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Viewports, Full-Scale Drafting


zaklee

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Three years ago I started a new job and had to learn AutoCAD. Now I'm back to Vectorworks and I'm realizing how much I miss what I think is a really straight-forward drawing concept.

In ACAD and ADT one draws everything full scale and then makes "Viewports" to show those same drawings at different scales. Makes it really easy to arrange drawing sheets. Finally, when everything is organized and the viewport scales set, you dimension it all.

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Yes, that feature could just be tacked on to VectorWorks, couldn't it?

Or better still, how about a new specialty version (like VectorWorks Architect, VectorWorks Mechanical, etc.) which incorporates all those great math-intensive analytical drafting tools that we remember from AutoCad -- ViewPorts, PaperSpace, DimScale, LinetypeScale, and if you zoom inside a viewport that changes its scale, and you have to keep pressing Enter and sometimes a variety of subcommand letters in a prescribed series of steps in order to carry out an operation, and so on. You could call it VectorWorks Masochist.

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I do not miss paper space. In practice, I've found it is actually faster/easier just to select what you want to detail then copy/paste onto your detail layer (which obivously has the approriate scale). This also enables you to draft at the appropriate level of detail given your drawing scale. Makes the whole process feel more like drawing and less like scripting a program. It also makes it impossible to incorrectly dimension your drawing, which is a stunningly easy error to make in AutoCAD.

Regards,

Gareth Conner

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zaklee, have you tried layer links? This allows you to plot any layer at any scale. As for whether the entities are "full scale," there is no difference between ACAD and VW on this point. Everything is full scale in VW, but VW skips the step you have to take in ACAD and allows you to "draw on a sheet" at a predetermined scale. But don't let that fool you. You can reset the scale on that sheet, or put layers into another sheet at another scale using links. The only thing ACAD has which VW doesn't is the ability to crop or mask links easily, so that you can insert only a portion of a layer via a layerlink.

zaklee, from this and other comments you are making, I don't think you have given VW a fair chance. You need to explore the VW equivalents to your ACAD techniques. Once you do, you will never miss the kinds of arcane complexity that jan15 is talking about.

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quote:

Originally posted by P Retondo:

The only thing ACAD has which VW doesn't is the ability to crop or mask links easily, so that you can insert only a portion of a layer via a layerlink.


If VW would implement the masking, then it would actually be even more powerful than an AutoCad viewport (because of the layer scaling you mentioned)- you would actually have the best of both worlds. As it stands now, in order to create a detail plate, I have to perform Mystic Voodoo with layer links and "filled-rectangle" masks. Its slow. Its tedius & it doesn't need to be that way. I can't see how improving a task that many of us have to do on every drawing we create would be a bad thing.

Viewports are GOOD ideas- just because AutoCad has them does not make them EVIL! And while I agree that many AutoCad tasks are overly complex, the ease with which it creates multiple sheets from a single drawing is incredible. VW only started "remembering" multiple page locations with version 10 & even still cannot handle two sheets with different paper sizes. Wouldn't it be nice to have the E-Size plot & the 8.5 x 11 detail sheets set up in the same drawing so that once you built it, you never had to touch it again?

-haich

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jan15, viewports are slightly more complicated than drawing with rectangles, and they benefit the 2D production process.

p retendo, we consistently draw complicated renovation projects that benefit from having enlarged demo, floor and reflected ceiling plans on the same drawing. This is possible in VW, but only by drawing some elements twice and managing layers more than we would prefer. (If we're managing layers, we are not drawing.) As much as we don't want AC, viewports allow sophisticated drawing management of scales, sheets and layers. VW WGR and layer links need improvement.

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Haich, i can't remember any one ever saying that viewports are bad, or that ACAD is Evil.

what you will hear a lot of is that VW has a feel, that is in tune with people using it. We think that makes it good, in a different way to other programs.

more importantly we would like development of VW to improve on it's own strenghts, not just to copy other features.

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As always, the thread is divided between those of us who like the fact that VW is uncomplicated and allows us to do the drafting ourselves quickly and easily, and those of them who want to complicate it AutoCad-style so they can torment themselves and fantasize that they're getting the computer to do the drafting for them.

