Confusion, Viewports, sheets, views, sheet layers

[Tropics North]

I am having some trouble with viewports. Having spent some time creating custom ?sheets? for different clients in VW 8, 9, & 10. I am now moving clients to VW 11.5. The trouble (for me) is viewports & the ?new? sheet layers. If I understand what is happening I can still use old speak ?sheets? in VW 11.5 (for some reason this is now called a view, & a viewport is a sheet?! Note to Nemetcheck folks, consistency; perhaps you could look this term up.)

So does this mean that to take advantage of viewports I must recreate all my old speak ?sheets? as Sheet Layers? Do I have this wrong? I would like to just ?add? a viewport to some existing ?views?; can I do this? If I can, how do I do it? If not, well, for my money, a viewport is junk, so why have I convinced clients to upgrade? I will continue to layer link.

(Just so you know, client?s i.e. Architects and manufacturers don?t take too well to upgrading software only to find the result is their consultants needs to spend additional non-billable time altering templates, just to take advantage of a new feature.)

I would have thought that a change of this size would have been better explained in the manual. If anyone can help me with this subject I would very much appreciate it.

[Travis]

I've found the transition to Viewports to be quite intuitive.

Before we had to figure out which layers, in which order, needed to be "turned on" so the printed sheet looked like what we wanted. If one wished to show an element in 2D (with dim's) yet have it also appear at a small scale in 3D Isometric, the mental gymnastics began. Then, when everything was properly "turned on" and correctly layer-linked and modeled, I could save it all as a Saved View.

With Sheet layers (yes, there had to be a new use of terms introduced to accomodate the new capability), I can treat each Sheet exactly like a sheet of paper. I place views of the model layers (called Viewports) on the Sheet Layer. From this one Sheet Layer, I can move the views around; go "inside" and adjust cropping and add annotations. I can change scale to my heart's content.

Perhaps it's just a matter of getting used to a new paradigm. One that, for me at least, is much simpler and more intuitive.

Perhaps you'd benefit from Jonathan Pickup's Architect manual. Once or twice through the exercises he presents and I think it would be come much clearer.

Good luck,

[Tropics North]

I guess I feel the opposite way; the "old speak" sheet was a piece of paper. Everything "lives" relative to this piece of paper. Build a footing, on one layer, the CMU that sits on the footing, sits in the same placed, just in a different "z" space, but it remains in the same XY location. It seems to me the advantage VW had over AC was this premise. Abandoning this convention can make VW projects as inaccurate as many AC documents I now import.

My hope was I could just add a viewport like I now add a layer link. I get from your reply this is not the case.

[Tropics North]

PS, as for the name convention. This is F'd.

What was a "Sheet" is now a "View"

What is a "View port" exists on a "Sheet Layer"

Why not call Classes Layers as AC does and call layers Boogers!!

[Travis]

The reality, my foul-mouthed friend, is that you're not obligated to use the "new speak" method whatsoever. You can continue doing things the way you were. . .not one single capability has been eliminated.

You can continue to use a hammer to drive a nail, but if you'd like to borrow my nailgun please don't complain that it comes with an airhose.

As always, good luck,

[Jim Smith]

Nice metaphor, but I agree with the fellow with the grumpy face.

[wv_vectorworker]

I respectfully think that your problem is based on an unusual implimentation of the previous version of VW.

I would think of a sheet as a collection of vellum prints(layers and classes), the vellums can be shuffled in and out of the stack to get the desired effect. the new view ports are simply strechy vellums, you can stretch or rotate them to get different overall combinations in the stack.

[Jim Smith]

wv

Interesting metaphor, but can you see both kinds of velum at the same time?

[Delmer]

TN

You were using different layers (now prepended as design layers) for different tasks; some for working on your drawings and some for compiling them into layouts. VW realized this was awkward and also realized the opportunity for greater interaction with ACAD (I guess waiting for the AutoCAD folks to change their ways wasn't working).

What they did was provide a layout sheet for you instead of making you use links to create one out of a design layer.

In this layout sheet layer you make viewports (no synonym necessary) to the various design sheets or various items on one design sheet.

