viewport pan - translated view?

[rexwexford]

Hello all. 

 

I have a question I am hoping someone can help with. For sometime I have been doing what feels like a fudge when it comes to viewports, and I want to know if there is a better way. 

 

In short, I want to lock the viewport in place, and have its crop correspond with that position. 

 

Often times, I will have a sheet set up with a viewport (say of a site plan) and then my key and notes on the annotation layer. I will want to duplicate this sheet several times, (maintaining the notes, viewport size, and annotations) but will want to move the viewport to focus on another part of the site. 

 

With my current method, I go to amend crop and focus it on the new area for the new sheet, however, this means I then have to then move the viewport to line up with my sheet, and then  amend my annotations to align with their correct position (as they move with the crop shift) it can be quite time consuming for something simple. 

 

In autocad, you can set up your viewport location on the page, and then pan around within that crop to highlight the area of the drawing you want. Does Vectorworks have this function? 

 

i noticed this thread 

 

which hints at 'translated view' as being what I want to use. However, either I cant get it to work properly, or its not for use on 2d drawings (like plans) I get the message "camera cannot be used on sheet layer"

 

Any thoughts? no vids or other threads on this topic it seems.

 

 

 

Rex

Edited June 1, 2018 by rexwexford

[rexwexford]

From that thread..

 

You can also use the Translate View tool to pan around within the crop.

Often times, we need the crop to say in the same place for page layout purposes, but want another area of the drawing visible within the crop window.

The Translate View tool allows you to do this. It works just like panning.

 

This sounds like exactly what I'm after but cant get it to work

[rexwexford]

no one?

 

should I assume thats a no then?

[Art V]

On 6/1/2018 at 2:20 PM, rexwexford said:

From that thread..

 

You can also use the Translate View tool to pan around within the crop.

Often times, we need the crop to say in the same place for page layout purposes, but want another area of the drawing visible within the crop window.

The Translate View tool allows you to do this. It works just like panning.

 

This sounds like exactly what I'm after but cant get it to work 

It works here when doing the following steps:

 

1. Doubleclick on the viewport and select edit crop from the dialog. Make sure the "Display Viewport Outside Crop" is on (selected).

2. Got to the visualization tool  palette set and double click the translate view tool

3. Make sure the tool is in translate view mode (first icon)

4. Click, hold mouse button down and drag within the viewport area to move the drawing within the viewport, e.g. click in the upper left corner and drag to the center (do not release the mouse button until the part of the drawing is in proper position).

5. Click on Exit Viewport Crop in the top right corner

 

Now the viewport should show a different part of the drawing than before you started.

 

Edited June 4, 2018 by Art V
Updated an incorrect reference to the visualization tool set

[rexwexford]

thanks for your reply Art V,

 sounds simple but am I missing something? does it definitely work for 2d?

 

on my visualisation palette, I have only the option of lights or Camera? 

 

the translate view tool (the dashed square with a dot in it) does nothing, until i click new, at which point i get the same 'render works camera can not be used on a sheet layer'

 

 

[rexwexford]

is the translated view something people use regularly?

 

or is it common practice just do the method I listed as a fudge in my original post ?

 

thanks

[Art V]

Yes, it works in 2D for me. Is your viewport of a top view or a top/plan view? (though I doubt it should make much difference).

 

You should have something like this show up on your toolbar for the translate view tool:

Could you share a screen capture of your visualization palette  set as your description of the translate view tool sounds like it might be a different tool, the visualization palette tool set shows this in my VW2018 on Windows (default version, i.e. no customization of this tool palette):

 

Correction, you need to be in the visualization tool set and not palette.

 

Sorry for any confusion, this is what happens when using software where what VW calls tool sets are called tool palettes and when VW has a tool palette in addition to the tool set as well with the same name (Visualization), things tend to get mixed up sometimes. 😒

Edited June 4, 2018 by Art V

[rexwexford]

Ah great found it! - cheers for your screen shot, managed to identify the tool ! 

 

Yes on a mac but I was on the 'visualisation pallette' not 'visualisation tool set' - I hadn't acknowledge the difference. 

 

Thanks a lot  

[Andy Broomell]

Had no idea this was possible - thank you!

[rexwexford]

Seems like most people use my method shown in the first post 

 

its good but its a bit of a weird old tool

 

seems best to do by eye, but will definitely save me a lot of time for quick stuff 

[markdd]

This is really great to know. Sadly though it doesn't seem to work for Top/Plan. When you use the translate tool it goes to TOP, and when you return to the sheet layer the model has indeed moved, but when you return your viewport to TOP/PLAN it reverts to what was there before.

 

Frustrating! If this could be fixed that would be fantastic.

Edited June 5, 2018 by markdd