The only solution is to provide another version of VectorWorks, as per my original suggestion. The new complicated version could be much more expensive, since it will have all the features of a $3400 product. And then when people write in to the Wish List to ask for Xref's, Viewports, Color Numbers, or Command Line input, Katie can just say, "That's available in VectorWorks Masochist".

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This discussion is something that is of great interest to me. Some time ago I posted a wish for Xrefs clipping and the ability to copy the the result. I wanted to rotate the result and put into diferent layers where I can play with the scales in order to produce blowups of a part of plan and elevation in one sheet. Where did I get this nutty Idea from? I had both the pleasure and pain to work in Microstation and ACAD the last few years. Both programs are able to do this with their Xrefs. Here is one for the record: Microstation had the Xref clip ability way before ACAD even knew it could be done. Back in 1994 when I worked in MicrostationV4 ACAD was in R11 in DOS (talk about self mutulation). ACAD Xref clips did not appear unitl R14, I think.

Here is the part I like about the concept: It saves a great deal of time. Just like the old days of going to the xerox machine and coping a part of the drawing, blowing it up and puting it on a sheet of design drawings.

Don't get me wrong I lake a great deal of things about VW but this one could make it sooo much better.

In general I think too many people forget that every one program has something to teach us. I it is good why not use it.

For my part I like the wheel and just because some other guy invented it does not mean I will keep on walking.

NNA! Give this feature to the masses and you shall reap the rewards of not having to take the vports issue to hard.

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Greg,

I like the analogy to the xerox machine. The xerox is generally analogous to the computer in that way, a complex machine that took a lot of high-tech work to conceive and build, which we can use in a lower-tech way to avoid the boring repetitive part of various office tasks. In the specific case, the xerox as used with hand drafting was especially analogous to VectorWorks, in that it allowed you keep the focus on what you were designing, not on how to get the photocopier to work. Just walk over to it and press a button.

But I don't remember anyone using it to xerox-enlarge part of a plan and stick it onto a detail sheet for that project. That would be the proper analogy to the Xref clip, wouldn't it? We commonly xerox'd details from another project's detail sheet and stuck them on rather than draw the exact same detail again, and we'd sometimes xerox and enlarge part of a general plan and then trace over it to produce a larger scale detail plan in the same set of drawings. But the correct analogy to both of those uses of the xerox machine is the copy/paste procedure described by Gareth.

If we had xerox-enlarged part of the general plan and stuck it on as a detail, it would have been a very poor quality detail. The same is true of Xrefs, for the same reason. The larger scale drawing needs more detail than the smaller scale drawing, and different line weights. You can program AutoCad to show that part of the drawing differently in the two different viewports, but that's more work than what it takes in VectorWorks to make the necessary changes to the drawing. And it's a different kind of work, a kind of work that's more removed from the visually-oriented process of designing and drawing the project.

Working on a drawing with an Xref in it is a bizarre and frustrating experience compared to the natural feel of working on a VectorWorks drawing. As each of the 9 years that I worked in AutoCad passed it seemed more bizarre and frustrating. The Xref is a major part of the drawing in front of you, but you can't alter it. You have to open another file and alter THAT drawing, if you still remember how you wanted to alter it, and then return to the first drawing and try to remember what you were doing when you discovered the need to alter the Xref. Not extremely hard if that's all you're doing, and maybe even pleasant if you enjoy computer programming or solving cryptograms. But if you have other things on your mind, such as designing a building, it's a very unpleasant distraction.

As iboymatt said, the VectorWorks approach is good in a different way, and a lot of people really like that way. The feature you're talking about wouldn't add much to the VectorWorks system, even though it's absolutely essential in the AutoCad wasteland. We already have better ways to do what you're talking about. It isn't worth complicating the interface and introducing another source of bugs and another price increase, and we'd rather have the software designers spend their time enhancing the natural drawing process, perhaps bringing more of that same feel to 3D modelling.

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Sorry, but for the most part, you missed my point.

Working drawings?

