Truss Disappearing When Converted To Lighting Position

[souldeviant]

Hi,

I am a new VW user and trying to use it for a show I have later this month. I have created .dwg files of eurotruss FD34 and have drawn the truss structures I need. However when I group the truss and convert to a lighting position the symbol disappears from the Top/Plan view. I have tried it with VW truss too and the same happens. No idea what I am doing wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[Tamsin Slatter]

Hi

It sounds like you may have 3D only elements in your truss. Objects within VW are usually hybrid, meaning they have a 2D and a 3D representation sandwiched into the same object. You need to draw a 2D representation as well as the 3D version, select both and create a symbol (Modify > Create Symbol). You can then nominate the insertion point as you wish, snap together the number of lengths you want, select them all and use Modify > Group. When they are grouped, you can convert them to a Light Position. in Top/Plan, the 2D part of the symbol will be displayed. In 3D, the 3D element will be displayed.

Hope that helps

[souldeviant]

Hi Tamsin,

Thanks for that I copied the 3D polygon and broke it into lines to create a 2D symbol and it solved the problem. However once it became a hybrid object I was no longer able to manipulate it outside of the Z axis. Still not exactly sure why I can't do this, so I believe a work around is to create everything with the 3D objects and then change to my hybrid symbols once the plan is drawn to enable lighting position selection. I feel like I'm fighting against the program to get out of it what I need? Thank you very much for your help though

[Tamsin Slatter]

Hi

I'm not sure what you mean about not being able to manipulate outside the Z axis? Can you describe in a little more detail what you want to do and I'll do my best to help.

You can change the Z value on the object Info palette. Do you mean that you need to change the hanging angle? If so, you have two options:

Change the hanging angle on the object info palette, but this will not give you the correct laid down view or hang all the lights at the correct Z height

OR

Use Create Plot and Model View - this is the element I showed you during our online session - this creates viewports of the elements and allows you to have an angled model with a laid down top/plan view.

[bcd]

Rotation of a Hybrid Symbol is only possible about the z-axis.

If you need to use a truss as your Lighting Position, and you need it to be rotated about the x axis hen it's best to take advantage of the Straight Truss tool. It allows variable hanging angles and provides dynamic 2d geometry to match the 3d object in Top/Plan view.

In Front View you can drag your instruments to the correct height

[souldeviant]

Hi Tasmin,

The problem i'm having is in our every day business we need to create 3D plans of our events so we can acurately take measurements of the truss structures and subsequently produce truss lists for our warehouse crew to prepare. With Wysiwyg we can do this very quickly and easily as working in the various views with the truss is simple. In vectorworks I have managed a similar approach but only if I use 3D symbols which allow me to rotate the truss in any axis I need too. However when I then create a lighting position with the 3D symbols as aforementioned they disappear from the plan view. If I draw in a 2D symbol then they become hybrid and I am again unable to rotate along all axis of a 3D space. We need to use the truss library of Expotruss I have created in Cad to guarantee our measurements and counts are correct. This is the way we are used to working and producing subsequent truss count reports with Wysiwyg is very easy. However we want to use Vectorworks for the more professional draughting elements we believe it will give us with training. However we don't understand why there is the difference between the 2D world and 3D world when it comes to VW symbols and why the plan view will refuse to see the top view of a 3D symbol in the same way.

Using the truss tool does not give us the accuracy in transfering from a plan to an actual truss count that using 3D versions of the truss we have gives us, including corner blocks and such.

Secondary to that we need to produce acurate 2D plots with various elements required for our lighting crews to follow on jobs, we're just struggling to understand why there are such different worlds in Vectorworks. Hopefully with training we will understand more. If it will help I can send you a plan I am working on to try and highlight the way we work and what we are looking for. We received a plot today in VW and we're able to replicate the truss design in Wysiwyg very quickly and could an accurate truss count and compare that to our stock. We need this to be possible in Vectorworks or be very efficient in the method to work around.

I hope this makes sense and thank you for all your help so far

[souldeviant]

I guess another work around would be to draw a bar ontop or next to the 3D truss and label that as a lighting position?

[bcd]

Yes, just be sure to make your bar from 2 objects (2d and 3d)

[RickR]

You might not need to covert your truss to positions.

WYSIWYG strongly prefers fixtures to be on hanging objects. VW really doesn't care much. It's nice to organize your fixtures but you can label the fixtures with a position even if it doesn't exist. Positions do speed placement, but since you're using sloped truss it won't do that much anyway.

I've found the more complex and creative work you do the less the automated tools help. IMHO: Knowing when to drop to a simpler method is a key part of learning any software.

[souldeviant]

Hi RIck, thanks for that, I guess as i'm trying to learn the basics and the way VW works I didn't consider that simply not using the tools and using it the way I need to will work.

I now need to find a way to produce a truss count from the Expotruss symbols I have created. If I can crack that then everything else should fall into place with training.

Thanks again

[bcd]

You can set up a worksheet to count them

[RickR]

I use worksheets to count stuff all the time.

I limit the objects to a class i.e Lights, Positions, Truss

Then set the worksheet to only look there. Several years ago I put up file in the resource share of this forum. It has a fixture count worksheet.

The attached file is a favorite where I keep my current ones and tweak them after importing to a particular project. You'll need to adapt the Layer & Class names to suit your work.

[Jane]

Hi Tamsin, I created light positions using this technique, but when I add lights to the position, they snap to the 0 level pipe, not to the one in the air.... Any suggestions? It's a bummer to have to move all the lights from the ground to the pipe.

"It sounds like you may have 3D only elements in your truss. Objects within VW are usually hybrid, meaning they have a 2D and a 3D representation sandwiched into the same object. You need to draw a 2D representation as well as the 3D version, select both and create a symbol (Modify > Create Symbol). You can then nominate the insertion point as you wish, snap together the number of lengths you want, select them all and use Modify > Group. When they are grouped, you can convert them to a Light Position. in Top/Plan, the 2D part of the symbol will be displayed. In 3D, the 3D element will be displayed.

Hope that helps "

[Thomas Peters]

It disappears because there's only a 3D component to the symbol- when you make it a position it shows the 2D object in Plan View.

I'm struggling with a similar problem with my Prolyte symbols at the moment.

Do you need to create a lighting position? You could just stick the fixtures on the truss as is.