Increasing Class and subclass depths

[CS1]

Dont know if that is the best subject description

If you have say 3 sub-classes...

by that I mean for example

In the class menu it appears as:

walls

-new

-type1

If you have say 4 sub-classes...

for example

In the class menu it appears as:

ground

-walls

-new-type1

You can only show 3 subclasses, is there a way to increase this?

I really need 4, I organise my class information the following way

- - -

[IanH]

Over time, I have greatly simplified my use of classes. WHen a class structure got too complex, it was a subtle way of telling me that there is probably a simpler way of organisng things.

Curious about the part. This does not sit right with me. Are you repeating the whole class structure for all levels that you are on? Why not put different levels on a separate layer, ie ground? Then you don't need to repeat the class structure so many times.

[CS1]

Yeah for example I would have:

a class for my ground "plumbing"

a class for my first "plumbing"

a class for my second "plumbing"

I do this so for example on my intermediate floor plans I can show the floor outlines for each level but the plumbing from only one floor (ie on the first floor intermediate plan I would want to show the plumbing from my first floor only) If all my plumbing was in one class I would see the plumbing from the ground floor since I am showing the walls from my ground floor, and I would also see the plumbing from my second floor since I am showing say the floor outline from the second floor.

I know I could have a viewport for each layer and paste-in-place over each other to get the correct visibilities but then selecting things becomes extremely tedious.

For example:

If I had a viewport of my ground floor only showing the ground floor walls only and then drew my rectangles over the viewport (joist/beams etc).

Then pasted the viewport of my first floor over showing plumbing from my first floor only.

Then pasted the viewport of my second floor showing pipe locations only.

If I now want to move my joists etc I have to unlock the viewports of my first and second layers and move them up the page or send to back

Can you suggest a different method?

[IanH]

Can't you just create a DLVP for each floor and turn on/off whatever class you want on a per DLVP by DLVP basis? Then create a sheet layer viewport containing each of the DVLP's. No pasting, no additional classes. Plus I'm sure that you will find other things that you will want to override.

I do this with survey drawings, which are referenced in a seperate survey file. I turn off/override things in the survey in the design files survey layer using DLVP overrides. I can't see that this would not scale to multiple floors.

[CS1]

I see how that works thanks.

I would imagine thou that you would end up with a large list of design layers. One Design layer for each level of the building, then one design layer for each viewport, and you would need a large amount of viewports to achieve the requirements for each plan.

I know that there are alot of variances on how different offices display there info, but Ill use mine below

EG I show my roof outlines solid with a fill on my site plan and dashed with no fill on my floor plans. So for a 3 storey building I would need 4 design layer viewports to show this. One for use with my site with all levels turned on and only my roof class turned on with an override, and then a design layer with port for each storey showing roof only.

And I would have to do the same for floors etc.

Am I looking at this wrong?

[brudgers]

You can over-ride class settings in viewports on sheet layers.

In my opinion, for example the site plan sheet is where to set up the unique display properties for the appearence of the roof.

You may want to look at the Alexandria Laundry Lofts project from NNA's website.

It offers good insight regarding organizing the drawings.

[IanH]

I think you are over complicating matters. At the most you probably need two sheet layer viewports and no DVLP's and/or level specific classes.

For your second example, simply create 2+ sheets (one site plan, the other each floor plan), each with a sheet layer viewport. On site plan, your roof is stacked at top and the roof class(s) are set solid. For floor plans, the roof is not set solid and set to dashed line. You don't need any DLVPs for this as its handled by the sheet viewport.

Your initial example can probably be handled on a dingle sheet containing two stacked viewports. Create one viewport with the all layers containing walls that you want to show but all other classes turned off.

Then stack another viewport that only has the level that you want to see turned on and turn the plumbing classes on (and any other features that you want to see for that floor). If you want the walls for this floor to be more prominent, you can adjust the wall class visibilities in this viewport to be different to the other viewport.

Edited June 11, 2008 by IanH

[Christiaan]

You can only show 3 subclasses, is there a way to increase this?

No, but it's on the wishlist:

http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=67737

[IanH]

Did the example file help?

[CS1]

Yeah it is how I imagined from your discription. Thanks you for taking the time to create it.

It wouldn't work to well for how we show our information.

For example how would you hide the walls above in your method?

I will try and attach a file showing the way I organize my information at the moment.

[IanH]

Yeah it is how I imagined from your discription. Thanks you for taking the time to create it.

It wouldn't work to well for how we show our information.

For example how would you hide the walls above in your method?

Don't include the floor above layer in the viewport.

[CS1]

But I want to see the floor outline and the plumbing from the floor above.

[CS1]

Is 5mb to big to upload?

Ive been tring to upload a VW2008 file (4.99mb)

but not having any luck.

[IanH]

But I want to see the floor outline and the plumbing from the floor above.

You can extend the floor specific (ie plumbing and wall detail) to more than one floor. If an adjacent floor needs to have different attributes than another floor, then you can simply create another viewport.

As for posting large files, there may well be a size limit. I have seen 4MB on BB's before. Try reducing the size of the file by purging unused objects/classes (which I expect there to be many ten's of)/symbols etc and possibly putting in a zip/compressed folder.

