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Fixtures Not Pointing Correctly to Focus Points in Plot & Model Views


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@klinzey Schematic Views do not allow you to attached a label legend to the "Lighting Device in Schematic View" to display the data assigned to the fixture.  All of that information displays on the the source symbols... which is fine except you cannot read the info when the fixtures are stacked on top of each other in a vertical position.  See attached photo.

881432214_ScreenShot2020-02-06at12_52_54AM.thumb.png.0366c9e8a00416a39380c116e5bed121.png

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@klinzey

Why has the functonality of focus points been removed from DLVP's? It seems such a retrograde step as the new Schematic View command really does not answer all our needs yet by quite a significant margin. Drafting booms is NOT possible if you want to represent boom/side arms in 3D. Also, as @rseybert suggests, label legends on the Schematic View objects are not really working and the workflow to make them work is very cumbersome.

 

So much of old functionality that has been superceeded by newer tools is retained by the developers and removing a really good function without warning means that many of us will struggle to achieve what we need to achieve. It will also immediately make obsolete many of my old files, some of which are still in development or ongoing.

 

Please, please can you put the focus point functionality back until the new Schematic tool is at least a couple of versions old.

 

Many thanks

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@markdd I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

My office made the switch to VW a little over a year ago as VW had more support for the industry than competitor drafting solutions.  For the most part, its been a great experience.  Especially, since I manage users with a very wide range of abilities, workflows, and ideals.  The trend-line that we been seeing is that VW is constantly adjusting key elements and introducing new features that supersede the older ones, making them obsolete.  This is great however, the new features that we are "forced" to use (using that term lightly) often either don't work at all or are clunky and sorta work until the second or third iteration of the feature in future releases of the software.  

 

Schematic views is a great example of this.  Its replaced the concept of using a DLVP to help represent a vertical lighting position in its proper location with the process of drawing the elements in 3D first and then creating a simple view off to the side, completely ignoring the practicality of the 2D aspect of it.  The practical uses of a DLVP far outnumber those of the Schematic View... at this time.  I understand that the wizards at VW are constantly cooking stuff up and that updates to these items are in the works.  That being said, it's kind of ridiculous that this is how it unfolds.  Why release something in a fashion that completely disrupts someones workflow without an alternative?  I get the impression that the marketing team at VW have the engineers by the short-n-curlys by selling and releasing the concept of a feature before allowing enough time for the feature to actually work... I've seen this with a number of other features that rolled out in 2020.

 

An additional concern about Schematic Views is that VW utilizes "Hidden Line Rendering" to create the Schematic View.  This render mode utilizes CPU resources over GPU resources and tends to chug every time you interact with the Schematic View elements as it has to "re-render/re-calculate" those objects.  Now, my machine has handles 3D modeling and rendering pretty well for being a laptop and having "limited" CPU and GPU resources.  However, I dread whenever I accidentally select Hidden Line rendering in a viewport.  Having to deal with this in the drafting stage is unexpected and pretty irritating as it just adds more time to the process than it would take detailing it out in 2D first.

 

The available resources on how this feature works are lacking.  Anything referencing the feature in the VW support resources only lead to the original marketing videos, which are 3 minute clips on how great the tool is.  When searching the various VW forums, all the posts related to the topic show user after user asking "how does this feature work?" and then eventually discovering that it's still a huge work in progress.

 

I can see Schematic Views being super useful and I love the concept. The forward thinking of interacting with the objects with pre-viz in mind is great.  I don't understand why the developers would elect to introduce a new feature knowing full well that it has a long list of enhancements needed before being fully practical and leave the end user with no recourse and a disrupted workflow.  This is an expensive program and it's not really a toy or something to tinker around with on the weekends and leave it in the garage until the following weekend... even though I'm completely guilty of tinkering with it on the weekend:)  Its main purpose, in the end, is to make us money by allowing us to communicate our concepts and ideas to vendors, clients, and anyone who needs to see drawings and renderings.  When I cannot accomplish this, I'm losing money by spending more time beating my head against it.

 

@klinzey

Wishlist of features for Schematic Views:

 - Allow 2D label legends to translate to the Schematic View.

 - Allow user the option to create a "backwards" Schematic View by drawing elements in a 2D form first and then create the Schematic View.  Ideally, the result would be a "2D/3D symbol" that would be a footprint of the position in Top/Plan View and would show actual geometry when viewed in any of the 3D views.  

 - Navigate away from using Hidden Line rendering to create the Schematic View.

 

I've attached a screen capture of a ladder position that I detailed out in 3D and created a Schematic View.  I attached 3D label Legends to the fixtures as well to see if they would translate to the Schematic View, which they don't. Is there anything I can do to at least make this work?  My other concern is that the 2D label legends become jumbled up when the fixtures are stacked on top of each other like they are in a vertical position.  Is there anything we can do to alleviate this effect?

 

Long post, I know, but it needs to be said.  I'm really looking forward to what Vectorworks has in store but the trend of releasing features that are buggy or not conducive to a workflow is super annoying.  My only wish at this point is that VW would take its end users and their workflow into more consideration before rolling out new features that supersede old ones without ensuring that the replacement is fully functional and truly necessary.

 

Thanks again for all your help.

Screen Shot 2020-02-07 at 9.01.42 AM.png

Edited by rseybert
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