in width as you go down. So I've made a slab, 3 components, each representing a brick course, each with an edge offset.

 

 

But this doesn't seem to work; none of the components are offset:

 

 

 

I see that I can do this manually, edge by edge, but if I'm going to do that I might as well just model directly from solids. And how am I supposed to know which edge I'm editing, if I'm editing edge 3 (for example)?

[Tom W.]

The selected edge should be highlighted in red.

[Tom W.]

If the Slab is auto-bounded to Walls the offsets will happen automatically

[Tom W.]

18 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

If the Slab is auto-bounded to Walls the offsets will happen automatically

 

Although this probably isn't going to work in your case...

[Tom W.]

Possibly easier doing as three Walls...

[line-weight]

44 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

The selected edge should be highlighted in red.

It's not though!

[line-weight]

43 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

If the Slab is auto-bounded to Walls the offsets will happen automatically

 

It's not auto-bounded to anything - all set as manual, and the offset values I entered in the field for manual offsets.

[Tom W.]

14 minutes ago, line-weight said:

 

It's not auto-bounded to anything - all set as manual, and the offset values I entered in the field for manual offsets.

 

Yes I know I was just answering your earlier question where you were saying how much work it was to set manually (then realised there was no way to autobound such a slab to walls anyway).

 

I have never not had the red highlighted edges when manually setting offsets. Have you clipped the Slab at all?

[line-weight]

6 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

I have never not had the red highlighted edges when manually setting offsets. Have you clipped the Slab at all?

 

Don't think so. Drawn in polygon mode. I may have used "reshape" on it since - not quite sure.

 

But without going into that "edge offsets" dialogue - shouldn't each component layer be offsetting itself as I've set up, or am I misunderstanding how it's supposed to work?

 

I've attached a file.

 

slaboffsets.vwx

[Tom W.]

37 minutes ago, line-weight said:

But without going into that "edge offsets" dialogue - shouldn't each component layer be offsetting itself as I've set up, or am I misunderstanding how it's supposed to work?

 

When I create a Slab using your settings it displays the manual offsets you've applied to it in the component settings:

 

 

These are offsets from the Slab boundary.

 

You can then override/edit these settings via 'Edge Offsets...' in the OIP:

 

 

See the red highlighted edge.

 

The 'Edge Reference' - i.e. 'Inner Face of Wall' etc - only applies to Auto-Bound Slabs where the Slab has a dynamic relationship with the Walls it was created with. So your offsets are all in relation to the Slab boundary.

 

This is a polygon converted into Slab with an edited version of your Slab:

 

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Ok... if I make my slab settings into a style and then apply that style to a newly created slab, I get the stepped arrangement as expected*

 

But if I then edit the style, changing the offset of one of the components, nothing changes.

 

If I convert the slab to an "unstyled" one and again edit the offsets, nothing changes.

[line-weight]

Attached is another file. It should look like this on opening:

 

 

Some steps if anyone wants to try replicating:

 

1) Convert that white square to a slab.

2) Apply the "stepped slab" (already in the file) style to it. I get this result:

 

 

Note that the top component is not offset by 110 as it should be.

 

3) Edit the "stepped slab" style, so that component 3 has an offset of 500 instead of 330.

 

When I do this, nothing changes. Nothing changes on the L-shaped slab either. This has had the "stepped slab" applied to it all along, but takes on no offsets at all.

 

 

 

 

 

slaboffsets2.vwx

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And here are the edges failing to highlight in red when I try the manual over-ride process:

 

 

 

[Tom W.]

I get the same thing as you if I create one Slab first then change the style to 'stepped slab' afterwards. It's as if the bottom two components adhere to the style offsets but the top one follows the boundary.

 

I do get the red highlighted edges when I go into Edge Offsets though so not sure why you aren't.

 

If however I have the 'stepped slab' style selected then use 'Create Objects From Shapes' direct from the polygon all the offsets are created correctly:

 

  

 

[line-weight]

12 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

If however I have the 'stepped slab' style selected then use 'Create Objects From Shapes' direct from the polygon all the offsets are created correctly:

 

Didn't initially understand what you meant by this but then realised you mean selected within the slab tool.

 

I get the same result. However, edits to the style's offset settings still aren't updated to the object.

[Tom W.]

12 minutes ago, line-weight said:

However, edits to the style's offset settings still aren't updated to the object.

