Data Vis Frustration

[Chris J Clarke]

Hi all,

 

I'm finding the Data Vis feature very frustrating to get working correctly. I've attched an image of my screen, but here a quick rundown of the scenario. I have a Layer called "Rigging" and on this layer are two truss structure called "Mother Truss" and "Train Truss". They are both on the Layer "Rigging" but on Classes called "Mother Truss" and "Train Truss" respectively. 

 

I've set up a Data Vis with the Criteria you can see in the screen shot. It's working, in that it shows the truss pieces, but the filter I've set in the "Define Criteria" options window isn't being observed by the Data Vis. It's showing every bit of truss in the drawing despite me filtering down to just "Train Truss" in the Define Criteria options. I can't work out a way to get it to just show me the bits of truss on the class I filter it sown to. This is making the Data Viz feature difficult to use. I can't see the point of the Define Criteria options if VW is just going to ignore it and list everything.

Oh, at the bottom of the Define Criteria Window, it says 31 objects found. This is correct for the Class I've filtered for. So VW can see the right info, it's just not translating it to the Data Viz Feature properly.

 

I can get around it by attaching a Record to each bit of truss on each class. I have 2 records labelled "Train Truss" and "Mother Truss" in which I have a length entry. The problem is that I have to enter the lengths manually. This data already exists as part of the symbol, but I can't use it to create my Data Vis. 

 

I'm currently writing down what bits of truss are in each class, and then unticking what isn't right in each data vis list of truss. Again, annoying and time consuming. Also adding the chance of human error. Going against the point of automated processes like the Data Vis.

 

I'm not haviung a go at VW or anything, it's mostly great, but this is really frustrating me. Can anyone help me please and point me in ther right direction to make it work properly?

 

Someone I know who is very knowlegable with VW says it used to work in the way I want when it was introduced, but they've changed it to this since.

 

Thanks for your time everyone.

Edited January 19 by Chris J Clarke

[Andy Broomell]

The criteria for Data Vis is only to set which objects the Data Vis will re-color. It does not control which objects are visible in the drawing, as you're wanting it to. (That being said, I can see how this would be useful. And I don't remember it ever working this way in the past.)

 

I believe the only thing it can do in that regards is "Draw all other objects grayed" via the checkbox at the bottom of the dialog.

 

For now you may have to turn off Classes or Layers to hide other things in your drawing. Other folks might have better ideas.

[Chris J Clarke]

Hi Andy,

 

Thanks for responding. That won't stop all of the objects I don't want populating in the list of the Data Vis though, will it? I just want the objects I filter to, to appear in that list. So then I can just click Auto Colour and it's done. At the moment, I have to delete out what I don't want in the list, and then Auto Colour. That's probably not that bad on a project this small, but it won't have to be much bigger before that becomes too much to do, and most importantly, too innacurate.

Edited January 19 by Chris J Clarke

[Andy Broomell]

Indeed, if you're talking about what's shown in the Display Criteria part of the dialogue, it's not affected by the Object Criteria either.  (I think that's what you were referring to in the first place and I misinterpreted, though the response is essentially the same.)

 

The list of values in the Display Criteria is affected only by the three drop-downs in that section. It'll list everything applicable in the file, and it's sort of disconnected from the Object Criteria portion of the dialogue. I was once able to wrap my head around why it was done this way, though I can't seem to put it into eloquent words right now. Something about the Data Vis being flexible enough for any scenario and combination of Object vs Display criteria... and for the DV to continue working as objects are added to the drawing (since it's sort of a "live" thing).

 

I think it working this way is more applicable to scenarios where the Object Criteria is based on one thing and the Display criteria is based on a different thing (compared to your case where you're wanting the Object Criteria to be based on Class and the Display Criteria to also be based on class).

 

I think there's a valid improvement to be considered where they should add a checkbox that filters the list of values to only those applicable to the Object Criteria that have been set. But there may be a technical reason why this wouldn't work which the programmers have already thought through. I know this has been brought up on the forums before but I can't recall the details.

 

Edited January 19 by Andy Broomell

[Chris J Clarke]

Thanks Andy, I appreciate you taking the time to go over this. I agree with your last staement about the checkbox. I wouldn't know where to start in getting this through as a request that might get seen, or even engaged with on a personal level. Hopefully someone will see this and let me know if that's possible. It would save me a great deal of time if they could.

[Andy Broomell]

I want to say @Rick Berge is one of the relevant folks for Data Vis. Rick, can you help enlighten our understanding of the limitations and potential improvements here?

 

Similar to Chris's posts above, I've had students wonder why the list of values under Display Criteria doesn't correlate directly with the objects that meet the Object Criteria.

[TomWhiteLight]

I recently made a VE for this. 

[Chris J Clarke]

Hi Tom,

 

Sorry, what's a VE?

[TomWhiteLight]

Its an enhancement request, to make an improvement to the product.

[Chris J Clarke]

Ah ok, thanks. That's great news. Fingers crossed that they do it then. Cheers.

[Wood]

While we’re chatting, can autocolor choose from a specific pallet? The current autocolor makes the shades far too close to be discernible…

 

Or am I missing a setting? I know you can select the hue range, but I need granular not gradient. 

