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Structural member / column: resets to zero height when 3d attributes changed


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Try this in blank document:

 

Create a column with the structural member tool.

 

It'll have a Z height, looks like default is layer wall height.

 

Go to its settings dialogue, "3D attributes" tab.

 

Change "set attributes:" from "object" to "class".

 

The column immediately flips to zero height (even if you don't change the "class" from the default) and the "start bound" and "end bound" dropdowns in the OIP are blanked out.

 

Is this a known bug?

 

 

***edited to add:

(1) with column same seems to happen if I change "set attributes" to "class" in the 2D attributes tab,

(2) the beam version of the structural member tool survives these processes.

(3) setting "2D attributes" by class seems to have no effect on rendering of beam in top/plan view. Only setting the class of the object itself achieves this.

(4) with beam, having changed 3d attributes to "class" I can't seem to then change them back to by "object"

Edited by line-weight
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SP3 had huge changes for this tool listed in it's release notes, and I got quite excited to start using it again.

 

Either we're all using it wrong, and therefore could do with a tutorial video series to educate us.... I would suggest the dev team show us how it should work, Surely they would have a lot of videos from their testing phase? Or maybe, and I'm being a little cynical here, it got rushed through development and testing again without a thought for the end user's costs.

 

(I've nearly ordered a lot of expensive steel based on this tool, but we double checked and realised that instead I'd have to write off two studio days of work and do them again "long-handed" which cost us more than my VSS subscription did in the end.)

 

I'm also getting a lot of co-incident duplicates as well. I'm not able to replicate, but I come across two or three members all overlaying each other. I know I only placed one, so goodness only knows where the new ones come from. They ruin worksheets :(  & reports

Edited by RussU
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SP3 release notes included a myriad of extra love and fixes especially for Structural Members.

Haven't needed and used  them so far since SP3, but I was convinced SM would be one of the

most reliable tools in VW now.

Seems to be not that easy.

 

But what frightens me most is that Marissa can't even reproduce that behavior we all have.

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  • Marionette Maven

Kevin,

 

With your file, I am also getting the alert, however you can get it out of that state by changing your elevation values in the preferences in the Geometry pane, so it's not REALLY unusable and probably still WAD because of the ability to modify your preferences back into a usable state. I'm not sure that we would want to force different height references on a user, the error message will inform the user that they are trying to place something of zero height which would prompt them to check those values. I can also say that it will go into that state if you try to insert it onto a sheet layer with referenced elevations because sheet layers have no 3D references.

 

I however still cannot get it into that state on my own. There appears to have been an issue reported and resolved about users not being alerted when they attempted to create a zero length/height member, the error alert is new is SP3, but it wasn't due to any circumstances that you guys have mentioned about just getting that error when placing a member, it was more due to people not realizing that they couldn't draw a member of zero length.

 

I so far still cannot log this as a bug since it is behaving how I would expect it to considering the circumstances. If we can find a reproducible case where I can get it into the zero length/height state while using the tool correctly, then I can report it, but so far that isn't the case.

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  • Marionette Maven

Could anyone with this problem please do the following for me -

 

In a new, blank document, activate the structural member tool and go to its preferences

In the 'Geometry' pane, what do the defaults for 'Elevation' say?

 

After that, please try to reproduce your issue, and then again tell me what you see in 'Elevation'

 

I really, reaaaalllyyyyy want to track this down.

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15 minutes ago, MarissaF said:

Kevin,

 

With your file, I am also getting the alert, however you can get it out of that state by changing your elevation values in the preferences in the Geometry pane, so it's not REALLY unusable and probably still WAD because of the ability to modify your preferences back into a usable state. I'm not sure that we would want to force different height references on a user, the error message will inform the user that they are trying to place something of zero height which would prompt them to check those values. I can also say that it will go into that state if you try to insert it onto a sheet layer with referenced elevations because sheet layers have no 3D references.

