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Distance from origin


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In VW, I hear that the maximum distance from origin is about 2 or 3 miles. ( it starts to round calculations- all programs have a limit i think)  Anything outside of that can make Vectorworks act unexpectedly and give inaccurate information.  I sometimes do surveys with VW and once in a while a large job gets much bigger than expected.  I called tech support, they were not positive on the real number, is there anyway to find out  EXACTLY what that number is so i can make sure i am not having errors?

I also hear that some other programs can go about 20 miles from origin.  Are there any plans for VW to improve on this anytime in the future?  if not, can you mention it to the landmark guys. maybe someday they can make it happen.:))   

Thanks

ric

VW 2017

macbook PRO early 2016 version

16g ram

2gb video

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

There is no exact limit. The limit will decrease depending on how many objects, or how complex the geometry that makes up those object is, within your file. This is why there is no hard limit that stops you, because simple enough files will not always encounter problems far from the origin as more complex ones will. (The Unit settings will also not affect this limit, as the underlying unit used to measure distance in Vectorworks is always millimeters but for the users benefit they are converted automatically when you select an alternate unit like Feet/Inches or Miles.)

This limit will increase as we upgrade the backend portions of Vectorworks, but nothing specific is ready or immediately in the development pipeline the moment.

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49 minutes ago, JimW said:

The limit will decrease depending on how many objects, or how complex the geometry that makes up those object is, within your file.

 

I don't understand this.

O.o

 

I understand legacy linear workspaces that have the same resolution everywhere but you are limited in size,

I understand common non-linear workspaces that will have less resolution as you go far from origin but

are infinite.

 

But how could I ever imagine that a rising amount of objects could eat up accuracy ?

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I slightly understand floating point numbers and there problems with accuracy.

 

I just do not get together how the number of objects will have any influence on overall precision.

Like 1 Column precise, 1.000.000.000 Columns, less precise.

But I think you meant something else.

 

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  • 1 year later...

After reading this KB Article on Working with Origins and this thread (and others) about issues that arise when drawing elements are located far away from the Internal Origin, I remember seeing this post from 2001 about Vectorworks 9 by @Andrew Bell@NV

 

Quote from that post (underline emphasis mine):

Quote

What happened in 9.0.0 is that VW switched to a 64-bit floating point format for storing coordinate values, as opposed to the 32-bit integers of VW 8 and before. This gives much greater precision and range in the values (you can model the solar system and still model a building on Earth), so you never have to worry about losing precision while rotating, changing scale, etc.

 

As we're advised in that KB Article to keep drawing elements within about 15,000 feet (4.5 km) of the internal origin, I don't see how we could quote 'model the solar system and still model a building on earth'. 

 

From another post about one of the new features in Vectorworks 9 (underline emphasis mine again):

Quote

"Increased Precision and Accuracy

VectorWorks 9 now supports a 64-bit floating point coordinate system that increases both the maximum precision and range of drawing coordinates. Now you can have a wide range of scales in a single drawing, and there is no limit to the size of objects you can create. In addition, changing units, layer scale, and drawing size no longer affects the drawing accuracy. "

 

Currently there definitely appears to be a limit to the size of objects / projects that you can create in Vw, contrary to what was said about the introduction of 64-bit floating point in Vectorworks 9.

Edited by rDesign
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I thought this was going to be the Why have a distinction between User and Internal Origin discussion?

 

It's clearly puffery to say floating point can handle solar system scale modelling. As you get further away from the middle the step from one binary numbers to next gets larger and rounding error translating to screen panel co-ordinates get bigger as a result.

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Yes, normally it works by assuming that when building solar systems,

you may need less accuracy for modeling earths than you may need

for jewelry.

 

In the past Microstation also had a fixed drawing grid.

So you had to level between internal system units and your working units

according to the dimensions of your project to get the best resolution.

(I liked this)

Until long ago they also switched to an "infinite" coordinate system like

Autocad had. You can still set working units/resolution and separate

resolution for your Solids Geometry max size.

 

So basically I think to understand how VWs drawing space works and why

Geometry should center on internal Origin.

It is more that I do not understand why ACAD and others have NO problems

when Geometry is not centered. All DWG files I get in or open in a DWG App

that are in world location coordinates are very far from origin.

Do they automatically adjust the internal origin according to your geometry ?

Edited by zoomer
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On 5/24/2018 at 1:36 PM, zoomer said:

It is more that I do not understand why ACAD and others have NO problems

when Geometry is not centered. All DWG files I get in or open in a DWG App

that are in world location coordinates are very far from origin.

Do they automatically adjust the internal origin according to your geometry ? 

The World Coordinate System in DWG bases software (AutoCAD, Bricscad etc.) is similar to the Internal Origin in Vectorworks and is fixed/hardcoded and cannot be changed by the user (except for hacking and rewriting that part of the software code).

 

It is just that Acad and the likes are apparently more efficient in handling such large numbers than VW. That being said.... for 2D (e.g. GIS related) this should not be an issue because since VW 2014 or 2015 I haven't noticed issues with geometry as used to be the case in older version of VW. I can easily be 500+ km (300+ miles) away from origin without issues. Exports show up correctly in GIS and other software.

 

One thing to check for is whether the georeferencing information is correct as there can be issues with that at times. E.g. in the past the false easting of UTM was ignored, which got corrected. With VW2017 I had an issue with georeferenced images not importing at the proper size depending on the georeference, but this seems to have been fixed too. So you may want to do a test and check with e.g. QGIS (free) whether the coordinates are correct for the coordinate system you are using, there might be a bug somewhere that only shows up under certain circumstances.

 

For 3D it will depend on the amount of geometry and how complex it is and some other things, but most of the time I haven't noticed issues with that being kilometers/miles away from origin either.

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