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2D View Rotation


RichieHatch

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I would love to hear some sort of NNA response to this issue. Either "Its coming" or "Its on the wish list" or "Sorry, its technically too difficult to implement" or something. This question of rotating the 2d Plan View comes up every couple of months and we usually hear some "official" work-around, but not an answer as to whether we can someday expect this rather basic functionality to be implemented.

-h

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Holy cow.... I cant believe its nearly 3 years since i posted this..... Please NNA can we have some type of 2D view rotation. Either that or i leave the company I am working for and go work for one who doesnt design plans with funny angles and pitched roofs...! [smile] Grouping just doesnt work as grouping plans that are across multiple layers ends up with all the contents being dumped into the active layer (at least in VW 10.5 it does). We are getting VW 11.5 next week. Does it work in that....?

[ 04-15-2005, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: RichieHatch ]

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quote:

Originally posted by RichieHatch:

... grouping plans that are across multiple layers ends up with all the contents being dumped into the active layer ...

It sounds like you're using layers where you should be using classes. If you'd use classes instead you wouldn't have that problem.

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I understand the additional power classes provides, allowing for a group rotate, but I would really like to be able to work in an orthoginal fashion without having to change the position of my work in the file. Rotating things like that can create a whole string of complications with data and reference files, etc. The offset tool can get you by, but not as well as a view shift. One previous thread touched on complications with rotate view and the difference between the way VW handles 2d and 3d objects. I can understand if there are serious challenges with the core of the software in providing this functionality. However, if it could be accomplished with a working plane command (and or) menu for 2d, it would be wonderful. Improved referencing capabilities still tops my wish list of most desired capabilities though.

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My desire for drawing rotation is more for 2d issues. I don't want to go through the trouble of rotating a series of layers to temporarily work in a certain orientation and then have to remember to rotate the drawing (typically a plan) back to its original position. This is because I use reference files and layer links. I don't want to have my source files (plan) out of position when I go into my elevation files and find all my reference files and layer links rotated to reflect the change in plan data. I really would like to be able to rotate the view to speed up drafting input without having it affect the original XY positioning of the vector data. Autocad 2000 had a clunky keyboard command to change your UCS to accomplish this, and Microstation had a great little button down by your zoom buttons to do it with a couple clicks of the mouse.

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Eric, I *think* I understand what you are asking for, but just to be sure... Are you saying that you draw your sections and elevations by using rotated plan views as references, sort of like the way we used to do it when we drafted by hand? If so you would need at least four copies of your plan (including the one with the original orientation), each rotated so that the the wall at the bottom could be used to trace (or "pull") all the horizontal references for that particular elevation (or section) off of.

If that is true, then here are a couple comments (if not, sorry to waste so many words!):

1) I do it this way. Lately I've had a bunch of houses with weird angles, etc, and as it turns out I ended up needing as many as 8 or 12 rotated copies! One of my files is well over 100mb. Whoa!

2) We have "live elevations" already, however I still end up creating all my working drawing elevations in 2d, using the above method. There are two main reasons for this: I feel like I have total control over graphics that way, and I feel like I have better control over accuracy that way. If (or when) VW's solves these issues, then I think I might stop drawing elevations and use model-generated ones instead.

3) We do not have "live sections" yet. Nor do sections cut in VW's have the ability to retain graphic attributes for all the elements we typically need to show in section (plywood, sheetrock, insulation, 'detail wood cut', etc., etc.). For me, this makes drawing the section(s) in 2d fairly inevitable. Once I have succumbed to this necessity I cannot seem to help but continue along the path, ultimately tracing my elevation(s) from the section(s), and then pulling the rest of the elev's and sections off of the first ones, and on, and on. Again, I think if (or when) VW's is able to give us the ability to generate live sections with user defineable graphic atributes then all of the WD's will be able to be produced from a single model.

Until then, when ALL of the 2d can be directly linked to and generated from the 3d Model, we will be using workarounds. So that, in a somewhat large nutshell, is my WISHLIST ITEM #1. :-)

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Peter,

You summed it up in a nutshell. We take the time (a lot of time) to set up a bunch of copies of layer linked plans in the elevation file to use as references when we draft. I am with you regarding the lack of graphic control that models can give you for elevations in working drawings. The clunkiness of dealing with this as a workaround has been a primary reason I chime in so much about improving WGR. It is on the top of my list for improvements needed in VW. We are a small office and I am the main proponent of VW. My partner and our employee are new to the program and formerly used Autocad. They have really warmed up to VW, but their primary gripe is always lack of power with referencing. We are colloborting on a townhome project right now that requires us to do the project in Acad. It is a pain to draft and deal with Acad's issues. That said, Acad's xref capabilities are crucial to the efficient layout and drafting of the project. We would probably be able to cobble together some lengthy workarounds in VW if that program were an option, but it truly is easier for us to do the project in Acad (I hate to say that).

After all that, being able to rotate the drawing plane would greatly speed up layouts for plans, siteplans, etc. This would be a nicety, but definitely a few notches down on my list from the upgrade of WGR powers.

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"Rotating the drawing plane" comes up every now and then.

Lots of friendly, well meaning guys make their best to help, but...please, don't waste precious time defending the existing VW application and explain ways to get around the fence....help us tear it down! If so many people, including myself, see this as a problem and would benefit a lot from such an easily handled rotate function - help us get it - claim it, you too!

To start with, NNA could add an editable orthogonal dimension information in the info palette - showing the real hight and width of a rotaded rectangle. That would help.

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Bonus.... I agree with you completely... After coming from a package that could rotate the view (Microstation) it sure is tough to work at angles in Vectorworks. The point about orthogonal dimensioning never occoured to me as being related to this problem but you are right it sure would help...! Come on NNA, we have been asking for years...! I am on my knees...!

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I've said it before (maybe not in this thread, but many others just like it) and i'll say it again.

The work arround culture is bad for Vectorworks.

and...

We need 2d view rotation sooner rather than later.

We need it sooner than better modeling or "Live sections", after all for more interesting building we will always have to draw plan and section while modeling in our mind to gain enough understanding for live sections to be of any value.

Sections are a design method not just a presentation method.

(elevations are type of section)

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Also agree, this should be on the top of the priorty list. Our old 2d CAD programme we used 10 yrs ago had this functionality. It is a basic requirement for a CAD programme. The buildings we are designing virtually always have "odd" angles which makes drawing in VW a lot slower than it should be.

BG

VWA11.0.1 WinXP

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I too have been asking for rotatable workplanes both with my local distributor and on this section of the forum. As I have said elsewhere, the lack of a rotatable coordinate system is the single most important issue that needs to be addressed by the design team at Nemetschek.

Judging by the number of posts in this section and on the general discussion area (Live Sections) it appears that I am not alone.

There is a difference between needs and wants. THIS IS A NEED.

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My problem with the vectorbits workaround is that when it rotates, everything gets rotated around some point (which I can't seem to control). It also rotates all my viewports on the sheet layer and nothing is where it should be from the original. They aren't even grouped together.

This and the layer link are miserable solutions.

Also, if select more than one cropped viewport and rotate them they each rotate around seperate points . In otherwords, they ignore my instructions to rotate around a common point.

Whats up with that?

I agree that a world rotate command is necessary. It shouldn't matter that north is pointing another direction.

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I'm reckoning the reason why VW doesn't have this is something also to do with the separation between 2D and 3D data - after all it DOES have 3D working planes, just not 2D ones. Maybe the 2D data system just can't do it.

Lateral thinking...why don't they get rid of this separation...personally I hate it anyway. Can someone tell me if this separation is by design or just for historical reasons.

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