 

Interesting, in the file I posted the other layers now show up in the drop-downs for Elevation Start and End Bounds. This wasn't happening before. Can you post a screen shot of what you changed the elevations to so it would work? I have tried every combination without success. The issue seems to be linked to when I'm in column mode and the column height box in the mode bar is greyed out like so - 58f8e25a255e5_ScreenShot2017-04-20at9_30_11AM.png.dda06750d41f814615a7432418097a45.png

 

15 minutes ago, MarissaF said:

 

I however still cannot get it into that state on my own. There appears to have been an issue reported and resolved about users not being alerted when they attempted to create a zero length/height member, the error alert is new is SP3, but it wasn't due to any circumstances that you guys have mentioned about just getting that error when placing a member, it was more due to people not realizing that they couldn't draw a member of zero length.

 

Ha ha well it is actually possible to draw a zero length structural member as there's one in my file :D

 

Many thanks,

 

Kevin

 

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11 minutes ago, MarissaF said:

Could anyone with this problem please do the following for me -

 

In a new, blank document, activate the structural member tool and go to its preferences

In the 'Geometry' pane, what do the defaults for 'Elevation' say?

 

After that, please try to reproduce your issue, and then again tell me what you see in 'Elevation'

 

I really, reaaaalllyyyyy want to track this down.

I've followed those instructions, and had an opening layer wall height of 0

 

With a beam, the geometry read 0 and 0.

With a column it was 0 and 2438

It all behaved quite normally, but i did get the zero length error if I had 0 and 0 in the geometry tab (maybe have an error check that start > end at that point...

 

But then I played with the layer wall height (at 3m) and the start, end and changed to layer wall height... the offsets should be from this reference, but when you put varying values in the start and end, AND the z value, things start leaping around... I managed to get a zero length member with no warning at all.

 

Sorry.. on PC I can't replicate...

 

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17 minutes ago, MarissaF said:

Could anyone with this problem please do the following for me -

 

In a new, blank document, activate the structural member tool and go to its preferences

In the 'Geometry' pane, what do the defaults for 'Elevation' say?

 

After that, please try to reproduce your issue, and then again tell me what you see in 'Elevation'

 

I really, reaaaalllyyyyy want to track this down.

Here are before -

 

58f8e35bd3a30_ScreenShot2017-04-20at9_34_22AM.png.d5118d4c165926ce7bf153b350284d2a.png

 

And after -

 

58f8e35f519e5_ScreenShot2017-04-20at9_35_06AM.png.515187cb0881d18a307a08784785ce7e.png

 

All I did in between is exit the dialog, switch to the column mode, edit the preferences to switch to Member Type: Concrete and exit the preferences.

 

Kevin

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  • Marionette Maven
8 minutes ago, Kevin McAllister said:

 

Interesting, in the file I posted the other layers now show up in the drop-downs for Elevation Start and End Bounds. This wasn't happening before. Can you post a screen shot of what you changed the elevations to so it would work? I have tried every combination without success. The issue seems to be linked to when I'm in column mode and the column height box in the mode bar is greyed out like so - 58f8e25a255e5_ScreenShot2017-04-20at9_30_11AM.png.dda06750d41f814615a7432418097a45.png

 

 

Ha ha well it is actually possible to draw a zero length structural member as there's one in my file :D

 

Many thanks,

 

Kevin

 

 

All I did was change the start and end bounds popups to 'layer elevation' and made sure that the end offset did not match the start offset.

When I opened your file, the popup fields were blank, which is probably what was causing the issue, however I can't get anything myself to end up like that.

 

I have noooo idea how you drew your zero length member. I so far have consistently been thwarted by the alert when I try.

 

There's probably something here, we just need to track down how to get me to consistently reproduce it :) 

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  • Marionette Maven

I don't think the preferences change during that process, though, I think they are just ignored. When I insert a beam, those values still persist in both the OIP and the preferences window. I don't think that's it.

 

EDIT: the beams, etc. CAN still use those bounds for their beginning and end points.

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39 minutes ago, MarissaF said:

Could anyone with this problem please do the following for me -

 

In a new, blank document, activate the structural member tool and go to its preferences

In the 'Geometry' pane, what do the defaults for 'Elevation' say?

 

After that, please try to reproduce your issue, and then again tell me what you see in 'Elevation'

 

I really, reaaaalllyyyyy want to track this down.

