Line pen attributes custom and "by class"

[Cristiano Alves]

I'm trying to draw some lines with a higher thickness, a "line type" and a colour.

If you effect these changes by the "Attributes" box: all attributes are applied except the thickness of the line, what am I doing wrong?

Another issue is that I wanted to apply the "by class" attributes. I have already configured all the attributes in the class and defined them "by class", but they are not applied.

Do I have to change something in my definitions for this to work?

[markdd]

What is your design Layer Scale?

 

Pen thickness is not scaleable so if your design layer scale is something like 1:10 or lower, then you will barely discern any difference from one thickness to another unless you choose something over 0.5 mm thick. This is particularly so if you have Zoom Line thickness enabled.

[Cristiano Alves]

2 hours ago, markdd said:

What is your design Layer Scale?

 

Pen thickness is not scaleable so if your design layer scale is something like 1:10 or lower, then you will barely discern any difference from one thickness to another unless you choose something over 0.5 mm thick. This is particularly so if you have Zoom Line thickness enabled.

I learn that is better to design on 1:1 🫣😬
Probably I'm wrong.

You are right if I have a big "Zoom In" the thickness is different.
But the colour didn't change "by class" 😕

[Pat Stanford]

1:1 might be the recommendation in other programs, but in VW it is usually better to set the Layer Scale (effectively a preset zoom level) to the scale that most of your output will be at.  So if you are doing a house and the plans and elevations will be published at 1:50, then set your Design Layer scales to that. 

 

Using Layer Scales will get you the benefit of being closers to WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) regarding line weights and font sizes.

[Sam Jones]

Adding to what Pat said:  Layer units are in what are considered by the program as "world units".  However, when you specify line thickness and line endings (arrows and such) they are placed on the design layer in "page units".  I don't know what those are or how they do that, but it is supposed to make the those features more consistent from layer to layer.  You have experienced how that works out.  Regardless, this results in the "rule" Pat mentions above.  Make the scale of your design layers as close to your most often printed scale.  If you need to adjust those sizes in viewports that have an uncommon scale you can do that by scaling them in those viewports by pressing the "Advanced Properties" button at the bottom of the viewport's OIP and adjusting the values in the dialog below.

 

 

 

[Cristiano Alves]

On 12/27/2023 at 5:52 PM, Pat Stanford said:

1:1 might be the recommendation in other programs, but in VW it is usually better to set the Layer Scale (effectively a preset zoom level) to the scale that most of your output will be at.  So if you are doing a house and the plans and elevations will be published at 1:50, then set your Design Layer scales to that. 

 

Using Layer Scales will get you the benefit of being closers to WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) regarding line weights and font sizes.

 

I understand.

However, we do not always know the scale we will publish.
 

After reading this comment I started a project with a scale of 1:100. In fact, the thickness of the lines and their line type appear without problem.

I made my blueprint of the building to add my technical lighting project and wiring project.

 

However, I had to import some network information that was being made by someone else in Autocad.

But now, after importing the DWG, I can't join booth drawings because I made my drawings in 1:100 and the other engineer is doing it in Autocad 1:1000

 

Original:

 

I tried to change the scale of my drawing to 1:1000 and what happens is that some walls disappear.

 

 

I tried to use the scale tool (Modify->Scale Objects) so that the measurements were equal to a 1:1000 drawing, this was the result.

 

I can't understand these scale workflows, and from what I research there can still be different scales for different layers.

I always drew 1:1 and then applied the scales to my viewports.

What is my wrong point or lack of knowledge to deal with this paradigm of scales?
 

[line-weight]

Ok, the main thing to understand is that when you change a design layer "scale" in vectorworks you aren't really changing the scale of anything, it's just changing how it is presented to you - how it is "previewed" if you like. This is confusing and I've long argued that the terminology should be changed, to stop confusing people.

 

When you change the "scale" of a layer in VW nothing at all happens to the geometry itself. If you've decided that 1 drawing unit = 1mm then that doesn't change.

 

If you import something externally you just need to make sure that the drawing units match. So, if in your file 1 drawing unit = 1mm then you make sure that you import geometry such that in the imported geometry, 1mm = 1 vectorworks drawing unit. Depending on where it's coming from you might need to rescale it during the import process to achieve this, but once it's in VW you don't need to change it again.

 

You can set different "scales" for different design layers in VW. So if you have a 10mm x 10mm rectangle on one layer, with layer scale = 1:1 and you have a 10mm x 10mm rectangle on another layer with layer scale = 1:10, and you have both layers visible at the same time, one rectangle will appear 10x larger than the other. But it's not. Change both layers to the same scale and the two rectangles will be the same size.

 

 

 

Edited January 8 by line-weight

[Cristiano Alves]

10 hours ago, line-weight said:

Ok, the main thing to understand is that when you change a design layer "scale" in vectorworks you aren't really changing the scale of anything, it's just changing how it is presented to you - how it is "previewed" if you like. This is confusing and I've long argued that the terminology should be changed, to stop confusing people.

 

When you change the "scale" of a layer in VW nothing at all happens to the geometry itself. If you've decided that 1 drawing unit = 1mm then that doesn't change.

