2025 softgoods issue

[Peter Telleman]

Hi everyone,

 

In VW2024 we connected curtains to a truss, and if we wanted to have it connect to a top tube, we changed the height of the curtain. In 2025 we seem to not be able to change the height of the curtains anymore. Anyone else runs into this, or has a solution?

 

Thanks,

 

Peter

 

softgoods 2025 issue.vwx

[markdd]

I think this is by design now as the Border has now be renamed as a Truss Border which will automatically attach the object to the Top Truss chord. 

[Peter Telleman]

@markdd

Does that mean we now would need two types for each curtain? One for top, and one for bottom truss? That sounds silly, and certainly not an improvement to what it was. And to make it more difficult, the triangular truss (at least for Prolyte) are now only as apex up in the library. So to use them apex down as we usually use them, we must turn them around, which makes the "bottom" tubes on the top, so there you would need the bottom truss curtains. 

[Peter Telleman]

@markdd

I've tried what you said, and in essence this works, the downside to this solution is that in top view, the curtains are shown detached from the truss. This is confusing for our building plans, since it's more difficult to see for the people who build it, on which tube the curtains should go. I really don't understand why we're not able to change the height of the curtains anymore, why fix something that isn't broken?

softgoods 2025 issue with truss border.vwx

Edited November 6, 2024 by Peter Telleman

[Peter Telleman]

And to add to this, if you draw a line of pipe and drape too close to truss, it snaps to the truss (as it did always). But now we can't move it back to the floor!

 

😪

softgoods 2025 issue with truss border +PD.vwx

[Alex Ashley]

I am having a similar issue with curtain soft goods and truss. Truss converted to hanging position bottom trim 21'. When I draw a 1' truss border it snaps to the correct height 21'. No problem.

 

When I draw a curtain it snaps to the negative height of the curtain itself so effectively 0 top trim.

 

Seems like a simple programming error. VWX file attached.

 

Z height cannot be changed for either curtain or truss border.

 

I guess for now I can pretend my curtains are really long truss borders but thats not great either.

TrussDrapeIssue.vwx

[Alex Ashley]

And yes @Peter Telleman I agree we should still be able to adjust the "height relative to" section... It's all greyed out now!

[Peter Telleman]

@jcogdell @JustinVH @Scott C. Parker

 

Could you have a look at this issue, or direct me to the VW employee that is responsible for this issue?

 

Thanks,

 

Peter

[Scott C. Parker]

On 11/6/2024 at 7:32 PM, Alex Ashley said:

I am having a similar issue with curtain soft goods and truss. Truss converted to hanging position bottom trim 21'. When I draw a 1' truss border it snaps to the correct height 21'. No problem.

 

When I draw a curtain it snaps to the negative height of the curtain itself so effectively 0 top trim.

Hi @Alex Ashley, The hanging position currently shows a Z height of 0 feet and a trim height of 21 feet, indicating an issue with the truss inside.  To resolve this, I opened the hanging position, set the truss height to 0, and then adjusted the hanging position back to 21 feet, aligning everything correctly.

 

On 11/6/2024 at 4:43 AM, Peter Telleman said:

And to add to this, if you draw a line of pipe and drape too close to truss, it snaps to the truss (as it did always). But now we can't move it back to the floor!

Hi @Peter Telleman, The truss not letting go of the pipe & drape is a known bug that's being worked on.

 

On 11/6/2024 at 3:23 AM, Peter Telleman said:

on which tube the curtains should

The drapes are snapping to the proper chords for me. 

 

hth, Scott

 

Edited November 21, 2024 by Scott C. Parker
I have edited this post as I offered some incorrect info. I've updated it later in the thread.

[Scott C. Parker]

On 11/6/2024 at 7:34 PM, Alex Ashley said:

I agree we should still be able to adjust the "height relative to" section... It's all greyed out now!

Fields within styles are trapped by the style. Edit the style and change the arrows to double lines to allow each instance of drapes to be adjusted.

 

[Scott C. Parker]

On 11/6/2024 at 4:43 AM, Peter Telleman said:

it snaps to the truss (as it did always). But now we can't move it back to the floor!

For now, a workaround to detach is:

1. select the pipe & drape.
2. Use the OIP to convert it to a curtain
3. use the manage loads tool to detach the curtain.
4. Move it away from the truss and turn off the auto snapping preference so it doesn't snap again.
5. move it back to where you need.
6. convert it back to a pipe & drape.
7. reset your snapping preference if needed.

[Peter Telleman]

@Scott C. Parker

Thanks for the answers, I'll try the style editing tomorrow and will keep you posted if that solves it for me. Good to hear you guys are working on the pipe and drape issue. What is the reason for not being able to change the height of the curtain, or is that also because of the settings of my current styles?

 

thanks so far,

 

Peter

[Scott C. Parker]

2 hours ago, Scott C. Parker said:

On 11/6/2024 at 7:34 PM, Alex Ashley said:

 

Fields within styles are trapped by the style. Edit the style and change the arrows to double lines to allow each instance of drapes to be adjusted.

I did more testing with this and found a puzzling issue. When I draw the curtain, I can make my changes per instance. The editing ability is curtailed when the same curtain is attached to a truss. I don't know what the truss tells the curtain and why it changes the behaviour. I'll update if I find out.

