Where can a Class hide?

[Pat Stanford]

I have a class (or maybe more than one) that are hiding inside symbols and I can't find them.

 

I have some 2D symbols that started life in a DWG file. When imported into VW they came in with a class.

 

I have rebuilt these symbols, but I still have a few that when imported bring that class along.

 

I edit the symbol, check all 12 objects. None of them are in the class.  The symbol itself is not in the class.  The Symbol Options are to insert in the Active Class.

 

A worksheet showing all objects on the design layer and InSymbol and InObject does not show anything with the class.

 

If I Purge with an instance of the symbol in the drawing the Class does not purge.  If I remove the instance (so it is only a Resource) and purge I remove both the symbol and the class.

 

Any ideas on where this class is hiding?  I would really like to not have to rebuild all of the symbols from scratch.

[Jeff Prince]

perhaps you should post one of these misbehaving symbols...

[Boh]

Someone else had a similar issue on the forum some time back and the errant class was actually nested inside a polygon inside a symbol. Carefully decomposing all the geometry in a symbol found it. When the polygon, which was on a different class, was decomposed, one of the resulting lines was on the class he wanted to get rid of. 

 

I found the other post here dating to May 2021. Some others suggested some possible causes too.

 

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by Boh

[Pat Stanford]

Thanks for the suggestion @Boh.  I tried decompose trick and it does not work on these symbols.

 

@jeff prince I was hoping to not have to make the demo file, but here it is.

 

I think this might have something to do with the text in the symbols but I can't find it.  This is a VW2023 file.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Unfindable Class.vwx

[Tom W.]

Do you need to know why that class is there or can you just delete it?

[markdd]

Could it be nested inside an attribute such as  a tile, line type or even an imported hatch? 

 

EDIT: I just deleted the RAHM3 class and "assigned the objects to None". I have imported the two symbols into a completely clean file and it has gone. Now I think I may be missing something!
 

 

Deleted class.vwx

Edited May 10, 2023 by markdd

[jeff.kisko]

I did the same thing - delete the class and reassign everything to none (to try).   Symbols copy into new document without issue.   

I was curious, so went in to edit the 2D symbol and found that H-RAHM3 on a 3D locus.   Not sure, but that may be the lingering piece and definitely hard to see!

[Pat Stanford]

Thank you all.  

 

I am stubborn and want to know WHY I could not find object with that class.

 

I was hesitant to just delete as that could leave whatever object and I didn't want to have to come back and fight that issue later.

 

 

[Jeff Prince]

That H-RAHM3 class is the tricky one.

It is somehow a part of the symbol named "Filter Housing, Bag" but does not appear to have any entities associated with it.  @jeff.kisko I did not find that 3D locus you mention in the Filter Housing, Bag symbol.  Where the heck did you find it?

 

@Pat Stanford do you have the original .dwg of this symbol.  I wonder if it is an empty Block Attribute or Text string in .dwg Block Definition that carried forward into Vectorworks.  When I broke the vectorworks symbol apart, the H-RAHM3 class was immediately available to purge, so it seems like it is something that would have been created during the definition of the Block in AutoCAD.

 

I remember that being the cause of a similar problem I was having some time ago.

Edited May 10, 2023 by jeff prince

[Pat Stanford]

Thank you all for your input.  Nice to know it wasn't something simple I was just missing.

 

Based on a deep dive, it appears that inside a symbol definition there is a "Group" that stores the objects that should be displayed in Top/Plan view. In these symbols, that group has gotten the H-RAHM3 class assigned.

 

So deleting the RAHM3 class and assigning those objects to None really is the best solution and SHOULD not have any unexpected impacts on anything.

 

I appreciate all the help.

[Tom W.]

Does deleting the class AND the objects have any impact? I tried both ways + couldn't see any difference.

[Pat Stanford]

Delete the Symbol Def and then you can Purge and remove the Class.

 

Delete the Class and assign the objects to None and they need appear like any other symbol definition.

 

No idea how they got that class assigned to the 2D group. Something to do with how they were created in AutoCAD.

[zoomer]

48 minutes ago, Pat Stanford said:

No idea how they got that class assigned to the 2D group.

 

I assume for visibility reasons (?)

 

Like we use our Container Classes vs Material Classes.

 

 

Groups in Autocad (?)

AFAIK their Groups are just Selection Sets.

Could have been one of these annoying "Anonymous Blocks"

But usually users can't/should not create these.

(You can get them by workarounds via cut and special re-pasting

or such though)

Nevertheless I am confronted quite often with these non editable

"Anonymous Blocks" from exported DWGs into Bricscad.

(You can basically EXPLODE them only)

 

So maybe the author of the DWG also just got it from importing

strange sources (?)

 

[MullinRJ]

@Pat Stanford, this is hypothetical, but if you had the equivalent of the following occur in the import process you would have a 'BoB' class created with no object(s) associated with it.

 

NameClass('BoB');

NameClass('Boundary');
Rect(0, 11, 15, 0);

NameClass('None');   { return to default class }
 

 

Perhaps it comes about like this:

 

NameClass('BoB');

{ object is omitted from export, but not before its class is defined }

NameClass('Boundary');
Rect(0, 11, 15, 0);

NameClass('None');   { return to default class }

 

Raymond

[MullinRJ]

I take the previous post back. If that were the case, it would purge. So it is attached to something. Probably a resource and not an object.

 

Raymond

[jeff.kisko]

On 5/10/2023 at 12:12 PM, jeff prince said:

That H-RAHM3 class is the tricky one.

It is somehow a part of the symbol named "Filter Housing, Bag" but does not appear to have any entities associated with it.  @jeff.kisko I did not find that 3D locus you mention in the Filter Housing, Bag symbol.  Where the heck did you find it?

 

 

So I tried to duplicate my attempt.   Edit 2D symbol > delete all line/text/insert point/2D locus > exit symbol then I was left with a 3D locus.   Now, if I had None class selected, the locus appeared in that class, if I had the problematic class selected, it appeared within that class.   Maybe it was generated by removal all the 2D elements?  My thought was that there might be a duplicated line hidden below, so I was looking for that.

The first attempt to delete the class and reassign everything to none worked 1st try.

 

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by jeff.kisko

[Tom W.]

I think any symbol if you delete all its geometry, the symbol instance is replaced with a 3D Loci.