Override "forced" class attributes in Viewports

[Francois Levy]

While class attributes of objects can be overridden at the Viewport, Viewports cannot override any "forced" attributes of objects. That should be an option in Viewports/Classes...

[P Retondo]

Francois, that requires the ability to select every object through the VP "window." This is not the only wishlist item in such a vein, and I wonder where all this desire for the complex manipulation of Viewport graphics is leading us. At a certain point it might get to be too top heavy, both as a user interface and as a possibly unstable software environment.

Although I understand the desire, I would have to say frankly that I'd rather see engineering effort go into something like making "live" sections actually work.

[Francois Levy]

Hi Pete,

I don't entirely agree. Individual objects need not be selectable in the VP window; there could just be a toggle in the classes column (next to visibility) for "VP overrides object attributes". Another approach would be to make objects selectable within the Annotations Space itself (that's a taller order of course).

I don't know how much engineering effort is required. We can already override graphic attributes by class; it seems a small thing to allow them by object. But of course seemingly trivial features can actually involve daunting coding.

As to your larger point: I think these kinds of requests actually have everything to do with making VPs "work". In private conversations with NNA, I like many others I am sure have pointed out that there exist in VPs graphically conflicted interests, borne out of the fact that an object may be required to appear one way in plan, another in elevation, yet another in section, and be represented in yet another way in a rendering. Overriding attributes in VPs in effect allows me to assign multiple attributes to the same class.

I suppose another way to go about it would be to give every class multiple (user-defined) attribute panes. Each class could have a plan appearance, elevation appearance, section characteristics, etc. In essence that already exists to some degree with classes assigned both RenderWorks textures and 2D graphic attributes. I think your caution is valid, though, that such systems could collapse under their own weight and be either buggy or unusable.

Ultimately, I'd like to see "smart" elevations and sections (i.e., VPs) that "know" to lighten line weights as elements recede in the background (preferable controlled by a simple slider by the user).

[MarCur]

As per Vectorworks versions that have Data attributes available, one method to achieve this visualization override is by assigning obect to a record with desired data attribute and consequent data visualization set.