Plants and Bugs

[shasta]

I've got 2 jucy ones here:

1) Plant Symbols- When creating plant definitions, does the program autmatically scale the symbols to the value set in 'Appearance: Spread"? In other words, should a symbol be created with a 1' diameter so that when Spread is set to 6' it will be drawn on the plan at 6' in scale (ie. 6/8" in 1/8th scale)? Or should the symbol be edited to be 6' in scale manually? This is important if some drawings or sheets are at very different scales. It would be a nightmare to make new plant catalogs for each scale.

2) A Bug? - Try this: I wanted to make a generic plant definition to come back to later and assign a plant. I named it 'narrow conifer' gave it a code of 'NC' and chose the symbol 'Shrb1Tp' (which I had pulled from the 'Old Plant Libraries' folder). When I went back to the Plant Placment tool and dropped one in, I got a black and white symbol at the insertion point AND a color version a few inches up and to the right of the insertion point. They could not be separated. Thinking that the symbol may be messed up, I double clicked to edit it. I selected 'path' (and later 'profile' on a second try) was taken to the edit mode where I saw NOTHING to edit. When I hit 'Exit Symbol' I immediately got a slew of Runtime errors and was bounced out of VWL. This has been repeatable. Any ideas before I send this to the bug forum?

[Robert Anderson]

Juicy, Schmuicy!

1. No matter what size your symbol is, it will be scaled to the (real world) size defined by the Spread dimension. Plant catalog entries should work at any scale. If you have any files which suggest otherwise, please send them to me.

2. Two questions here:

2.1. Do you see the same error when you use one of the "Standard" symbols?

2.2. If so, have you by any chance moved the user origin in this file?

[shasta]

1. No, I was just curious. The manual is mute on this subject. With AutoCAD it's best to make make symbols at 1' and then scale them for each plant type as you insert them.

2. I have not had a problem with the standard symbols, but I just tried it with another symbol from the 'old plants' folder and the same thing happened.I need more symbols than are contained in the standard ones....

What is the user origin?

[Thom]

Shasta

I had many symbols I had created in 9.5 and still find it cleaner to recreate a new symbol pack by duplicating, renaming, and modifying the symbols provided in 10. I get less errors etc.

[shasta]

Tvetter: Can I insert a symbol from the 'old plant' folder into a v10 drawing, select it, choose 'make symbol' and give it a new name? Will that re-define it, or do I have to actually draw all new symbols?

What is a symbol pack?

" still find it cleaner to recreate a new symbol pack "

[ 12-19-2002, 09:52 PM: Message edited by: shasta ]

[Thom]

By pack, I just meant all my symbols. I did not try the method you mentioned. I think it probably would work fine.

My philosophy is that the program has been rewritten enought that I want to start clean. I did try to import my symbols etc for 9.5 and was mildly successful, but created too many error messages for my liking. Could have been a result of learning the new setup of ver 10.

[Robert Anderson]

Shasta: if you import a symbol, it stays a symbol. You don't have to use the "Make Symbol" command. The issue here is twofold:

1. The Plant object looks for the first (i.e. backmost) "fillable" shape (i.e. a closed shape, not lines or arcs or groups) in the 2D plant symbol. This is the shape that gets colored and the shape that is duplicated for shadows, etc. Many of the old symbols didn't have a single fillable shape -- they were kind of cobbled together with groups, etc. They looked OK, but their geometry was kind of scattered and imprecise. The "new" basic symbols are all consistent in this regard.

2. You can now use a symbol as the "graphic source" for a plant, but the plant is not limited in the same way that symbols are. You can assign different colors and patterns to the plants and they will retain them. With this flexibility, it's hoped that you might need fewer symbols, which allow only a single visibility.

For more details on the symbols' graphic requirements, see pages 5-6 and 5-7 of the LandMark manual.