[CS1]

you would need a large amount of viewports to achieve the requirements for each plan.

thats what I was meaning in this earlier post.

I have still being tring to upload my VW file, its only 4.5mb and only contains walls floor and roofs for a 3 storey house, cant delete any more objects. Have ZIPPED the file but get a message saying only able to upload VW files and jpegs etc.

Edited June 15, 2008 by CS1

[Ray Libby]

The techboard will not accept zip files. Do you have access to a web server? You could ftp the file there and post a link here. I could help if don't, send the file to ecom2(at)raylibby.net and I'll post a link to it here.

[CS1]

Thanks Ray,

Have just emailed ZIP file to you.

Thanks for taking the time to do this.

[Ray Libby]

Here is a link to the file.

http://raylibby.net/vwdump/example.zip

[CS1]

Does anybody use the same organiztion method as in the example file above?

[brudgers]

Does anybody use the same organiztion method as in the example file above?

It looks vert complicated to me.

Much of what you are doing on design layers can probably be managed more easily using sheet layers.

I don't see the advantage of location based classes in addition to layers...

I would again suggest a look at Alexandria Laundry Lofts.

Edited June 18, 2008 by brudgers

[CS1]

With my earlier jobs I used sheet layers, but as soon as you have a design layer viewport I started getting odd problems like objects disappearing or object info showing in OIP but no highlight indicating object selections, Also the viewport heirachy can become complicated when using overrides.

I also find the annotation mode cumbersome since the sheet layers need to be at 1:1

[Ray Libby]

Annotation mode takes place within the viewport and takes on the scale of the viewport, not the 1:1 Scale of the sheet layer. In my opinion the only thing directly on the sheet layer should be viewports and the title block, which should be 1:1.

[brudgers]

If it makes sense and works, then it makes sense and works.

The NNA sample file convinced me that the standard classes and a few extra cospatial layers will handle fairly complex organization...for the most part...details are another story.

[Ray Libby]

OLE?

[IanH]

Does anybody use the same organiztion method as in the example file above?

I did spend a little while looking at it yesterday. It must be a nightmare to manage?

I am a garden designer not an architect, so my use of multi level structures is not so extensive (but they can occur within a detail), but even so, I believe that your document structure with use of layers and especially classes can be significantly simplified.

These are just my thoughts and observations so there will be other ways of doing things. There are many ways to organise a document and ones own brain, and both brain and document should be in synch otherwise confusion is likely to arise. As such, I dot thoroughly confused by your organisation so it is clear that we do not work in the same way. I have an IT background, so I tend wo work in a logical way.

First off, you are not using sheets. I have seen your comments on use of sheets, and they are, IMHO, not valid reasons not to use sheets. So, I would try to use sheets.

The reason for using sheets is quite simple. It separates the model from its presentation. Whilst it is important to keep half an eye on how something will be ultimately presented, it should not dictate the model. You could argue that your wkg layers are in fact analogous to a sheet layer, but I think the reality is that your model has been overcomplicated because your presentation thoughts have greatly influenced your model organisation which is why you are ending up with identical sets of classes that are layer/level specific. What if you built a 100 floor skyscraper - would you have 100+ instances of class mod-xxx-wall-type1/2/3, mod-xxx-plumbing, -stair etc where even in this two story model, you already have 6 instances - first/first roof/first/first roof/second/second roof. IMHO, this is madness. Stick with one non level specific set of classes and only differentiate/filter them at the point of presentation, that is the sheet layers.

What you appear to be doing is creating a DLVP that makes all your true model layers visible, but then are turning off all classes not related to what you want to see.

I can see why this may seem complicated at first thought, but why don't you start with a sheet layer, create a viewport that contains only the information that you want to see from all levels - ie roofs, then stack on top another viewport that contains the detail for only the level that you are interested in.

I have posted your example, but merged all the floor specific classes (I probably could have done more but this is as an example) and created a sheet with a couple of sheet layer viewports. The sheet reflects the 2nd floor - your 2nd roof view. I have also added a combined roof view to this sheet, for no reason other than it was another example. Another viewport contains your info panel and I have added a simple title block. The main viewport contains a couple of basic annotations. Two viewports were needed to easily create the view. One containing the roof outlines, the other to give the floor details. The wall of the garage(?) differs slightly in detail from the original as it has door openings - I gave up on trying to find what class controlled this but should be easily doable. To get the view to work easily, I made two changes to the underlying model. One was to colour code the roofs. Previously this was done with class overrides and if this had been continued, would have resulted in a different viewport for each roof level. It was easier to simply colour code them in the model - as I mentioned earlier, keeping half an eye on the presentation. The other change was to create a new class - mod-joists. I then moved the layer specific joists from wgl.second layer into the main model layer. The annotations from this were moved to a sheet layer viewport annotation.

It would not be economically viable to convert the rest of the model, but I feel this approach would cover all your requirements and hopefully will serve an an example of one way of doing it.

As a bonus, it also reduced the file size, probably as a result of reducing 70 classes down to 30 and i'm sure this could be improved even further. Your DLVP's would also be redundant which would also greatly simplify your model views.

To me, it makes sense to split the model from the presentation and this is the approach that I have taken.

I hope it helps.