VW Dimensioning

[Squiidly]

OK I know this is stupid, but I spend my days pushing AutoCad buttons, only to come home and do this VW thing. So here's my elementary question: I was told over a forum topic to do all annotations in the viewport, known to me as "paper space", which is usually a no-no in autocad. Regardless, thats what I've been doing. But the dimensioning won't scale to the drawing scale, only to the true scale of 1:1. I have the viewport set to the correct scale, and I can't find another setting to correct the scale of the dimensions, and the manual is no help. Is there consensus that dimensioning should be done in the viewports? If so, how do you adjust the scale?

[jdthatcher]

If you right click the viewport and select edit it will give an option to choose annotations. Select this and do your dimensioning here. Then it should scale with viewport.

[JoeF]

I am also learning Vectorworks in my spare time. I think what you are supposed to do to dimension your viewport is double click on the viewport and select annotation from the selection that comes up. Afterwards you return to the viewport. There is a tab or something at the top right of the screen. Now if you can figure out how to get the dimensions to not look like thick blobs when you are finished, I'll consider it a fair trade.

[Ray Libby]

I don't think all annotations should be done in the viewport, I do all dimensioning except details in the design layer.

[jdthatcher]

I do agree with Ray that the dimensioning is better to be done in the deisgn layer. This way you visibilty manipulation. If you do it in the viewport you can't turn it off an on.

Just as an aditional note you can double click the viewport and get a dialog box and select annotation, crop, or deisgn layer. If you right click you can select those same options directly. They have given you multiple ways to access information. I find that they do this often. I assume to cater to different techniques.

[jdthatcher]

As far as the blobs, are you talking about the line weights?

[mike m oz]

If you want to use Associative Dimensioning you have to do them in the Design Layer. In the Annotation section of Viewports they don't have any 'intelligence' and therefore will not update with changes.

[JoeF]

Yes I am talking about line weigths. I am still researching dimensions and haven't figured out how to control their line weight. I printed out a sheet today (no print preview!!!!)and the dimensions lines were too thick and the arrows too small. I was dimensioning a section of a terrain model so I had to place the dims in an annotation view. (is there another way?)

I'm having some difficulty adjusting to Vectorworks so pardon me if I freak out every now and then. There is a lot of stuff to get used to. Most noticeable of them is having to work in wireframe most of the time. Yuk.

[Squiidly]

Ok, I right click on the viewport, click on edit, click on annotations, and all my annotations disappear. Is what I've already done doomed? Do I start over?

[Squiidly]

Joe, the line weight of the dimension lines and extension lines is set by class, or manual override. The settings for the arrows are made in Tools>Options>Arrow heads.

[Ray Libby]

Sound like you have drawn annotions outside the viewport. In that case you would want to delete them and draw them in in viewport annotations.

[Jonathan Pickup]

If you would like more information about when to annotate inside viewports and when yo annotate on Design layers have a look at this blog...

http://web.mac.com/jpickup1/iWeb/Site/archoncad/0D807C50-B13B-433C-BD1D-59EF2A6D4DBA.html

I use classes to control the line weight of my dimension lines and you change the slash thickness on the Document Preferences dialog box...

[JoeF]

My dimensions were landing on the dimension class, but the lineweights were being set by whatever lineweights happenned to be active. I checked the "use at creation" box in the class dialog box and now the dimensions take on the settings of the class.

[Squiidly]

One of the issues that came up for me a while back, and lead to the discussion of why I should have been annotating in the viewport, is that if you are using the base drawing for other drawings at different scales, you need to manage classes so each drawing has an annotation class that matches the drawing scale. The nice thing about notation in the viewport was that you didn't have to create all those other classes.