Fix Batch Rendering of Viewports

[Kevin McAllister]

Often I want to batch render multiple sheet layer viewports across multiple sheets. Almost every time I try (usually by selecting them in the viewport tab of the Navigation Palette and choosing Update) they render with different lighting or weird geometry artifacts. If I go through and render each one individually they render properly.

Why can't batch render just work? I don't understand why batch rendering is different than rendering them all individually.

Kevin

[PVA - Admin]

It isn't supposed to be any different at all, if it is then I consider that a bug.

Can you please send me any file that behaves this way for you to tech@vectorworks.net ATTN Jim, along with the batch output you got from it? I'll run the batch here, compare the results and submit.

[Kevin McAllister]

I'm bumping this thread. This needs to be fixed. I left my file to render overnight using update all Viewports and I woke up to 41 black squares. And I can't even render groups of them now to fix it because in the Navigation/Viewports when I right click Update is greyed out because Vectorworks thinks they are already up-to-date.... sigh....

Off to manually update sheet by sheet...

Kevin

Edited August 18, 2016 by Kevin McAllister

[PVA - Admin]

Do you see the same behavior in 2017? I did not when I tested yours and a few other files but I wanted to try it out on different hardware and resubmit if need be.

[Kevin McAllister]

I'll give it a try and see. So far VW2017 has been very well behaved. Day 3 and no crashes yet.

I did see a bunch of failed (black) renderings in VW2016 when exporting all my sheets out of a file to DWG. It occurred after VW asked if it should update the outdated viewports. It was a batch of sorts and they were way simpler viewports than the ones I've had trouble with in the past.

Kevin

[Kevin McAllister]

VW2017 doesn't seem to crash while batch rendering viewports but there's a lot of room for improvement with this function.  I wish -

 

- the command was rebuilt so it rendered viewports in sequence instead of sending one huge job to the render engine. This way if something goes wrong (eg. renderer crashes or user stops the render mid-way) you have some viewports rendered and some not, rather than just ending up with no rendered viewports at all.

- There should be a menu command "Render All Outdated Viewports". The current batch command re-renders viewports that are already up-to-date.

 

Kevin

[Kevin McAllister]

I'd also like a way to flag that a viewport needs updating. Often symbol edits don't cause viewports to go out of date when then should.

 

KM