Classes and Extrudes

[Kevin McAllister]

I just had something very weird happen and I wonder if it should be bug submitted. I had an extrude that wasn't showing up properly in a sheet layer viewport. Its texture would render but its linework wouldn't. After some investigation I discovered the extrude was in a class that was turned on but the polygon used to create the extrude was in a different class that was turned off.

It seems odd to me that it's possible to class an extrude and its source polygon differently. This situation seems fraught with peril.

Is this expected behaviour or a bug?

Kevin

[michaelk]

This has bothered me for a while, too.

I always assumed that it was meant to behave like symbols or groups: if you had more than one object in the extrude and they were of different classes, it would behave like a symbol.

But it doesn't.

Draw two rectangles. Put one in a class called 'Red' and another in a class called 'Blue' with appropriate fill colors. Make sure the none class is active. Select both and extrude.

They retain their graphic attributes. Which makes you suspect that if you make the Blue class invisible, the blue cube will go away. But it doesn't. If you make both Red and Blue classes invisible, they both vanish. But if one class is visible, both objects are visible.

Making either class grey has no effect.

My vote is that this behavior is unexpected. (bug)

mk

Edited May 25, 2014 by michaelk

[Andy Broomell]

I've run into this issue as well and it seems to be more common as of late. I agree that having the source polygon class not match the extrude class is fraught with peril!

What I believe happens is that the extrude is created on the active class, while the source polygon remains on whatever class it was already on.

Surely it must be a bug because I don't remember this always being the case.

I'm also noticing now that if you then take the extrude and assign it to a different class, the source polygon(s) also take on the new class and all is well.

[Kevin McAllister]

I always assumed that it was meant to behave like symbols or groups: if you had more than one object in the extrude and they were of different classes, it would be have like a symbol.

Yes, I wondered if the extrude was behaving like a container just like groups or symbols. I've also had some class weirdness involving auto hybrids, another type of container. If you turn off a class in an auto hybrid it doesn't necessarily turn off since the change would require the auto hybrid to regenerate.

In my original example I was surprised to have the surface texture render but not the edges....

KM

[michaelk]

I think it's been like this for years?.

Here's a discussion on the topic from 2009!

https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=27383&Number=133200#Post133200

mk

[Kevin McAllister]

Michael, I expect you're right. There's that long winded dialog that pops up when you change the class of a group asking how you want to treat the elements within (I prefer it to ask). I usually choose yes but in this instance I specifically chose no. That's when all the weird rendering popped up. Its not a workflow I use often hence my surprise.

Kevin

[PVA - Admin]

I don't see any reason to allow the source geometry to reside in a different class than the extrude since it doesn't behave consistently as symbols/groups do when classed different than their components as described in the posts above.

Submitting as an issue now. If it comes back as not a bug I'll file a feature request to default to change all source geometry to the extrudes class without the user having to do it manually.

This is especially needed when users can use push/pull to create extrudes quickly. It isn't as obvious what the class of the planar objects are and aren't since you don't even need to select them first to make extrudes from them, they just class themselves automatically into the active class.

Though that leads me to a test result that seems wrong:

If I have 3 rectangles in 3 separate classes, then make the None class active, using the push/pull tool on each of these rectangles places them all in the None class, where I would assume most users would want them to remain in their original 3 classes?

Or am I just in need of more overpriced caffeinated drinks?

Edited May 23, 2014 by JimW

[Bruce Kieffer]

I run into this all the time. It can be frustrating.

[michaelk]

Jim

I would expect that using the push pull tool on an object in a non active class would not change the class of the object.

mk