 

Yes I meant to comment when you said this earlier: I get the same. I hadn't realised this was the behaviour because I must have never tried to edit offsets via the style after the fact before. Seems strange that this is the case... I have no idea if it was the same thing in previous versions. Perhaps @Matt Panzer can shed some light on the matter: is it expected behaviour that edits made to the component Edge Offset settings for a Slab style do NOT carry through to Slab instances using that style, they only affect subsequently created Slabs?

 

 

So basically you could place ten separate styled Slab objects in a file, all using edge offsets determined by the style, but were you to want to edit one of those offsets your only course of action would be to go round each Slab one by one editing the values in the Edge Offsets dialog in the OIP?

[line-weight]

I had a quick look in VW2021 and it seems that the same (or nearly the same) happens there.

 

If it's a bug it's strange it's not been noticed before, or is this an indication of how few people actually use these component offsets within slabs?

[Tom W.]

I use the offsets in several of my slabs but either manually from the outset because there might be different offsets on different edges or I've just set it by style + never sought to change it afterwards. Hopefully @Matt Panzer will explain why it's the way it is.

[E|FA]

Would an alternate method be a wall with 3 components (inner/core/outer) with different top offsets for the inner/outer components?  Would the end fail?

 

I use two stacked walls for concrete footing + foundation.  It requires editing both if changes are made.  I usually don this by drawing the foundation wall, and then duplicating and change it to my preset footing wall style.  Works great for level sites, more complicated (but so is everything) on a sloped site. 

[Matt Panzer]

30 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

I use the offsets in several of my slabs but either manually from the outset because there might be different offsets on different edges or I've just set it by style + never sought to change it afterwards. Hopefully @Matt Panzer will explain why it's the way it is.

 

As I understand it, it is currently by design.  I believe it's designed that way so that editing the style does not force the offsets to instances that may've been changed to meet specific conditions.  That said, I do think we could look into something better.  I'm thinking of how the wall component heights work for styled walls where you have options to replace all component heights, replace only the heights that have not been changed from the style, or don't replace any.  I recommend posting what you'd like to see in the wishlist forum so other can chime in and vote it up.

[Tom W.]

2 minutes ago, Matt Panzer said:

I'm thinking of how the wall component heights work for styled walls where you have options to replace all component heights, replace only the heights that have not been changed from the style, or don't replace any.

 

Thanks yes I was looking for a setting in the Slab Replacement dialog to control this but it wasn't there. I would probably vote for this if someone else wished for it as the more controls the better IMO but won't be posting the wish myself as it's never been an issue for me in fact I didn't know it was a thing until now 🙂

[line-weight]

47 minutes ago, Matt Panzer said:

 

As I understand it, it is currently by design.  I believe it's designed that way so that editing the style does not force the offsets to instances that may've been changed to meet specific conditions. 

That would make sense for edge offsets that have been manually over-ridden using the dedicated dialogue. But not for offsets that are specifically set "per style". This is another example of abusing concepts that users expect to be consistent and predictable. If I set something to be by style, then it should be by style. And it should behave like any other thing that is set by style: edit the style and all the instances change. This is the whole point of styles.

[Matt Panzer]

5 minutes ago, line-weight said:

That would make sense for edge offsets that have been manually over-ridden using the dedicated dialogue. But not for offsets that are specifically set "per style". This is another example of abusing concepts that users expect to be consistent and predictable. If I set something to be by style, then it should be by style. And it should behave like any other thing that is set by style: edit the style and all the instances change. This is the whole point of styles.

 

There is a very distinct difference between Wall, Slab, and Roof Styles and the PIO Style system.  For Walls, Slabs, and Roofs, there are no "by instance" or "by style" settings users can choose.  Some things (e.g: component structure) that are tied to the style (By Style) but many act is By Instance and settings need to be propagated to instances via replacement dialogs.  The reason many settings act as By Instance is because of the varying conditions these objects may be placed in.  That system was in place long before PIO Styles were introduced.  PIO Styles, would've been overwhelming if we based it on the same style model as Walls, Slabs, and Roofs because of the large number of parameters some PIO have.  So, currently, users cannot set any settings of Wall, Slab, and Roof Styles to be By Style or By Instance.  That's not to say they should always be that way but I'm not too sure those objects should use the same model as PIO Styles.

