Truss Disappearing when changing z height

[Benedick_Miller]

Hi,

 

I have a clean install of Vectorworks Spotlight 2017 SP2. I have used the straight Truss tool to create a Lighting Position. This worked fine initially. Now when I change the z height of the truss the truss dissapears, in 3d and in Top/Plan view. I don't understand what is going on here. Any help much appreciated. See attached files for details.

diappearing_truss.mp4

benlight_demo_show01A.vwx

[markdd]

What's happening as that the height change is causing the position to refresh to a symbol that does not or no longer exists in your plot. If you change the symbol name in the Lighting Position Object to the same as the truss symbol that you have made in the resource browser then all works as you would expect.

 

Hope that helps

 

Mark

 

[Benedick_Miller]

Hi Mark,

 

Thank you. I also got the same answer from Vectorworks Support (Germany). This fixes it.

 

I have to say: who knew?! Is this a documented feature of Spotlight? I did indeed change the symbol name in the resources manager at some point after creating the lighting position. I have often edited symbol names for symbols I have created, in Vectorworks Fundamentals, and the symbols stay linked to the symbol names. This is the first time I have changed a symbol name for a Spotlight Lighting Position Symbol. There was no warning when I did this. The drawing looked the same until I edited the z height of this position, at which point it just disappeared without any error message or explanation. Now that I know that if I want to change a symbol name for a spotlight object, lighting position, lighting fixture etc. I will need to go to each instance of the symbol and enter the new symbol name in the info palette. Is this really a desired feature of Vectorworks Spotlight? It feels like this goes against the normal behaviour of vectorworks symbols.

 

Edited March 17, 2017 by Benedick_Miller