 

If you import something externally you just need to make sure that the drawing units match. So, if in your file 1 drawing unit = 1mm then you make sure that you import geometry such that in the imported geometry, 1mm = 1 vectorworks drawing unit. Depending on where it's coming from you might need to rescale it during the import process to achieve this, but once it's in VW you don't need to change it again.

 

You can set different "scales" for different design layers in VW. So if you have a 10mm x 10mm rectangle on one layer, with layer scale = 1:1 and you have a 10mm x 10mm rectangle on another layer with layer scale = 1:10, and you have both layers visible at the same time, one rectangle will appear 10x larger than the other. But it's not. Change both layers to the same scale and the two rectangles will be the same size.

 

I think I understood your indications.

But they still left me with some doubts. I have to pay attention and produce some examples where I can take print screens to better exemplify my doubts.

 

However, the first is: Not knowing on which scale I will present my drawings, how do I decide which scale I should draw?

 

Choosing a scale sounds to me like this kind of incompatibility problem. If there are more people making drawings for the same project, we may be incurring these scale incompatibilities.

And when I import (or copy) some drawings, they will be out of the scale I designed.

 

 

When you say that in the import I have to pay attention to the scale that the other person used, I understand that, but in the import menu, I can only choose the unit (millimetres or meters) which is a transformation of 1000 units.

 

 

The part that when I have Layers with different scales, I can never see their content superimposed even when I have the "Show/Snap/Modify Others" option enabled.

 

 

It's a little confusing and I know that drawing in 1:1 gives me other problems:

- The text is small;

- Dimensions are small;

- Line types do not appear;

- The thickness of the lines is not visible.
 

But it seems easier to understand everything else, draw in 1:1 and then make viewports with the necessary scale that will be necessary.

[Pat Stanford]

We are trying to explain that in Vectorworks, everything is always drawn at true scale.  The Layer Scale is just a preset "zoom".  If you are drawing a room that is 4m x 4m it does not matter if you are at 1:1 scale and zoomed way out to be able to see it, or if you are at 1:1000 scale and have to be zoomed way in, you still draw the object as 4m x 4m.

 

You don't have to have the scale you draw in exact to the scale you are going to output, just pick something typical and reasonably close.  Don't draw your molding details that are likely to be output at a 1:4 scale on a layer with a scale of 1:1000.  And don't draw your site plan that will likely be printed at 1:1000 on a layer with a Layer Scale of 1:1.  If you are not certain, make an educated guess.  If you draw it at 1:100 and need to output at 1:50 you can either change the layer scale later or you can use the Scale options in the Advanced properties of the viewport to scale text and line thicknesses by the relative difference between the scales.

 

When you are importing, ALWAYS import into a blank file and then either reference or copy/paste the object into your working file. Make sure that the imported object is actually the size it is supposed to be.  Importing into an active working file will bite you at some point. Changes in origin, classes, etc. will change and be very hard to adjust back.

 

If you are drawing houses, pick 1:50 or 1:100 as your scale and draw everything at that scale. In the end you will be happier than drawning everything at 1:1. You will be able to use much more reasonable line thicknesses and text sizes.

[line-weight]

Like @Pat Stanford says, you don't have to commit to any particular "scale". Let's call it "zoom preview" instead (I think it shoud be renamed to something like that).

 

You could start out with a "zoom preview" scale of 1:100 and at a later point change it to 1:50 or 1:10. And back again, as many times as you like - it won't have any effect* on the drawing geometry and it won't have any effect on what anything looks like in sheet layer viewports. You can just choose whatever's convenient for whatever you are working on at the time.

 

In fact, the more you draw in 3d, the less relevant it becomes. These days I draw almost entirely in 3d so I am hardly ever drawing a 2d line directly (except in viewport annotations). Therefore things like previewing line thickness is not really a concern. I actually tend to have all my design layers set at a 1:1 "zoom preview" but this is to do with navigation in 3d. I use a 3dconnexion device and it means I have finer control over the motion. This is a bit of an obscure requirement though. I do have an issue when I want to edit things in a design layer in top/plan view, because then hatches become very dense, for example.

 

 

 

*having said this, I'm not sure why you got the error message you posted above, about "parametric constraints" becoming invalid. You say it's when you changed the scale to 1:1000. Was that when you tried to change the scale/"zoom preview" of a single design layer?

[zoomer]

10 hours ago, Cristiano Alves said:

Not knowing on which scale I will present my drawings, how do I decide which scale I should draw?

 

In VW you always draw 1:1 according to your desired units.

 

(Design) Layer Scales are just a WYSIWYG mode that allows to

estimate your Text, Dimension and Line Type or Weight Scales.

 

And it has to do with View Navigation, like when switching from

Sheet Layers backt to Design Layers.

Therefore you should set Design Layers to your most used

Sheet Layer Viewports.

 

Really important gets the Scale for Viewports.

As this is the place where Scaling happens.

 

So if you do not yet know the scale of your DLs.

Set something reasonable according to project size. Like 1:100.

Once you come to a point where you think it would fit better on

your Plans in 1:50,

in Organization Palette just switch all DLs from 1:100 to 1:50

and you are good.

 

Beside that you may now check in DL WYSIWYG if your text sizes,

hatches and all that stuff still looks reasonable or maybe adapt it.