lighting instrument snapping to wrong pipe

[Noahmur]

Hello,

So I have 2 lighting positions that are fairly close to each other. both are hanging positions, one is named FOH 2U and the other is names FOH 2L. It seems there's a bug where when I place a fixture on FOH 2U, its places it at the correct X and Y cordinent for where I clicked, but it says its on FOH 2L and the Z continent is that of the FOH 2L pipe. Is there a way to easily correct this without manually changing the positions and the Z cordinent on all my fixtures that are placed incorrectly? It seems kinda random when it does it, so its just frustrating having to go back and check each fixture to see if it was actually placed where I clicked. The biggest issue with this bug is that I can change what the fixture is labeled as its position, but on the paperwork, it isn't showing up as actually being on the correct pipe. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 14, 2017 by Noahmur

[markdd]

The first thing to say is that the Instrument tool has always had this problem but there are a few things to help it.

1. Firstly, make sure that in Spotlight Preferences "Auto Positioning Pick Radius" is set to a low value. I keep mine within about 2" (the width of a pipe) not 1'6 which seems to be the default.
2. Secondly, if you do have hanging positions that are very close together it is probably best that you split your positions over a few layers. Working in the layer where the position resides helps things as well
3. Try to insert your lighting instrument on to actual geometry rather than the object fill. For some reason this really does help.
4. Curved positions tend to overlap one another so the tool, as it is designed, seems to not fully know which position to assign itself to. (Take a look at the bounding box for each hanging position and you will see what I mean).
5. You can of course manually correct the position name in the Instrument OIP, however, you will need to manually adjust the Z height as well.

So I would say its not an actual BUG, but a phenomenon that needs to be managed by you. Once you are aware of the tool's shortcomings then you can come up with your own strategies to mitigate these problems happening too often.

 

I hope that helps.

 

Mark

Edited December 14, 2017 by markdd

[Noahmur]

3 minutes ago, markdd said:

The first thing to say is that the Instrument tool has always had this problem but there are a few things to help it.

1. Firstly, make sure that in Spotlight Preferences "Auto Positioning Pick Radius" is set to a low value. I keep mine within about 2" (the width of a pipe) not 1'6 which seems to be the default.
2. Secondly, if you do have hanging positions that are very close together it is probably best that you split your positions over a few layers. Working in the layer where the position resides helps things as well
3. Try to insert your lighting instrument on to actual geometry rather than the object fill. For some reason this really does help.
4. Curved positions tend to overlap one another so the tool, as it is designed, seems to not fully know which position to assign itself to. (Take a look at the bounding box for each hanging position and you will see what I mean).
5. You can of course manually correct the poison name in the Instrument OIP, however, you will need to manually adjust the Z height as well.

So I would say its not an actual BUG, but a phenomenon that needs to be managed by you. Once you are aware of the tool's shortcomings then you can come up with your own strategies to mitigate these problems happening too often.

 

I hope that helps.

 

Mark

ok, Thanks! I'm just getting into vectorworks spotlight, so I'm still working out a good work flow. This helps a lot though!