Braceworks Issues

[Darrell Henry]

Anyone else noticed that the insert truss tool for BW seems to add .03 degrees of rotation? 

 

Also there needs to be a tool to attached a load manually to the truss system. I have lighting instruments that won't attach for love or money...

 

 

[Wesley Burrows]

17 hours ago, Darrell Henry said:

Anyone else noticed that the insert truss tool for BW seems to add .03 degrees of rotation? 

 

I have not encountered this.  

 

 

Quote

Also there needs to be a tool to attached a load manually to the truss system. I have lighting instruments that won't attach for love or money...

 

As Rob said you can do this with truss (either the PIO or braceworks truss) converted to a hanging position.   According to Moritz Staffel (the creator or Braceworks) in his presentation at Vectorworks Design Summit,  the best practice is to use Geometry rather than a Symbol when creating positions for Braceworks as to avoid potential errors.

 

The thing I've learned from others and general messing around,  (and was a source of confusion for me) is that you can't "attach" an item to regular braceworks truss or the truss PIO. However,  the weight is automatically calculated and it assumes an item is attached if it is within a certain user-definable tolerance/distance to the truss.  I believe this is the setting  (circled) in the below image.

 

The advantage of the hanging position and attach load is being able to show fixtures out of position for clarity while still calculating weight from their true truss location.   This also allows the ability to move the position and have everything attached to it move with it.   (Though I believe there are a few bugs with this to be address in a forthcoming service pack)   This has been my understanding and experience anyway.   

 

-W

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by Wesley Burrows
clarification

[Darrell Henry]

There is no preset rotation for the Insert Truss tool. There is only preset hanging angle. The tool seems to behave okay most of the time But I have had to go back and correct the rotation value on some trusses. Weird. I tested a whole bunch of truss symbols and it did not seem to be the fault of the symbol definition. If I can recreate it consistently I will let people know. 

 

I will definitely play with the geometry accuracy to see if I get more consistent results. The frustrating thing is that I can take a connected load, option - drag it to a new location to add a second instance, and that instance does not connect. Similar issues with hoist insertion. I can insert a hoist one time and it will be perfect. The next time the red highlight will come up showing the connection node and yet it will not connect and will have a z height that is 12" off or so. 

 

 

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by Darrell Henry

[Wesley Burrows]

8 minutes ago, Darrell Henry said:

The frustrating thing is that I can take a connected load, option - drag it to a new location to add a second instance, and that instance does not connect. 

 

 

I totally agree on this.  I also get erratic results with option + dragging,   and the mirror tool,  which kills me cause I use it all it time.   If I mirror something,  say 4 fixtures across the center line on the same hanging position,  usually one of the mirrors attaches its load position to it's old location and the mirrored geometry has a z height of zero or something arbitrary,  while in top/plan the geometry shows in the correct location (but wrong Z height and the load is either not attached or attached to the wrong former location)

Edited November 9, 2017 by Wesley Burrows