*edited 28/06/18 - I have changed the title from "Annotations PDF output messy and imprecise" to something simpler in an attempt to get a response on this question*
This has been annoying me for a while. I've wondered if it's just me being pedantic, but this morning I got an email regarding a planning permission drawing I had submitted, asking if I could fix some linework because it didn't look like and was "imprecise". So, I don't think it's just me.
This wasn't a problem until I started generating elevations and sections from a 3d model, rather than drafting them manually in 2D. When you generate elevations in this way, there are often some lines you don't want, or missing lines that you do want. My method for fixing these (I can't seem to find a better one) is to do it in the annotations of the viewport. Where there's a missing bit of a line, I draw it on in the annotations layer, in the exact same lineweight as the "generated" lines, and snapping to those. So in theory, the join between the "generated" and "annotated" lines should be invisible. It isn't though; it never looks quite right, with the effect changing as you zoom in/out. This might be tolerable as long as the PDF output of the drawing - the one that I actually issue to people - were OK. But it's not; the same artifacts are visible in the PDF output.
Where there are lines that *shouldn't* be there, my solution is to blank them out with a white line in annotations. Using a white line of the same thickness in theory ought to make it invisible; in practice it doesn't. So instead I use a white line that's a bit thicker. This sort-of works. But also produces undesired artifacts. Some of which can be fixed by then drawing new correct lines on top. Soon you are chasing your tail covering up problems caused by attempts to mask other problems.
I'm going to post some screenshots of the particular case below.
This just isn't good enough. As far as I can make out there's no official way to correct errors in generated elevations. (I started a thread bout this previously, here). The method I am using causes new problems. The result of moving to a workflow where I generate drawings from a 3d model is that I am outputting drawings of lower quality than I was previously. It does create some time efficiencies but then much of this is lost if I then have to fiddle around doing fixes that don't quite work. In the end, to fix the drawing below, I masked off a whole section of it, and redrew it anew in the annotations.
One of Vectorworks' strengths is supposed to be the quality and controllability of the linework output. But it's lost when you start using the 3d workflow.
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*edited 28/06/18 - I have changed the title from "Annotations PDF output messy and imprecise" to something simpler in an attempt to get a response on this question*
This has been annoying me for a while. I've wondered if it's just me being pedantic, but this morning I got an email regarding a planning permission drawing I had submitted, asking if I could fix some linework because it didn't look like and was "imprecise". So, I don't think it's just me.
This wasn't a problem until I started generating elevations and sections from a 3d model, rather than drafting them manually in 2D. When you generate elevations in this way, there are often some lines you don't want, or missing lines that you do want. My method for fixing these (I can't seem to find a better one) is to do it in the annotations of the viewport. Where there's a missing bit of a line, I draw it on in the annotations layer, in the exact same lineweight as the "generated" lines, and snapping to those. So in theory, the join between the "generated" and "annotated" lines should be invisible. It isn't though; it never looks quite right, with the effect changing as you zoom in/out. This might be tolerable as long as the PDF output of the drawing - the one that I actually issue to people - were OK. But it's not; the same artifacts are visible in the PDF output.
Where there are lines that *shouldn't* be there, my solution is to blank them out with a white line in annotations. Using a white line of the same thickness in theory ought to make it invisible; in practice it doesn't. So instead I use a white line that's a bit thicker. This sort-of works. But also produces undesired artifacts. Some of which can be fixed by then drawing new correct lines on top. Soon you are chasing your tail covering up problems caused by attempts to mask other problems.
I'm going to post some screenshots of the particular case below.
This just isn't good enough. As far as I can make out there's no official way to correct errors in generated elevations. (I started a thread bout this previously, here). The method I am using causes new problems. The result of moving to a workflow where I generate drawings from a 3d model is that I am outputting drawings of lower quality than I was previously. It does create some time efficiencies but then much of this is lost if I then have to fiddle around doing fixes that don't quite work. In the end, to fix the drawing below, I masked off a whole section of it, and redrew it anew in the annotations.
One of Vectorworks' strengths is supposed to be the quality and controllability of the linework output. But it's lost when you start using the 3d workflow.
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