Controlling Hatch visibility

[B.Balemi]

I have bounced this in general discussion to see if there is a work around for this problem I am having,nothing life altering so far.

When layers start to have lots of objects and a few hatches in them the redraw rate slows down .

When you get to the end of a job with many details it is challenging on efficiency.

Was wondering if this is a good request to be able to turn off the hatch visibility some how, bit like some of the preferences so as to speed up .Then when you finally print you can turn on .

This has been a challenge I have allways found this slows redraw and scrolling around with 2D in Vworks .

Its bad as well with multiple view ports on a page.

Regards Brendan

[mike m oz]

If you do your hatches manually so they are independent groups of lines you could then assign them to unique classes and switch these off when you want.

If you use associative hatches the problem is a little more difficult - the best way is to draw a polygon with zero thickness lines and apply the hatch to this rather than to the object itself. Once again you could assign these hatches to unique classes and switch them off when you want.

With both of these strategies making changes would become tedious and increase the likelihood of a mismatch between the hatch and the object ocurring. Therefore they are not ideal.

VW really slows down when there are lots of hatches or complicated hatches like stonework. For me you are better of trying to avoid them wherever possible. I tend to use fills where possible, and even the bitmap patterns on odd occassions.

Being mindful of the actual print scale of what you are drawing can mean that fills and bitmap patterns can be used as substitutes without compromising the 'communication'.

Apart from wall components for the remaining situations you can deal with most of them using the classes' graphic attributes. This makes changing the appearance from a fill or bitmap pattern to a hatch at the last moment really easy - just change the fill part of the class definition.

It would be nice though to have the option of turning off the hatches globally so that the drawing process could be tackled more quickly.

PS - don't disregard the fact that you can turn off wall cavities (ie. components of the wall) at a defined scale in the Drawings Preferences. This does provide the capability of at least removing wall hatches whilst you are working on the drawing. This does translate through to the Viewports. By changing the threshold scale you can then make the cavities reappear for the final output or printing.

[matto]

If you don't mind the whole hatched object disappearing.

You can use a visiblity script.

Organise-->Custom Visability...

which allows all objects with a particular hatch to go invisible.

Once you make the script you can copy it be part of the saved views set ups.

[B.Balemi]

Thanks for the posts

All good points but I think its starting to get complicated.

When you are head down bum up doing work and your drawing refresh rate slows down so do you.

Come on I dont believe I am the only one suffering here .

When you bring in hatches things slow down .

this is unacceptable when doing high detail work on 2d it has to be quicker and simple.

This is unacceptable from and efficiengy point view and I will keep yelling until it is resolved.

You have probably seen my posts so far and I am a Vectorworks advocate without a doubt.

but this is a hassel .

Hatches graphiclly are better than patterns and have more style and control I dont want to use anything else with drawing quality , why have them avaliable if you cant use them.

speed it up guys come on.

It ahs to be quicker surely

regards Brendan

[Delmer]

The Fills On/Off toggle seems a very good solution. One step further would be something like graphics programs that have grey or other level of display detail. Hatches have come a fair ways, but if we could use them without worrying about killing the regen time, as well as making the origin scale and angle of individual hatches more manipulable (separate thread) they would just about do everything to make me happy.

[Delmer]

Hatches are another item that should remain at the forefront.

My best solution to Brendan's initial query is to

1) Set a class for each of the heavier hatches.

2) When setting class fills first select solid and a grey (or color of your choice).

3) Then change the class fills to hatch and select their respective hatches.

4) Create a custom select script that will select only those classes.

By simultaneousely setting them all to solid they each take on their different greyscale fills. When ready to print or view final use the script to select and change the fill back to class style to bring up the class-specific hatches.

It works very well but that doesn't mean I would be sad to scrap it.

[ 06-22-2005, 10:18 PM: Message edited by: Delmer ]