Graphic legend - version for non-data objects

[Amanda McDermott]

Hi, I'd like to be able to use a graphic legend for things like masterplans that don't use smart objects yet.. we either create our legends using rectangles assigned to the same class as an object, or use mini viewports onto objects. It feels like graphic legends could be expanded to have an option to use classes / symbol names to display blocks of colour / lines or 2D symbols, using either the class attributes or selecting a symbol, and display at a selected scale. - at the moment we're having to do this manually, and feels like it shouldn't be much of a leap for the graphic legend tool?

 

[Amanda McDermott]

@Guy Lubroth assuming you'd like to see this too, please can you 'upvote' in top left, I think they pay more attention to that than 'likes'?!

[Hans-Olav]

Hi Amanda

 

Have you tried the fill atribute set under object atributes?

I think it does what you are after

 

[Amanda McDermott]

1 hour ago, Hans-Olav said:

Have you tried the fill atribute set under object atributes?

I think it does what you are after

Ooh...thank you, I'll have a look into it!

[Amanda McDermott]

It may be possible, but I can't find out how to make it work... I'd like it just to return a rectangle using the fill, pen and line styles for the classes visible in the viewport...does anyone know how to do that?! @Marketa Hermova or @Katarina Ollikainen perhaps?

 

Thanks for the prompt anyway @Hans-Olav, it's made me have a play with the landscape area legend, which I do now have working quite nicely, and will be useful in some instances for us!

[Anthony Esau]

Not sure if it is remotely the same issue, but I have not had any luck getting a number of types of objects (3D polys, extrudes, or NURBS surfaces, 2d rectangles) to show up in graphic legends. For the source of my legend, the criteria is set to objects in a certain layer with a certain record attached. In the narrow scope of my testing, only symbols, custom plug-in objects, and tapered extrudes are included in the legend despite other types of objects meeting the criteria of being in the correct layer and having the record attached. 

 

Unchecking the "Hide Empty Cells" option of the graphic legend does include cells for all the objects (3D polys et al), but it doesn't show the visual representation of the objects that were previously excluded. Trying various settings in the "Define Legend Image" portion of the graphic legend options did not help.

 

@Amanda McDermott perhaps this is contributing to the challenges you are having. 

Edited December 13, 2023 by Anthony Esau

[Amanda McDermott]

Yes sounds similar - I did manage to get it showing a small version of the whole of each 2D polygon object, but that's not what I'm after, I want one square of colour/texture to represent each class.

[Tom W.]

15 hours ago, Anthony Esau said:

I have not had any luck getting a number of types of objects (3D polys, extrudes, or NURBS surfaces, 2d rectangles) to show up in graphic legends.

 

As far as I know you can't report on simple 2D/3D objects in Graphic Legends. You need to make them symbols in order to do so.

[Hans-Olav]

Her are a demo file with four 2d objects in 4 classes and a graphic legend reporting their class name

test.vwx

[line-weight]

46 minutes ago, Hans-Olav said:

Her are a demo file with four 2d objects in 4 classes and a graphic legend reporting their class name

test.vwx 152.58 kB · 3 downloads

 

 

*edit* I see this is actually what @Amanda McDermott is asking for.

 

.

 

When I first looked at graphic legends, I came up against the same limitation that others are describing above - if you use the "object" type and you want the legend to display images of the relevant objects, there are only certain types of objects that this works for.

 

For me, it meant it was no good for what I was trying to do at the time.

 

I think graphic legends would be more useful if they didn't have this limitation.

Edited December 14, 2023 by line-weight

[Amanda McDermott]

@Hans-Olav thank you so much for this, it will be really useful to us! I don't understand why this works and mine didn't, but I'm delighted with it.

 

FYI for others, these are the settings it uses:

[Tom W.]

1 minute ago, line-weight said:

 

But this is the "object attributes" type of legend not the "object" type.

 

It's reporting & illustrating the objects' fill attributes not the objects themselves.

 

When I first looked at graphic legends, I came up against the same limitation that others are describing above - if you use the "object" type and you want the legend to display images of the relevant objects, there are only certain types of objects that this works for.

 

For me, it meant it was no good for what I was trying to do at the time.

 

I think graphic legends would be more useful if they didn't have this limitation.

 

I was going to say the same thing. The GL is reporting the attributes of all the objects on that design layer so to produce what @Amanda McDermott wants you'd have to specify in the criteria the particular classes you're interested in, by which point you might as well just draw rectangles on the sheet layer + assign them to those classes then use a Data Tag to return the class name.

[Amanda McDermott]

(Next we need to be able to put class definitions and landscape areas in the same key... or is that already possible too and I just haven't worked out how?)

 

[Amanda McDermott]

You can define which cells you want visible in the object info palette, though...