[line-weight]

2 hours ago, Matt Panzer said:

 

There is a very distinct difference between Wall, Slab, and Roof Styles and the PIO Style system.  For Walls, Slabs, and Roofs, there are no "by instance" or "by style" settings users can choose.  Some things (e.g: component structure) that are tied to the style (By Style) but many act is By Instance and settings need to be propagated to instances via replacement dialogs.  The reason many settings act as By Instance is because of the varying conditions these objects may be placed in.  That system was in place long before PIO Styles were introduced.  PIO Styles, would've been overwhelming if we based it on the same style model as Walls, Slabs, and Roofs because of the large number of parameters some PIO have.  So, currently, users cannot set any settings of Wall, Slab, and Roof Styles to be By Style or By Instance.  That's not to say they should always be that way but I'm not too sure those objects should use the same model as PIO Styles.

 

I agree the implementation is different, but the concept is the same (or at least, I think it should be).

 

When I edit a wall style, I don't get a panel of settings each of which I can toggle between "by style" and "by instance".

 

Instead I get a panel of settings all of which apply style-wide, and I think it's reasonably clear that they do. I don't really get to choose whether certain things are per instance or per style, but generally I'm pretty certain, when I adjust something, whether it's just going to apply to that instance, or whether I'm adjusting the style itself. And if I adjust the style I expect that change to propagate to all instances.

 

What appears to be the approach with slab styles muddies the waters, because I edit the style but am not told that this is not going to propagate to already existing instances. I've been trained to expect a certain behaviour, and now something different happens.

 

To quote the Vectorworks documentation (my bold):

 

Quote

Symbol definitions and object styles define all or some parts of an object, so the object’s geometry/parameters are the same for all instances that use that definition/style.

 

Quote

Some, but not all, object types do allow the creation and use of styles that set the parameters for instances.

 

In my view we are trained to expect that if we change something in a style, it changes in all instances of that style. That applies regardless of whether we're dealing with a PIO or things like Walls.

 

I don't think it's good to have exceptions where a change in style only affects instances subsequently created in that style.

 

Where that's the intended behaviour there should be a different mechanism to allow it.

 

 

[Tom W.]

8 hours ago, line-weight said:

When I edit a wall style, I don't get a panel of settings each of which I can toggle between "by style" and "by instance".

 

Instead I get a panel of settings all of which apply style-wide, and I think it's reasonably clear that they do. I don't really get to choose whether certain things are per instance or per style, but generally I'm pretty certain, when I adjust something, whether it's just going to apply to that instance, or whether I'm adjusting the style itself. And if I adjust the style I expect that change to propagate to all instances.

 

Yes but as @Matt Panzer points out, the adjustment is applied via the 'Wall Replacement' dialog where you have the option of excluding many of the changes from being applied to instances of the Wall. Ultimately, edits made to the style only affect subsequent instances of that style, whether they are newly created Walls or you are replacing existing Wall instances. It is not the same as Doors or Windows for example where changes to the style are immediately sent across to all instances (where the settings are controlled by style). With Slabs, the difference to Walls is that when you replace a style you don't have an option to transfer over edge offsets. I agree with you that although it's not something I've ever needed it would be no bad thing if this were included so you should post a wish for it.

[line-weight]

 

 

2 hours ago, Tom W. said:

Ultimately, edits made to the style only affect subsequent instances of that style, whether they are newly created Walls or you are replacing existing Wall instances.

 

I very frequently edit wall styles as a way of making an update to many walls that already exist in a drawing. From my point of view, an edit to a wall style almost always has the purpose of making changes to a bunch of already existing walls. If I want to make some new walls with slightly different parameters, I make a new wall style.

 

The same applies to slabs and roof faces. At an early stage of a drawing I might have basic wall, slab or roof face style that just estimates an overall thickness. Then later, I'll add detail to those styles by adding specific components representing specific materials and so on.

 

The "wall replacement" dialogue is part of the mechanism that allows me to choose what is or isn't going to be propagated to existing wall instances. That's fine, because I know what's happening and am alerted to the things where this is a choice.

 

There's also a "slab replacement dialogue"

 

 

This is where I choose what's going to happen to existing instances. I think if certain style parameters (edge offsets) aren't shown here, it's reasonable to assume that they behave like any other styled parameter - they will be applied to existing instances.

 

It's also what the documentation leads me to expect:

 

https://app-help.vectorworks.net/2023/eng/VW2023_Guide/Floors_slabs/Editing_slab_styles.htm#h

 

Quote

If slabs with that style already exist in the drawing, the Slab Replacement dialog box opens.

The slab style to apply cannot be selected (the edited style is applied).

Changes apply to any existing slabs in the drawing with the edited slab style, and will be used for any subsequent slabs created with that slab style.

 

But of course that's not what happens, hence this thread. I'll do a wishlist item though.