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Seam lines in elevations


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After reading again the replies, I noticed something, users who experience the hidden lines problems all have something in common, version 2008

I am a VW 2009 User and I respectfully disagree. It is not good enough if it just "works most of the time" or is "better than version 2008".

However: it seems to me that most of the time the horizontal seams go away in hidden line mode

Yes, huge improvement in 2009 over 2008 in this regard. Not perfect yet, but much much closer!

This is exactly my point: Snapping walls is not accurate enough for hidden line rendering!

Why would you worry about aligning them "within" .001" or something: just snap, and they are where you want them. Move/snap them again if they aren't there yet...

This is exactly what I was doing: Just snap, do a hidden line rendering, move/snap them again if they aren't there yet, do a hidden line rendering, snap them again...

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Question - how many of you having this problem work with Zoom Line Thickness on?

Snapping is no where near as precise with Zoom Line Thickness on and I suspect that this may be the reason some of you are having problems. If you do this try turning that preference off and see if it makes a difference.

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The vectorworks approach is based on breaking multistory elements across multiple layers.

In my opinion, it's a poor choice.

Thanks for the clarification, I hadn't really thought out the implications. It seems like there'd be some thorns doing it the other way too, but I've never used a program that does it that way. Are there other drafting programs that do it that way?

Seems almost like damned if you do, damned if you don't: if you draw the (3-story) atrium wall on the first floor, but then have it print by "co-spatial components" on each floor plan, it starts sounding a lot like layers, with the exception that you have one "wall" (viewed as a bunch of identified co-spatial components) vs. a bunch of different walls, equivalent to your co-spatial components. The conversation started with seam lines in elevations: that issue could crop up or be solved in either of these scenarios...

Given that one can copy/paste-in-place the wall on as many layers as you want, and probably even OIP them all simultaneously if it came to it, I'm not sure I see the value of the co-spatial approach. And if there is an advantage, could it be met just as effectively by having some way of parametrically linking objects on different layers?

I'm not trying to be obtuse, I'm mostly arguing the details since I like watching the devils run around. Oh, and it's educational, forcing me to think about the inner workings of VW more deeply.

Keith

When i worked with Microstation a couple of years ago we were told to work in this way, for example put all facade walls in a separate layer and make them the correct height spanning all floors, i think part of the reason was to avoid these 'lines' when generating elevations....i sometimes do this for external 3D renderings when building quick models in vectorworks, it's faster when there are several rows/columns of windows on different floors (the problem then often is to select and move a certain row of windows in the 'middle' (there is no way to toggle through several objects that are directly over one another in VW to select a certain one).

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There are pros and cons to either way. The example below was done in Vw 9.5 six years ago. It contains a three storey height front wall from the first to third floor, with 2D walls used on the second and third floor plans. It is a split level building with three floors on the street and four floors towards the rear plus the flat on the roof.

Edited by mike m oz
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Vectorworks wants users to model a four story wall as four walls each on a different layer. That's why there are seams.

The logic underlying vectorworks layers prohibits objects from being members of multiple layers.

I agree. I am also of the opinion, that one wall, which covers several stories should be only one object, and only be drawn once. I have put some thought into how to seamlessly implement that philosophy into the Vectorworks universe and posted it into the wishlist forum. Please tell me what you think of it.

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I disagree. I want Vwks to provide a structurally accurate representation of my model so that the logic of the design remains intact.

How is Vwks supposed to extract the correct information from your faux curtain wall?

Does this put a kink in your BIM?

How about I click on the bad line and it is rendered invisible? That would make me happy in several circumstances. The program already does this during Hidden Line Rendering.

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I want Vwks to provide a structurally accurate representation of my model so that the logic of the design remains intact. How is Vwks supposed to extract the correct information from your faux curtain wall? Does this put a kink in your BIM?

Please read the thread in the wish list section. I cant think of any disadvantage to that approach. Why would you consider this faux or kinky? While the underlying philosophy is different (and much more efficient), it is still an accurate representation of the model and it should be easy to extract any information needed from walls like that.

How about I click on the bad line and it is rendered invisible? That would make me happy in several circumstances. The program already does this during Hidden Line Rendering.

I strongly disagree. It would help a little, but is a still an ugly crutch. Would you expect us to click the line again, the next time we render the view?

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Question - how many of you having this problem work with Zoom Line Thickness on?

Snapping is no where near as precise with Zoom Line Thickness on and I suspect that this may be the reason some of you are having problems. If you do this try turning that preference off and see if it makes a difference.

Yes, I have Zoom Line Thickness on, but it should not make a difference.

May I add this as an official wish list item:

Please can we have the collinearity check for hidden line rendering coupled to the General Display Unit setting. If you cant see the difference in the object info, it should be considered precise enough for hidden line rendering.

I think Vectorworks is trying to cut corners there. I suppose it always uses the same setting, for landscaping, architecture, machine design,... This does not make sense. There are tolerances in every industry for a very good reason. Trying to achieve and to maintain an unreasonably high precision is simply a waste of ressources, time and money.

There is nothing more frustrating, than to discover that all your sections and elevations are completely destroyed, because someone has done a design revision and introduced an error of 0,001mm to a building design. BIM is not usable this way.

Edited by Thomas Wagensommerer
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Working with Zoom Line Thickness on is not a good practice because it is slower and leads to errors like incorrect snaps. The latter occur because you can't see as clearly what you are snapping to. Its best used as a viewing option to visually check the drawing before printing or export.

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I dont think you can see an error of 0,001mm at any reasonable zoom level (for a building design) even with "Zoom Line Thickness" off. :(

And what l meant was, it should not make any difference. If the screen hint says "End point" it should be the end point, regardless of the "Zoom Line Thickness" setting.

In fact I am not shure if it makes any difference. But if it does, I would consider it a very severe bug.

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