[Matthew S]

56 minutes ago, Scott C. Parker said:

I did more testing with this and found a puzzling issue. When I draw the curtain, I can make my changes per instance. The editing ability is curtailed when the same curtain is attached to a truss. I don't know what the truss tells the curtain and why it changes the behaviour. I'll update if I find out.

Funny I should stumble upon this thread as I was having the same issues right after 2025 came out. 

 

An bug I ran into was if I put a data tag on a pipe and drape section in a design layer or sheet layer and then shift the pipe and drape in the design layer, it would change the Z value like it would for truss. One workaround I had success with was to put the data tag in the design layer at the height I wanted the top of the drape to be. I haven't had time to test it with Update 2 to see if that was resolved.

Edited November 20, 2024 by Matthew S

[Peter Telleman]

@Scott C. Parker

 

I'm probably doing something wrong. When I edit the style and set the height relative to bottom trim instead of top trim, I can save and see in my template it now says bottom trim. When in a new drawing I now snap this curtain to a truss, it appears as a curtain attached to the bottom of the truss, and in the OIP it says top trim at relative height.

That makes no sense to me, since the style now is set to bottom trim.

What is the reason that, unlike in VW2024, we can't just change the Z value of a curtain anymore? Because in VW2024 the curtains worked fine the way they were. In that I'm not complaining that it might work different in VW2025, but I'd like to know why, and what I'm doing wrong trying to change the style to work.

 

Thanks,

 

Peter

[Scott C. Parker]

@Peter Telleman

I may have either been confused or offered confusing answers to the issues along the way in this thread by trying to answer different questions related to similar workflows.
First, a correction. I totally misunderstood the use of the "Height Relative to" selection field. It has nothing to do with which chord the curtain is snapping to. When I saw "Bottom Trim," I confused it with the truss's bottom trim vs. the drape's bottom trim. It's only dealing with the curtain. The curtains and Truss Borders should snap to whichever chord is highlighted during the snapping process.

 

5 hours ago, Peter Telleman said:

we can't just change the Z value of a curtain anymore?

First, we all need to remember the Z value of a curtain is the distance measured to the bottom of the curtain. I remind myself, often, that I'm dealing with the distance off the floor and not the height of the curtain webbing.

1. The Z value of a freestanding Unstyled curtain can be changed without issue.
2. The Z value of any curtain attached to a truss/pipe/hanging position is controlled by the trim of the support object minus the curtain's height. To adjust the Z value, you need to change the Z value, or height, of the supporting structure, and the curtain will move up/down and change the Z height shown by the curtain.

Here's my file to play with. 

 

Softgoods style playing.vwx  

 

 

[C. Andrew Dunning]

We're working on addressing the snapping/attaching (& unattaching), parameter enabling, and trim issues.  If you happen to be a user of the Landru Design version of Soft Goods (SoftGoods 2) and are interested in helping with a little testing, would you drop me a DM or e-mail?

 

Thanks!

[Ryan Seybert]

When can we expect this issue to be resolved?  Having to change, for example, 25' tall goods to "truss border" in order for it to be visually hung off the top chord is ridiculous.  It changes workflow nomenclature in a confusing way.  The differentiator between curtain and truss border is what chord its hung on?  Who thought that was a practical change?

 

It's great for actual truss border, yes, but the application of standard soft goods hanging from the top chord of truss is an everyday thing.  This change creates more problems than it does solutions.

 

They need to go back to the drawing board with this one...

[C. Andrew Dunning]

 

 

17 hours ago, Ryan Seybert said:

When can we expect this issue to be resolved?

 

You're actually asking multiple questions:

 

Regarding the the chord snapping/attaching (& unattaching), parameter enabling, and trim issues, as I said in a previous post, we're working on addressing that and a fix will be out soon.

 

As to the Curtain/Truss Border option question, the "Truss Border" option affects how the geometry is created.

 

In 2D, for the former, the geometry "follows" the reference/path geometry"  For the latter, the geometry is automatically offset from the reference/path geometry. See below:

In 3D, for the former, the geometry hangs "straight down."  For the latter, the bottom geometry is "kicked out" so that the curtain geometry does not collide with the truss.  See below:

 

 

So, a full-height curtain hanging off of the top chord of a truss is, in terms of the tool, actually a "tall" truss border.  The 2D geometry clearly illustrates the "real-world" intent and the 3D geometry does not run into the truss.  This automates the process with both straight and curved instances (actually, eliminating several problems...to use your language).  If using the the Truss Border option bothers you, once the fix is out, simply place a SG object in "Curtain" mode and drag it out from the truss (and, make suitable adjustments for curved instances).

 

 

Edited December 17, 2024 by C. Andrew Dunning

[C. Andrew Dunning]

On 12/16/2024 at 4:06 PM, C. Andrew Dunning said:

Regarding the the chord snapping/attaching (& unattaching), parameter enabling, and trim issues, as I said in a previous post, we're working on addressing that and a fix will be out soon.

 

For users of the Landru Design version of this tool...earlier this week we posted a build that fixes this...

 

[Peter Telleman]

@C. Andrew Dunning

Some of these issues have been solved in Vectorworks update 3