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Imported symbol not showing in Sheets or Viewports


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Hi VWX community board,

I recently imported a VWX file from Martin that had all their symbols, and imported a couple of resources from that file into the resource browser of my active file. It showed up fine in my design layers, but, when I tried to view it in my previously created Sheets or Viewports, the fixtures do not show up. The class, circuit and fixture # labels show up, but not the actual symbol for the fixture. Can somebody please tell me what, if anything I did wrong such that the fixture is not visible in the Sheet and Viewports?

Thanks.

MJ

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Thanks, Pat! That did the trick! On a separate note, does anyone know how to edit the symbol and move the default position of a particular label, i.e. Fixture number? Currently, my symbol for MAC Aura is so small, and the fixture number label currently just sits pretty obstructively on the symbol. One can simply move the label in each fixture, but I'm looking for a global editing fix. And, Editing the 2D component of the symbol shows none of the labels.

Thanks.

mj

Edited by mjunderdog1
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Slightly off-topic, but maybe somebody could enlighten me upon this behaviour:

All my symbols are set to "Assign Custom Class 'Fixtures'" in the Symbol Options.

However, when inserting a Lighting Instrument, it gets assigned to the active class, regardless of the Symbol Options.

Does it make sense? Or, the other way round, what's the purpose of this Symbol Option?

Thanks,

Mario

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That is a little confusing.

The Lighting Instrument objects are not actually symbols. They contain symbols. They are actually parametric objects.

To see the difference, insert a lighting instrument normally with the Inst Insertion tool. Then insert the same symbol with the regular symbol insertion tool or insert it while not in the Spotlight workspace.

The symbol inserted as a symbol will have the class assignment you want, but it will be a dumb symbol. Look at it in 3D and (depending on which symbol) it will look even dumber.

The purpose of that symbol option is for other (not as smart as lighting instruments) symbols.

hth

mk

Edited by michaelk
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Michael,

well, I do know the difference between Plugin Object (containing a symbol) and a Symbol itself.

I'm just having a problem that the behaviour of VW has changed since 2009.

With 2009, double clicking a symbol in the Ressource Browser activated the Symbol Insertion tool, I inserted it and had to convert it to an Instrument later. Therefore I didn't have to care about what class was set active, and I pretty much got used to not caring about this.

In 2013, double clicking the symbol activates the Inst Insertion tool, so Lighting Devices now get inserted in the active class (which results to my Lighting Devices disappearing sometimes, because they got inserted in some other than my "Fixtures" class).

In 99%, I want my Lighting Devices to appear in my "Fixtures" class. That's the reason why I've set all my symbol to be assigned a certain class. To me it doesn't make much sense that the Inst Insertion tool just overrides this setting. ;-)

Mario

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Mario

I had forgotten how annoying that was in 2009! It drove me crazy.

That behavior was fixed in 2010 or 2011, so that double clicking an instrument in the RB activates the Symbol Insertion Tool.

I think your only option is a a scripting solution that gathers up all the instruments and assigns a class or make the fixture class active when you insert instruments.

mk

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No, I just will have to adapt to a proper behaviour in creating objects and watch their class assignment. Like it's meant to be.

But if anybody in charge reads this: It would be really cool if the Inst Insertion tool would use the Symbol Insertion Options of its designated symbol. (I could think of classes for Floor fixtures (upside down)/Hung Fixtures (regular), dimmable (Tungsten) or switchable (HMI, Moving Lights) fixtures.)

Also, when inserting a Lighting Instrument, the cursor only shows a locus, whereas with the Symbol Insertion tool selected, the cursor shows a representation of the symbol which is really helpful when you have to fit fixtures into small spaces.

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Also, when inserting a Lighting Instrument, the cursor only shows a locus, whereas with the Symbol Insertion tool selected, the cursor shows a representation of the symbol which is really helpful when you have to fit fixtures into small spaces.

I totally agree. I think having the Inst Insertion behave differently from the Symbol Insertion tool is buggish. Maybe not a full blown bug, but it feels like an inconsistant UI experience.

I think the Accessory Insertion Tool has a similar problem. The behavior used to be: click to place, click to set rotation and then the cursor would turn into a big target to let the user know there was a third action required. That has been replaced with a small + cursor and a tiny message near the mode bar. I'd like to see the target cursor come back for the 3rd click.

mk

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I have entered a bug about the lighting device not picking up the symbol class and we will take a look at this for a future version.

If you always place your fixtures in the same class you can set the Spotlight Preferences to always place the lighting devices in a specified class, or a class based on a parameter.

The accessory insertion tool was changed to use more standard object highlighting behavior to indicate which light has been selected. With the old cursor there was no indication of which light was selected, now the light that is picked will be highlighted when you move the cursor over it.

We had a lot of users complain that they did not know which light was picked when there were several instruments close by.

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Kevin

Good tip about Spotlight Preferences.

Is it possible to use the current indication behavior with the old cursor? I find that many users (me included!) miss the 3rd click because the cue that a third click is required is not big enough. Most Spotlight insertions are instruments, so the user gets into a 2 click mode and misses the 3rd click when beginning to insert accessories.

mk

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  • 3 weeks later...

I personally find it helpful to not have my instruments automatically inserted into a specific class. I have all my conventional symbols setup in my conventional class, and my movers setup in my movers class, etc. Then what I do if activate my Flown, Floor, or Set class and drop instruments into them. This is extremely helpful because now I can isolate my lights by Type or where they hung.

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