Site Model: Proposed + Existing Contours

[Dillon]

Hi All,

 

Tell me if I'm going crazy. I believe that in 2017 and previous versions, when I would set the 2D Display of the site model to be: "Proposed + Existing," VW would display existing contours with proposed contours overlaid. Importantly,  proposed contours would only show where the contours were actually changed by site modifiers. In other words, all existing contours that were not changing would be fully visible with the graphic style for existing contours.  See the 2017 example. Proposed Contours are in solid heavy black lines. Existing contours in dashed gray lines. This is what I want the software to do. 

 

This feature was buggy in 2017 and before. But usually with fiddling, switching back and forth with the 2D and 3D display settings I could usually get it to display correctly. 

 

In 2018, the site model shows all contours in the proposed graphic style underlain below all contours with the existing graphic style. In other words, you can't tell exactly where the site transitions from existing contours to proposed contours. See the screenshot. (Note: also in Proposed+Existing display mode the contours start making very odd connections (contours crossing contours) that do not show in Proposed display mode. That's another issue). 

 

I've made a test file that displays this behavior. 

 

Is this how VW is "supposed" to work? Did anyone else notice the change from previous versions to 2018?

 

Thanks,

 

Dillon

test contours exst prop.vwx

[gbland]

Yes, I am seeing the same... I am researching how to only show proposed contours that have changed... no luck yet.

 

[Dillon]

Thanks for responding, gbland. I spoke to Dylan at tech support about this before I posted. He saw the same thing and said he would ask around but hasn't responded yet. 

 

I have to say I'm surprised no one else has responded to this post. This seems like such a basic feature to go buggy that I would think others would be upset. Maybe other people have a different way of showing existing and proposed contours that I don't use... I wish they would share...

 

Dillon

[PVA - Jim]

Checking now!

[gbland]

This is a big deal! It makes our grading plans extremely hard to read... definitely not the way civil or landscape architecture industries show the change of grade documentation... Waiting on the edge of my seat for the service pack to fix this and go back to the way it used to work correctly in previous versions.

[Dillon]

Same here. Jim W? Dylan from tech support? Any news on your investigations? 

[gbland]

Beuller... Beuller.... 

Approaching 2 months on this with no fix.

[PVA - Jim]

It looks like this is marked for a fix, but no date yet. It was NOT marked as fixed in 2018 SP3.

[BG]

We vote for a quick fix for this.  New versions of the software are meant to be improvements, too often with each release, tools seem to get broken, instability creeps in, slowness is introduced etc.

Thanks 

[gbland]

Just installed SP4... still no fix on this. 😢

GAHHHH

Edited July 2, 2018 by gbland

[gbland]

Alright... still no fix. So here is my pain-in-the-butt work around. Once grades have been worked out, I copy the dtm. One dtm I set to just show existing topo. the other I set to show proposed contours but make the dtm outline the same as the limits of grading so the "proposed" changed contours stop where they are supposed to and always did before Vectorworks messed up this freakin' tool.  

 

So when this gets fixed, I would like to request an added feature for the DTM. Please give us a pull down that we can set the units and decimal settings for the dtm just like the staking tool has. That would be awesome! That way we would not have to change the drawing units any time we wish to update the dtm labels. I like my spot elevations to have two decimal points, my dtm to not have any decimal points, but all my drawing dimensions to be in feet and inches. Just FYI.  Anybody else out there do this?

[rowbear97]

@Dillon I'm very late to this but I have the same issue and it is terrible that we have stepped back just for the ability to modify contours in the model, which didn't really work that well! Please fix this!

[ericjhberg]

We are used to handing off grading plans to civil engineers and haven't had to experience these problems first hand until very recently.

 

Yes, this is a very frustrating regression with no fix yet. Hopefully the new release will have features like this fixed?

[gbland]

VW 2019 coming out... are we going to get this fixed?  

[PVA - Jim]

It is not listed as being included in 2019 yet either, the fix is apparently quite intensive since we changed a lot of the underlying guts of Site Models.

[gbland]

Unfortunate... old system worked well until it was "improved"... now to get drawings to look right,  I am either stuck tracing individual changed topo lines or creating a second DTM and cropping it down to the limits of grading as a current work around.  That's pretty intensive and expensive too.  Just Sayin'

[ericjhberg]

Yep, this is a frustrating one for sure and has been voiced now for long enough to have made the fix. It is also a pretty well established graphic standard in the landscape architecture world and the "improvements" should always be gauged against these standards to make sure users can actually use the tools in their workflow.

 

Regressing functionality shouldn't happen with "improvements"...otherwise, what is the point of having improved tools you can't even use without a complicated workaround.

[gbland]

Guys, I may be premature here, but I have just updated to 2019 sp2 and the proposed contours are stopping at the limits of grading line... YAY!!!

[Itchy]

Running into this now, 3 years later...