Live objects which appear different in different viewports!!!

[CS1]

I think the whole idea of having viewports and classes is to ideally draw something once and have that item "live" so you dont have to duplicate it, any change made to that object alters through out the drawing which is great. Im finding over an over again that this is not possible.

Examples are

Elevations with walls having fine line weatherboards. You need to either draw polygons over your elevations and apply hatch or create another object and extrude it in front of walls.

Extrusions not being able to dash or hatch so no good in plan views because you always need to dash the outside of objects for areas above or below the viewers height. To overcome this you need to have the polygon for the extrusion and then another one for the dash and hatch.

For a floor you can use the floor tool which is great, but if you want to show the top as say a carpet texture you cant show the sides as say concrete. To over come this you have to either use an extruded polygon for your floor buth then you get the "no dash" problem. Or you have to create extrusions around the edges of your floor to show the other texture.

Roof Faces in plan view when you have dashed outline, joined lines appear solid so you have to create a "copy in lines" to get the desired result.

Viewport Section Markers: When using a partial section marker you either have to have a line sticking right thru your plan to the extent of the section or use the line tool to draw over the section marker and then copy the line to every viewport where the section marker shows.

This forum is scattered with these sorts of problems, wanting to have one object and show it different ways rather than having copies in lines etc of objects which means lots of changes when things need altering.

Am I the only one thats finding this?

Is there any I have missed?

Are these things likely to be looked at in the future?

[CipesDesign]

While some of your points are valid, many of these situations can be made to fit the "draw it once" paradigm by either a) modeling the part in question, b) Making the part in question into a hybrid (2d/3d) symbol which might contain various classes, c) Using classes and VP class overrides to change the graphic appearance and/or visibility of a particular class or classes in a particular viewport or viewports, or d) a combination of the first three...

[CS1]

Thanx Peter

I use c)class overrides all the time, and they work great. I find that the 2D/3D hybrid thou is effectly having to draw the information twice.

An example would be an "L" shaped slab.

To get the 3D model of the slab with textures I can extrude a polygon.

An extrusion cant have its edges dashed so I can put the extrusion in "class 1" and then copy the base polygon make it dashed and put in "class 2". Then Group the two. this is my 2D3D hybrid slab. This works fine. However when I want to say change the "L" to a "T" I have to edit the polygon inside the extrusion and then the base polygon or just copy it, either way im still doing it twice.

Hope that makes sense:)

Edited April 23, 2008 by CS1

[CipesDesign]

Yes. I completely understand. I deal with similar situations constantly. VW's 2008 is a vast improvement over prior versions, but that does not mean there isn't still a long way to go. As long as NNA remains sensitive to user feedback and continues to move the software in the right direction I am more or less content. No matter how good a tool is, someone still has to do the work, and that's what we get paid for ;-)

[Jershaun]

I agree with you 100%, CS1. This is some of the power I've been asking for in some of my previous posts. NNA please listen to your users....please....beg you.

[CS1]

No matter how good a tool is, someone still has to do the work, and that's what we get paid for ;-)

Haha too true too true.