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Send to front doesn't stay that way


JMR

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Hi,

 

I'm encountering the following issue: Drawing elements (lines, polylines, text etc) won't stay in front of walls and stairs. They always eventually go behind them "automatically". Sending them to front remedies the situation for some time. After a week of working or so the lines are again behind the walls.

 

Everything is drawn on layer plane on the same design layer.

 

This is a nuisance since eg. my fire compartment markings will become hidden. It's especially annoying if one doesn't notice this when issuing drawings.

 

Is there a control somewhere I'm not aware of that would remedy the situation?

 

 

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I don't think anything can stay in Front for long.  Any additional new item or edit to an existing item will move that item to front.  Not at VWX right now, but maybe Lock an item will keep it in front?  I doubt it, though.  One workaround is to put things on separate layers and order the layers to keep the stack order the way you want it.  So, at least a new layer for Fire Compartments.

 

HTH

 

-B

 

 

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Agreeing with Benson and Christiaan, use layers to put things where they are supposed to be and classes for what they are supposed to be. This will become useful if you have to put in another " layer"  of things, then it is only a matter of creating a new layer and position it above/below/between the other items.

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Thanks. The only problem with creating extra design layers is that there will then be very many design layers to handle. 

 

I'm still wondering why the back/front order is changing by itself - I don't think it should behave as it does. I mean, I'm not touching the walls or stairs and yet they jump to front. I'm not touching my lines either.  It is as if there was some hidden control determining the order of appearance. What's the point of having the back/front control it if it doesn't work reliably...?

 

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Did you check for a Gremlin running around in your office? B|

I don't recall having had this issue so far, as most of the time any shifts in drawing order were the result of changes to the drawing. This auto floating into the background when nothing among the relative objects is being changed is new to me.

 

If I would have to make a guess it could be updating of data associated with the walls/stairs or updating settings that causes it to be brought to the foreground as VW might consider this to be a "new object" in the drawing hierarchy. Though imho such a thing should not happen as there is no actual drawing going on.

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As well as using layers to control front/back relationships I typically have groups of  objects I want on top of everything else and move that to front.

 

in addition I have a set of custom selection scripts so I can select all text or dimensions etc and move them to the front.

having large solid filled areas such as floor slabs or floor finishes locked will mean they move to the back when you select all and send everything else to the front.

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You're welcome. Most of them will deselect anything currently selected then select the chosen object. One or two may retain the current selection then add the chosen objects to the selection set. Sorry I can't remember which is which!

 

Cheers

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I think I've noticed a recent change in behavior similar to this, please let me know if you agree:

Prior to perhaps SP2 or SP3 of Vectorworks 2018, I feel like when I duplicated an object that was in the back on a given layer, the duplicate kept that stacking. Currently if i duplicate any objects, it seems to stack itself in the very front of all other objects on that layer. Am I just making the usual mistake of thinking in public before my second cup of coffee, or does anyone recall it behaving differently?

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1 hour ago, JMR said:

My walls still jump in front of my fire compartment polylines. I swear I haven't touched either. Something must be affecting the objects other than actual editing.This seems to occur every one or two weeks.

 

Are your fire compartment poly lines layer plane objects? Remember that the walls are hybrid objects with a 2d screen plane component and a 3d geometry component. 2d screen plane objects will always be on top so this may be the issue. A possible workaround if this is the situation would be to make your fire compartments into hybrid symbols with a screen plane object for the 2d screen plane component and a 3d locus for the 3d geometry component. They should then keep the stacking order you assign them.

 

Kevin

 

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On 12/7/2021 at 5:30 PM, Stéphane said:

Why don't you draw your fire compartment polylines in the annotation space ? 

We have developed a certain workflow that suits us well and has proven to be reliable, when it comes to exported DWG size and integrity with custom records and many other things like the LTS in Autocad. We export DWG's from saved views. Those saved views are also the views we mainly work in. We also create sheet layer viewports from saved views mainly. Only some elevation annotation etc. is added in the annotation space of the sheets. I'm sure there are other good methods as well but this is the one that works well for us.

 

Some related discussion can be found here:

 

 

I haven't encountered the beforementioned draw order issue for a long time, it seems something might have changed under the hood.

 

 

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