Fine, remember tracing on mylar? Blowups were done well that way. Enlarge, trace and done. Much better than layouts from point zero.

The tracing part is what I like skipping since we now enjoy the benefits of the computer age.

To make it easier. I had the chance to work in these programs for an extensive period of time:

1.Arris still on UNIX way before the windos world came to life

2.Microstation

3.AutoCad R11 & R12

4.IBM AES

5.AutoCAD R14 & 2000

6.Vectorworks and Minicad 8 before that.

The result of all this is that my office standard is VW. However we still need to have a copy of Autocad around to make ther whole business thing work.

Silmpy when it came time to setup my own business I could not justify using an expensive full Autocad system. VW and AacdLT did the trick for under $1,500.00 combined. Left me with enough dough to buy a plotter and I was in business.

In conclusion, Xref clip is something one has to experience to belive the benefis it can bring to the production/design process. Time is money when it comes to having all the files update at once. Imagine having 20-30 details done that way. Updating/modifying them one at a time is not so great when you try to make a living doing Architecture. The time coordinating al this could be spent someplace else.

I don't use the xerox machine much these days.

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GregG;

I agree entirely with GregG., but Jan15 could also be right. If we take Jan15's line of argument Vectorworks is the first computer program in history which does everything perfectly; and therefore needs no modification, maybe it is a divinely inspired piece of software, or maybe they do CAD drafting differently on Mars.

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Greg,

I didn't miss your point. I refuted it with the very direct counter-point that using Xrefs to get a computer to do the drafting for you is a fantasy, and a masochistic fantasy at that, and in actual practice the avoidance of repetitive work can be done more efficiently and more comfortably with existing VectorWorks features than with Xrefs.

I can't accuse you of having missed my point, but only because it's so obvious that you didn't try for it, not even bothering to read most of my posting. You implied that I don't understand Xrefs because I've never used them, though I've shown that I do understand them and said that they were the bane of my life for many years. You didn't address any of the issues I raised, filling your posting instead with your resume and a number of trite observations such as the importance of conserving time and the obsolescence of xerox details.

You didn't add anything new to your own position either, except to extend the fantasy of automatic drafting into the area of automatic updating. But the fantasy there is exactly the same, and is equally incompatible with reality. The automatically updated details still have to be checked to see whether the update to the Xref has compromised the detail (unless you're just publishing a lot of junk details to bewilder contractors or justify your fee). When there's a need to adjust the Xref file to make the detail readable, as is nearly always the case unless the change doesn't affect that detail, the same abstract and indirect procedure has to be followed as when originally creating the detail. In VectorWorks, though perhaps not in AutoCad, making changes to the detail itself is quicker than working in file A to effect changes to file B. In both cases, making changes to the detail itself is a more natural and intuitive way to work, and more supportive of the essentially human and visually-oriented task of design and project oversight.

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Hi there,

Jan15, you might as well think so, however I could not possibly comment.

I would like to conclude my contribution to this post by just saying this:

There is and always shall be a great need for a healthy exchange of opinions.

We can learn much from each other on this board. I try to visit this board a few times a week. Every so often I can learn a better way to make VW work for me.

However, I get very turned off by fanaticism in any shape or form.

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I've lost track - are we still talking about having a way to mask a layer link? If so, I still think that's a great idea. It adds a feature to existing VW technology, and addresses the one and only one issue I've heard that separates VW capabilities from ACAD. I take that back, I have heard that scaling of lineweights and text would be a desirable thing, but I'm not sure it is worth the complexity. One of the worst things about AutoCAD is the entirely-rational-but-almost-beyond-comprehension complexity of setting text size, lineweight, and linestyle. If there is a "MiniCad way" of doing that, great.

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quote:

Originally posted by GregG:

There is and always shall be a great need for a healthy exchange of opinions.


At last we agree.

And like you, I'm turned off by fanaticism of any kind.

Also by closed minds, stubbornness, and the refusal to think and to learn.

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"Masking layer links" is another way of saying provide the equivalent of xref clipping. What people do now is to manually create a white mask that covers the area of a layer link they don't want to display on a drawing. We're looking for a more trouble-free and quick way to do that.

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