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Vision & VW Design Layer Viewports


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Vectorworks solution to lighting plots with non-horizontal truss is Design Layer Viewports. This is done using the Create Plot & Model View command under Spotlight > Visualization. This allows you to turn a lighting position with truss and fixtures into a single object (DL Viewport) that can be rotated on any axis for correct orientation & positioning in the 3D model space for renderings. You also have the Definition Layer for a nice clean Top/Plan look for use on your drawings.

 

The problem is Vision doesn't interpret a DL Viewport as an object with Spotlight Lighting Devices contained within it. It converts all the objects to meshes (including the lighting devices). If Vision were able to parse a DL Viewport as it's contents including Spotlight Lighting Devices (with correct orientation), I think this would greatly improve VW/Vision workflow in drawings with raked truss.

 

Submitted to JIRA as VE-99212

Edited by LJ TMS
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  • 4 weeks later...

@scottmoore 

 

Yes you can rotate objects in Vision. The challenge is you want your VW file to be correct for plots and renderings, but Vision doesn't interpret the contents of design layer viewports as anything other than mesh. If you were to export your VW truss & fixtures flat and attempt to rotate in Vision, (1) it would be a long and arduous process, and (2) would need to be redone anytime you make changes in VW which would require a re-export.

 

Right now, the workaround I use is to make a copy of the raked truss & fixtures and put it on it's own design layer. Then make copies of all symbols used and strip out all 2d components so they are no longer hybrid. You can then grab and rotate the truss & fixtures together freely on any axis to match up to your design layer viewport version. You would then export this copy along with the rest of your design except for the original design layer viewport truss & fixtures turned off.

 

Really a lot of extra steps and work to workaround the fact that VW & Vision don't work together in this instance. You also now have two copies of the raked truss (one for VW plots & renders, and one for Vision), meaning any future changes need to be done twice. 

 

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1 hour ago, Gaspar Potocnik said:

I'm using the 3D labels which now has the full label legend functionality, that way you only do thing once. You loose the 2D symbol part, let's hope that gets implemented in the near future.

 

Interesting. I think I like the clean look and control of appearance with my 2d symbols too much to loose that. So what are you doing for plots, hidden line render with 3D labels?

 

Edited by LJ TMS
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LJ,

Understood on all counts. I suppose the “hope” would be that you wouldn’t be exporting into Vision until all the design and re-design is done. Of course we never live in a perfect world and it may be that Vision will reveal some issues that need to be resolved back on the drawing board. It seems like the quick solution for Nemetschek would be to make the rotations of groups of objects in Vision very simple. 

 

The way I recall dealing with moving trusses (it’s been several years for me) was to import everything associated with the moving truss at one time before importing anything else and all those items became a “node”. Perhaps it was called something else but you get the idea. Regardless, you could easily grab an entire node and manipulate it. Once I understood that, automation processes were really quite simple; it just required multiple exports from VW > Vision. I am just wondering if that might be a faster workaround if rotation functionality works for entire nodes?  Additionally, I don’t recall Vision having really accurate CAD control of any type so I would probably create some dummy markers in VW and export those into Vision to allow for some quick line-ups of rotated objects. 

 

Just spitballing. 

 

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1 hour ago, scottmoore said:

Understood on all counts. I suppose the “hope” would be that you wouldn’t be exporting into Vision until all the design and re-design is done. Of course we never live in a perfect world and it may be that Vision will reveal some issues that need to be resolved back on the drawing board. It seems like the quick solution for Nemetschek would be to make the rotations of groups of objects in Vision very simple. 

 

Yea that's always the hope, but I've had far too many instances of major changes that need to be made. I avoid at all costs doing any changes on the Vision side, since any re-export from VW means doing those changes all over again. At the VW Design Summit this week, Vickie Claiborne put it best that VW should always be your show bible. I look at any changes made to a show on the Vision side other than saved views and render settings as wasted time. That is until there is two-way communication between VW/Vision.

 

1 hour ago, scottmoore said:

The way I recall dealing with moving trusses (it’s been several years for me) was to import everything associated with the moving truss at one time before importing anything else and all those items became a “node”. Perhaps it was called something else but you get the idea. Regardless, you could easily grab an entire node and manipulate it. Once I understood that, automation processes were really quite simple; it just required multiple exports from VW > Vision. I am just wondering if that might be a faster workaround if rotation functionality works for entire nodes?  Additionally, I don’t recall Vision having really accurate CAD control of any type so I would probably create some dummy markers in VW and export those into Vision to allow for some quick line-ups of rotated objects.

 

I don't mess with moving trusses all that often, but that was indeed the way in Vision 2 using Transform Nodes. You could do multiple exports to separate out the truss positions from each other. Or since Vision groups all geometry together that has the same fill color or texture, you could give each truss a slightly different & unique color so they are separate meshes in the Scene Graph. Then create a transform node and nest the truss & fixtures under it in so they would move together. I never tried using that to rotate the truss and fixtures together for raked truss, so not sure if it worked in that way.

 

Either way, I think the solution I'm looking for is that whatever is the VW answer to making raked truss with fixtures on it, Vision needs to understand it on import. Whether that is Design Layer Viewports (which always felt like a band-aid to me) or something else, that should be the goal.

 

Edited by LJ TMS
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