 

I opened a blank document, selected SM column tool, and went straight to its preferences before trying to place it. I get this:

 

58f8e8ad89a86_ScreenShot2017-04-20at17_55_24.jpg.6bd4bde78bd1a743bdea488cefc4db5b.jpg

 

Then when I try and place the column... it won't let me, gives me the zero-length error.

 

If I then go back into the preferences I get:

 

58f8e915aa7ee_ScreenShot2017-04-20at17_56_13.jpg.7be5d6d1c3152d5973a3c92937b0e15f.jpg

 

I'm now really confused about where that 2438 has come from because I'm sure when I did it before, it initially set it at zero height (?? may be wrong there)

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Whenever I try to do any changes in Settings Dialog of (Concrete) Member,

it looses height settings to Levels and I can set them again.

 

Another issue for me is "3D Attributes" where setting appearance of components

will be completely ignored.

I would like to put my Members into a common Container Class like I do with Walls,

Windows, Symbols and such, but have Components set to their own Classes.

 

EDIT

I have the same problems with Steel as well.

Edited by zoomer
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hello everyone,

 

I'm one of the developers of the Structural Member tool (and yes, I'm aware that it's not working as well as it should be :(). Like Marissa, I'm so far unable to reproduce the issues mentioned in this thread. Could those of you reporting them try temporarily moving your user folder so that Vectorworks uses the default settings and then seeing if you can still reproduce the problem?

 

(If you aren't sure how to do that, please don't try -- I don't want to be the cause of anyone messing up their workflow.)

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11 hours ago, JackG said:

Hello everyone,

 

I'm one of the developers of the Structural Member tool (and yes, I'm aware that it's not working as well as it should be :(). Like Marissa, I'm so far unable to reproduce the issues mentioned in this thread. Could those of you reporting them try temporarily moving your user folder so that Vectorworks uses the default settings and then seeing if you can still reproduce the problem?

 

(If you aren't sure how to do that, please don't try -- I don't want to be the cause of anyone messing up their workflow.)

 

Hi.

 

I tried temporarily moving my user folder.

 

The problem I describe in my initial post, relating to the column flipping to zero height, seemed no longer to exist. When I put my user folder back, and tried again, the problem reappeared.

 

Happy to send you the contents of my user folder if it would help decipher what is happening.

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17 hours ago, JackG said:

Hello everyone,

 

I'm one of the developers of the Structural Member tool (and yes, I'm aware that it's not working as well as it should be :(). Like Marissa, I'm so far unable to reproduce the issues mentioned in this thread. Could those of you reporting them try temporarily moving your user folder so that Vectorworks uses the default settings and then seeing if you can still reproduce the problem?

 

(If you aren't sure how to do that, please don't try -- I don't want to be the cause of anyone messing up their workflow.)

 

I tried removing my User Folder and the tool seems to work fine. Switching back to my old user folder makes the problem reappear.

Kevin

 

(@JimWis the collection of undiscarded Web View preview folders in the User Folder an known issue? I mentioned it before in a thread on Web View. I was reminded of it again here as I looked at my User Folder. I currently have 6 of these folders created by VW.)

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
1 minute ago, Kevin McAllister said:

(@JimWis the collection of undiscarded Web View preview folders in the User Folder an known issue? I mentioned it before in a thread on Web View. I was reminded of it again here as I looked at my User Folder. I currently have 6 of these folders created by VW.)


Not sure, I'll check. I wipe my preferences back to default so often for testing that very little has time to accumulate in mine.

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3 hours ago, JimW said:


Not sure, I'll check. I wipe my preferences back to default so often for testing that very little has time to accumulate in mine.

Thanks Jim. I appreciate it. Web View previews should likely delete themselves or always overwrite the same folder. I suspect the challenge is VW doesn't know when the user has closed their browser window.

KM

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
17 minutes ago, Kevin McAllister said:

Thanks Jim. I appreciate it. Web View previews should likely delete themselves or always overwrite the same folder. I suspect the challenge is VW doesn't know when the user has closed their browser window.

KM

 

 

What sizes are these subfolders reporting as by the way?

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