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X Fence Lines


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Has anyone figured out (whether by nefarious hacking or third-party plugins) how to draw a proper fence line? By which I mean the X-X-X- type.

I need a good excuse as to why VW can't do this, as I can see my boss saying "So you can do all this amazing stuff but can't put an X in a line type?!" and my only rebuttal of Duplicate Along Path will be laughed out the room as it's a terrible workaround.

Any help greatly appreciated.

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Thank you Ben but that's almost as ridiculous as using Duplicate Along Path, especially when in comparison to the alternative CAD softwares that are being pushed here at the office. Unfortunately all the other benefits gained from VW are quickly forgotten about when such basic drafting is made so overly complex.

PS I should note that this isn't something I'm personally bothered about and if it were up to me, wouldn't mind using what is provided. It's the (still hand-drafting-minded) bosses that I need to persuade.

Edited by highpass
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Brudgers: That's the thing; it meets my personal needs entirely. It's pleasing those of the old-school persuasion that's proving difficult because if they see something taking more clicks or more work than they're used to, they think they're losing money and that's fair enough. My point i suppose is that i believe our company would be better off with VW and so am saddened about it being hindered by such silly things.

Whatever the weather, "X-" is the US National CAD standard fence dash type and NNA ought make note of that.

Mike: Indeed, I'd pay for it myself let alone via the Firm. Regardless I've mailed the French distributors to see what we can do.

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Thanks David,

The NNA copywrite indicates that this plug-in has been around since 2001. I have even asked tech support for such a tool and they did not know it existed. This 2D path object is all about piping run symbols, but as you suggested it was easy to change to include a "Fence" line with an "X".

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It's kind of sad that this made my day, but it did nonetheless. Thanks a lot David.

PS The response from the French distributors was that they cannot provide it outside of the full French (or German) product because of interdependencies and protection issues. They coded it themselves.

Edited by highpass
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PS The response from the French distributors was that they cannot provide it outside of the full French (or German) product because of interdependencies and protection issues. They coded it themselves.

That is disappointing to hear Highpass. I find it hard to accept that NNA can't see the value in providing tools like the French version's Special Ligne and Bank tools as part of the standard 2D tool set.

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At least with Windoor users can have it if they want it because it is available as a pay for third party plug in. Not so with the French version's Special Ligne and Bank tools.

With Vw having such a strong 2D capability and large 2D user base it seems foolish to ignore the demand for tools like these two. They would enhance Vw's capability and make it more appealing to users.

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With Vw having such a strong 2D capability and large 2D user base it seems foolish to ignore the demand for tools like these two. They would enhance Vw's capability and make it more appealing to users.

Not to mention making VW compatible with the US CAD Standards (and UK too I believe). We have all this lovely auto-classing to standard yet can't draw a proper fence. Our company and many others have certain government jobs that require these standards and as stupid as it may sound, the wrong fence type means an entire job gets rejected.

I mentioned to NNA France that there are a number of people interested in it here in hopes they'll realise they can either help out or make a little extra profit.

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mar, what you are showing is part of the Australian content in Architect so is only available to Vectorworks Architect Australia users (we also use a / rather than an X for fences).

The request was for a fence tool within the base version of Vectorworks. I extended that thought to a 'Special Line' tool like the French Vw version has to provide additional flexibility, and also suggested that the 'Bank' tool be included as well. Both are fairly basic needs which it is not unreasonable to expect a modern program would have capabilities for.

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If you only need straight line segments I have a tool on the Vector Depot site that will let you place text or symbols into the line. It isn't quite automatic (you have to set the number of instances of your letter) but it will do something like the example mar showed above

Check the bottom of this page for the Broken Line plug-in

http://www.vectordepot.com/older_plug-ins.html'>http://www.vectordepot.com/older_plug-ins.html

p.

Patrick McConnell

http://www.vectordepot.com

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