[Hans-Olav]

We use graphic legends mostly for setting out window and door schedules or listing building elements by symbols. I discovered the possibility to report with fill attributes when we needed a plan diagram with different functions of uses.  

 

Criteria was space and attributes by class.

 

You should be able to report landscape area as criteria and attributes by style or class 

[Amanda McDermott]

Thanks - can you report on different things within the same legend, or do you have to have two legend objects?

[Hans-Olav]

I am not sure, still a quite new tool and we have recently started using it for schedules. But there are lots of options possible inside the tool. Graphic legends, data tags and dataviz are my favourite new tools of VW.

 

Maybe @Nikolay Zhelyazkov can explain what is the limitation of the graphic legend 

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by Hans-Olav

[Amanda McDermott]

If you find out it's possible do please let me know!

[Hans-Olav]

do you have a sample file and an explanation of what you want what to do? @Amanda McDermott

[Amanda McDermott]

I guess this legend I'm working on demonstrates it - it's mix-and-match at the moment, the left hand column is a graphic legend, but most of the other bits are viewports or lines drawn on the appropriate class. In other instances we might also want e.g. paving tone showing in the key where the object in the drawing is jsut a 2D polygon. It would be nice to be able to have landscape areas, symbols, and class attributes all displaying in the same graphic legend, so that it lines up nicely and updates without needing manual attention!

Edited December 14, 2023 by Amanda McDermott
add image

[line-weight]

24 minutes ago, Amanda McDermott said:

I guess this legend I'm working on demonstrates it - it's mix-and-match at the moment, the left hand column is a graphic legend, but most of the other bits are viewports or lines drawn on the appropriate class. In other instances we might also want e.g. paving tone showing in the key where the object in the drawing is jsut a 2D polygon. It would be nice to be able to have landscape areas, symbols, and class attributes all displaying in the same graphic legend, so that it lines up nicely and updates without needing manual attention!

 

This is a good example of a "real life" legend - and the sort of thing that ideally the graphic legend tool would be able to cope with.

 

It's quite common for a single legend to contain a mixture of attributes, objects, symbols, linetypes and so on.

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

18 hours ago, Hans-Olav said:

I am not sure, still a quite new tool and we have recently started using it for schedules. But there are lots of options possible inside the tool. Graphic legends, data tags and dataviz are my favourite new tools of VW.

 

Maybe @Nikolay Zhelyazkov can explain what is the limitation of the graphic legend 

 

- Hello all,

 

I am not that much familiar with Graphic Legends, but I do not think that it is possible to report on two different things. I will ask if there is someone more experienced with Graphic Legends that knows for sure.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

[TomWhiteLight]

I guess a simple way to do it would be if all of the different objects had the same record attached.

 

This could then be used as a criteria.

[line-weight]

Just now, TomWhiteLight said:

I guess a simple way to do it would be if all of the different objects had the same record attached.

 

This could then be used as a criteria.

 

I think part of the problem is that even if there's a way to satisfy a selection criteria, you can't then have a graphical representation of the object in the legend, unless it's one of a few certain types of object.

 

And this means that the "graphic legend" tool just becomes a "legend" tool.

[Nico_be]

Okay, for many years I've been using a plug-in.  I think its author had made it freely available a long time ago.
It does EXACTLY what a caption tool should do: you select the symbols and classes you want to caption and you can specify what you want in text.  And set the number of columns, spacing etc.

Because the new tool since VW2023 is not usable by me.
There's no point in entering the class name as it is, I want to be able to enter the text I want. I still use this old plugin as long as it's compatible with new versions, it's much simpler.

I'm attaching it here, and you need to put the files and folders in the "PLUGIN" directory and add it to the configuration.
It had been developed in Belgium, I hope it will work for other versions, let me know.

 

dieterdworks-vw-dlegend-1fb9b3fefaa7.zip

[Amanda McDermott]

11 hours ago, Nico_be said:

Okay, for many years I've been using a plug-in.  I think its author had made it freely available a long time ago.
It does EXACTLY what a caption tool should do: you select the symbols and classes you want to caption and you can specify what you want in text.  And set the number of columns, spacing etc.

Because the new tool since VW2023 is not usable by me.
There's no point in entering the class name as it is, I want to be able to enter the text I want. I still use this old plugin as long as it's compatible with new versions, it's much simpler.

I'm attaching it here, and you need to put the files and folders in the "PLUGIN" directory and add it to the configuration.
It had been developed in Belgium, I hope it will work for other versions, let me know.

Thanks for sharing! I'll have a go and let you know. Sounds good - I agree that editable text would be ideal, it's been a faff trying to name landscape areas as I want them to appear in the legend rather than how I might rather they were named in the resource manager.