[TomWhiteLight]

Hi Wood,

Autocolour can choose from a manufacturer pallet for a start and end colour. If there is not much difference between the colours try choosing colours that are further apart on the colour spectrum.

Below are three screenshots notice the start and end colours and the different results.

 

[TomWhiteLight]

Because Pink is close to Red it goes through the spectrum of all of the other colours in between. Red and Green are too close together to be discernible.

[line-weight]

The inability to control visibility with datavis is its most glaring omission. There are lots of things I would use it for, but can't, because of this.

[Chris J Clarke]

8 minutes ago, line-weight said:

The inability to control visibility with datavis is its most glaring omission. There are lots of things I would use it for, but can't, because of this.

Tom said a few posts up that he's put in a request for an improvement to be made to the feature to allow us to do this. Hopefully it'll come soon.

[Tom W.]

27 minutes ago, line-weight said:

The inability to control visibility with datavis is its most glaring omission. There are lots of things I would use it for, but can't, because of this.

 

Setting attributes to None will make those objects invisible

[line-weight]

33 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

 

Setting attributes to None will make those objects invisible

 

It's a while since I was last looking at this, but I think there is some kind of problem using this workaround, in certain situations. At this moment I can't recall what it is.

[TomWhiteLight]

@line-weight Label Legends still show up?

There is an additional new feature in development that will resolve this workaround.

[line-weight]

5 minutes ago, TomWhiteLight said:

@line-weight Label Legends still show up?

There is an additional new feature in development that will resolve this workaround.

 

The problems I've had may or may not be buried in this thread:

 

https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/66229-controlling-visibility-using-data-visualisation/page/2/

 

 

[Tom W.]

6 minutes ago, line-weight said:

 

The problems I've had may or may not be buried in this thread:

 

https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/66229-controlling-visibility-using-data-visualisation/page/2/

 

 

 

You say:

 

However I've run into problems now I want to include text objects in the same system. This is because text takes its colour from "pen" colour - however it ignores the pen being set to "none". In other words I am unable to hide text by setting pen to "none".

 

But... it looks like I may be able to get around this by leaving "pen" solid, and setting to over-ride opacity to 0% instead ...

[TomWhiteLight]

Yes this should be resolved with a new feature. I can't go into details but it is mentioned on the Vectorworks Road map page.

[Rick Berge]

Hey @Chris J Clarke , @Andy Broomell said pretty much everything I would.

 

On 1/19/2024 at 1:14 PM, Andy Broomell said:

The criteria for Data Vis is only to set which objects the Data Vis will re-color. It does not control which objects are visible in the drawing [list of values], as you're wanting it to.

The bottom half of the dialog does in fact list everything it can find in the document that might be appropriate. You're asking for truss, so it has to list every resource that's currently possible. It would be painfully slow if it first had to use the criteria to find all possible affected objects, then traverse all those objects to only show their current values.  And if you started to use a new one in your drawing, suddenly your legend would out of date, and the visualization case might be unhandled, etc. That can still happen if you import a new resource, but you kind of more expect it there. Anyway, performance is the big reason.

 

There are some enhancement requests for this, and the change would be useful. You aren't even running into the case where it does something like show all possible symbols, not just all truss. Those are the painful ones. I'm not sure where the enhancement sits in our backlog and roadmap. The Core team is involved in big feature tasks almost every year, like Viewport Styles in the last release.  I will remind them of this enhancement.

 

Remember you can also export and import Data Vis definitions in the DV manager, if that helps you to do less work and reuse one without needing to re-edit the scheme.

 

Hi @Wood/ @TomWhiteLight Re: autocolor, yes, you can choose a palette and the start and end colors on that palette.  You can also pick individual colors in the DV dialog, and then export that as a palette to make it easier to reuse your chosen colors in a future DV scheme.

[Wood]

13 hours ago, TomWhiteLight said:

Hi Wood,

Autocolour can choose from a manufacturer pallet for a start and end colour. If there is not much difference between the colours try choosing colours that are further apart on the colour spectrum.

Below are three screenshots notice the start and end colours and the different results.

 

@TomWhiteLight So, I am familiar with this functionality, and unfortunately those colors are far too close to be useful for me even with a wide berth on start and end. By the time you print 4 shades of green on a white page, and use them to label similar looking items (I use them for length on my truss build drawings), they are indiscernible for the average end user. 

Obviously I can manually select each color, but that's no fun. Being able to instruct the tool to select from the collection of colors in a particular pallet would be great. Not a start and end shade, but a specific pallet entry for each data point. Throw an error if it runs out of pallet colors before it runs out of data points. Does that make sense? For example, the pallet below has a limited number of colors, but they're all pretty far apart (with some exceptions because this wouldn't be my data viz pallet)

 

[TomWhiteLight]

I will see if I can append this request to the current Data Vis developments.

[TomWhiteLight]

In terms of a long list of symbols I also add additional criteria such as class and/or Record Format is present or even 'Field Value' is. Or even Symbol name 'Contains'.

Providing you have setup your file and workflow diligently then extra criteria can be applied which can help you filter further.