Data visualization Object Criteria do not apply if Display Criteria is set to using Function --> Object Style Name

[heavy manners]

Hello everyone,

 

As the title suggests, I have a problem trying to apply data viz to wall objects by style name. When using this Function, it overrides any selection criteria I have selected and just gives me a list of all objects (or so it seems?) with a style name whatsoever. Very cumbersome to have to clean this every time. Is this a bug or am I missing something?

 

Thanks for your time!

[line-weight]

This is of no help to you, but I often find that "display criteria" panel in Data Vis very confusing. Most of the time I just use it set to "all objects".

 

So will be interested to see what the answer is here.

 

Am I right in thinking that the other way you could do this is under "object criteria" to say

1. All criteria in this set

2.  Wall style    is    [wall style name]

 

Then under "display criteria", choose "all objects"? 

[zoomer]

I have problems with the logic of Data Visualization too.

 

52 minutes ago, line-weight said:

Am I right in thinking that the other way you could do this is under "object criteria" to say

1. All criteria in this set

2.  Wall style    is    [wall style name]

 

Then under "display criteria", choose "all objects"? 

 

This is how it finally worked for me.

 

 

At the beginning I would have set :

- All Objects

- Class is Wall1

- Class is Wall2

....

 

But as soon as you have 2 of the same criteria, your applicable elements number drops to zero

instead of increasing ..... 🙂

 

I thought I could create a whole Dataviz for a specific need at a time,

like a "set of reduced b+w 1:200 Plans".

If I got that correct, in my case that would rather mean to create about 15 Dataviz and activate

them one by one.

[zoomer]

OK, found it,

 

in Criterias, there is a default of "ALL criteria in this Set",

but also a "ANY criteria in this Set"

 

Exactly what I was looking for.

But still not sure if this way I could combine everything into a single Dataviz ....

[Tom W.]

4 hours ago, line-weight said:

Am I right in thinking that the other way you could do this is under "object criteria" to say

1. All criteria in this set

2.  Wall style    is    [wall style name]

 

Then under "display criteria", choose "all objects"? 

 

Well doing it this way you would have to create a different DV for each Wall Style which is a bit laborious + unnecessary (assuming the aim of the DV is to colour each Wall in the drawing differently depending on what its style is).

 

Going back to the OP I find the Object Criteria + Display Criteria confusing as well. I think the Object Criteria defines which objects will be affected by the Data Vis + then the Display Criteria is where you define how you want those objects to be affected (coloured). But the two don't talk to each other as such i.e. you could specify all sorts of display criteria but unless the objects in question are defined in the Object Criteria you won't see it happening in the drawing. The 'Add' button after all allows you to add whatever display criteria you want, regardless of what's defined in the Object Criteria.

 

This would explain why in the OP the display criteria of Object Style Name is returning all the object styles in the file.

 

An alternative display criteria in this case would be to use IFCWallStandardCase>Name as this would return just the Wall Style names + none of the others.

 

A lot of the time you can just use Object Criteria of 'All Objects' because the Display Criteria is such that it colours the objects that you want coloured but for example if you just wanted Wall Styles on a certain layer or in a certain class to be affected by the DV you could use the Object Criteria to exclude the other Walls.

[heavy manners]

48 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

Going back to the OP I find the Object Criteria + Display Criteria confusing as well. I think the Object Criteria defines which objects will be affected by the Data Vis + then the Display Criteria is where you define how you want those objects to be affected (coloured). But the two don't talk to each other as such i.e. you could specify all sorts of display criteria but unless the objects in question are defined in the Object Criteria you won't see it happening in the drawing. The 'Add' button after all allows you to add whatever display criteria you want, regardless of what's defined in the Object Criteria.

 

This is precisely my problem. Perhaps this would be good if there was the ability to save Display Criteria apart from Object Criteria, but that is not the case; they are both part of the same DV and as such it's just super annoying having to parse through the relevant functions or whatever each time I want to apply any viz by value. Not only does it take time and is incredibly confusing for my less tech-savvy colleagues – it also requires me to know said values beforehand to be able to select exactly those and not anything else.

 

Let's say I have 20 wall types in my file and I want to colour them by Object Style Name. The Display Criteria list gives me every object style name for every object in the entire project, and unless I have been very rigorous with my naming (as we always try to be, but of course people make mistakes) it will take me time and know-how to tick the pertinent styles I want to use, and moreover if I add another wall style I'll have to go back and manually tick that too. If the Object Criteria would apply to the Display Criteria list I could just filter by object type = wall and basta.

Edited October 2, 2024 by heavy manners

[Tom W.]

16 minutes ago, heavy manners said:

Let's say I have 20 wall types in my file and I want to colour them by Object Style Name. The Display Criteria list gives me every object style name for every object in the entire project, and unless I have been very rigorous with my naming (as we always try to be, but of course people make mistakes) it will take me time and know-how to tick the pertinent styles I want to use

 

Remember you can search for the wall style names using IFCWallStandardCase>Name.

 

But I do take on board what you're saying.

[line-weight]

1 hour ago, Tom W. said:

Going back to the OP I find the Object Criteria + Display Criteria confusing as well.

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

 

I do find that dialogue fundamentally confusing and it puts me off using Data Vis where I might otherwise use it.

 

I tend to use class over-rides instead, when I can, because I feel like I have a much clearer understanding of what's happening.

[Tom W.]

31 minutes ago, line-weight said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

 

I do find that dialogue fundamentally confusing and it puts me off using Data Vis where I might otherwise use it.

 

I tend to use class over-rides instead, when I can, because I feel like I have a much clearer understanding of what's happening.

 

I think there's definitely a place for class overrides as well.

[heavy manners]

1 hour ago, Tom W. said:

Remember you can search for the wall style names using IFCWallStandardCase>Name.

 

But I do take on board what you're saying.

 

In this particular case you're right, but switch for any other item not equally IFC'ed and it doesn't hold.

 

Moreover, we're on a 2D workflow so the only PIO we use are walls, the rest being rather dumb 2D Symbols with Record Formats attached, and so anything you want to map by style or whatnot has to be something that is not in the record format (mostly Functions, which brings me back to the OP) because you cannot set Record Format values by style... but that's another subject.

 

Writing the above also reminded me of the fact that whenever you set your display criteria to Function, it automatically loads the first Function by alphabetical order, which is Area. Now, seeing as this is a function that is particular to every single object in the drawing, and not grouped by say style or PIO or whatever, it means that it has to take a lot of time to load this information. Every. Single. Time. And seeing as we have a 2D workflow we have lots of lines and other 2D geometry that each get their value, something not experienced by 3D people who gets it per 3D object. While you could argue that it's rather backwards using a 2D workflow in a BIM software with 3D functionality, and I agree to a certain extent, we have our reasons, and Vectorworks beats its rivals in this field by far, but I admit that many "general" functionalities forget this aspect and cater mostly to 3D objects and PIOs (which I would love to be able to create myself more easily, Revit style).

 

End of rant.

Edited October 2, 2024 by heavy manners

[heavy manners]

OK if not this, could we at least have a search function within the list? It can't be that hard to implement. I've got many classes and layers and finding the right one each time by scrolling is very time consuming.