There is a learning curve if you are not familiar with it, but once you get it it is pretty easy to utilize. It will really not take long to add the various viewports you previously had linked. But if you really want you can indeed make one viewport to the compiled drawings that you have linked on the drawing sheet you originally made for a layout.

Regarding viewport creation;

Make a class called Viewports, set the lineweight to 0, make it the active class.

Draw a box or poly around what you want to capture on your design layer.

With the poly or box selected, go under View to Create Viewport, fill in the specifics.

Really hope that helps.

[Tropics North]

Thanks to all who have offered advice, & my apologies if my frustration got the better of my manners. Perhaps I was using an odd way of presenting drawings, but it is simple and elegant and if not spelled out specifically in the VW10 manual, ?sheets? (VW10 term) was the way to present drawings until a few months ago.

My frustration stems from the fact that rather than a better way to layer link, viewports seem to be a different way to organize a set of drawings. To take advantage of this function, drawings must be reorganized. Viewports still require ?turning on & off? layers and classes with a user still must organize the drawing.

But to repeat, to recreate the templates for one firm to take advantage of the viewport function will take a hours (NON BILLABLE TIME). Saved ?views? (VW11 term) need to be recreated as layout sheets, new templates saved. (FYi no layer links are used in my templates.)

For some this may be a tempest in a teapot, but think of it this way: what if symbols were replaced by ?blocks?, symbols still existed as ?block? but to be able to use an EXCEL worksheet a new ?block sheet? had to be created for each old symbol. I feel this is analogous to what I am now looking at.

Travis, thanks for the help, but my IKEA furniture was put together with cams, hex hardware and cordless drills, a nail gun would only mar the veneer.

[Travis]

Isn't humor a great lubricant? (I'm even a big fan of IKEA's designs, and their ingenuity.)

At the risk of adding one more (less than useful?) metaphor to this thread, I'd describe the use of Sheet layers and Viewports this way:

Before: Imagine a model sitting on a table. Building, furniture, the newest flip-phone, whatever. To prepare a visual image for someone else to look at, I would orient the model just so; add a frame (title block to some); place little sticky notes (or whatever) to clarify the size and materials and my suggestions on how to build the real thing. Once I got everything where I liked it, I could take a photo - one photo that included everything - and call it a Saved View.

Now: I take snapshots of the model and prepare a "scrapbook" (some might even suggest many of my models belong somewhere that begins with "scrap") page. On this scrapbook page I can place as many or few photos as I like, I can move them around easily, I can include a frame (or not). Yes, each snapshot is still of the model (requiring that I turn off/on the features [classes and layers] I'm trying to bring out), but it's not the whole view. I find this a simpler way to work.

Leaving the metaphysical, the practical implications for me are:

1) I build a model the same old way. Bottom (Design) layer has your concrete and CMUs (footings and foundation), next layer has the floor, next one has walls, and so on. I just make sure the various components line up vertically and have appropriate classes so I can highlight or minimize them later. We set up templates that include a standard "stack" of layers and a standard group of classes. More can be added at the users discretion.

2) I take snapshots from different vantage points and organize them onto Sheets (Sheet Layers). I use the same title-block symbol I used before in the same way (I let Issue Manager oversee the details). I don't wrestle with deciding whether to place dimensions/notes/etc directly on the same layer with the model or on their own layer. I "print" them on my Dymo-labeler and stick them on the scrapbook page. (Dimensions and callouts go "inside" the Viewport, notes can go inside or "float" on their own.)

I suspect I'm restating what others have said better: I was just trying to extend the metaphor into practical use.

All the best,

[nam]

Tropics,

One of the very best feature of viewports is that they are not obligatory to use. You can carry on with older files and keep your working methodology. As you become more familiar with them, you can migrate towards using viewports (but not necessarily exclusively). Credit to NNA engineers in that they didn't FORCE a workflow change as you suggest.

I will say that once understood, viewports are a construct that you will enjoy working with.

Secondly, you may want to visit http://www.panzercad.com/. Matt Panzer has designed a utility which converts saved views (or sheets in VW 10 and earlier) into sheet layers and viewports.

Hope that helps....

[Tropics North]

Thanks nam