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Problem with Orientation of North Arrow in a Viewport


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See attached two files created in VW Designer 2020 SP3.1

 

In my document "Problem 1.vwx" -  When I try to rotate the North Arrow in a Viewport, it refuses to listen and points back to vertical position (North). Changing angle in OIP flips back to 0.

It works fine on Design Layer and on Sheet Layer. This happens only for Annotation in Viewport on a Sheet Layer.

I suspected that the Georeferencing is a problem. Tried to Reset it, uncheck it - doesn't solve the problem.

I started another a new blank document "No Problem Yet.vwx" - everything works fine. However, as soon as I opened the Document Preferences > Georeferncing > OK is activated,

the problem with North Arrow in a Sheet Layer Viewport starts again.

My real project document can not be recreated from the scratch, it has a month of my work.

Is there a way to reset Georeferencing to get back control of the North Arrow in a Viewport?

Problem 1.vwx No Problem Yet.vwx

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Guest Wes Gardner

@Ash, you can cheat by Ungrouping the object but I'm not sure that's the answer you're looking for, unless you just want a quick fix and then of course, that works..

 

OR you can adjust the Angle to True North and then turn the North point

 

Wes

 

 

Screen Shot 2020-04-02 at 3.02.47 PM.png

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I found this too.  The solution was to delete the North Point in annotation viewport and use the North Point from the Title Block Manager - puts it on the sheet space, but it is not affected by the geo-referencing.

 

I cannot understand why anyone would geo-reference a north symbol and lock it out so that you couldn't change it. All surveys are carried out to grid north etc. for setting out. Also for planning and building warrant submissions, you have to show North as North.

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  • 1 month later...

Same issue - unable to rotate north arrow in viewport annotation.

Changed True North in geolocation (File - doc settings) as recommended by @Wes Gardner, then did the extra step (almost missed!) to manually try and change rotation again in OIP and it did the trick. Thanks

🙂

 

Edited by NickyC
typo
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2 minutes ago, NickyC said:

Same issue - unable to rotate north arrow in viewport annotation.

Changed True North in geolocation (File - doc settings) as recommended by @Wes Gardner, then did the extra step (almost missed!) to manually try and change rotation again in OIP and it did the trick. Thanks

🙂

 

P.s. I had to go through all my sheets and do the manual second step in annotation edit to correct all the north arrows.

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  • 3 weeks later...

SAME PROBLEM WITH ONE FILE. YOU ALL'S ANSWER MAKES NO SENCE.  I OPENED OLDER FILES TO SEE IF I HAD THE PROBLEM THERE AS WELL AS, STARTED A NEW FILE FROM MY TEMPLETS  THAT I USED FOR THIS FILE, AND IN THE VIEWPORT ANNOTATIONS, I CAN ROTATE THE NORTH TO ANY ANGLE AS ALWAYS.  THE SETTINGS IN GEOLOCATION VIA FILE - DOCUMENT SETTINGS HAVE NOT CHANGE, AND ARE IDENTICAL IN ALL 3 FILES.  THERE HAS TO BE A SETTING SOMEPLACE THAT IS CAUSING THIS TO HAPPEN.

 

THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IN THE FILE WITH THE PROBLEM, IS THAT I CREATED A BRAND NEW TILE PAGE. YET IN ALL THOSE SETTINGS, THERE IS NOTHING THERE THAT MAKE THIS ALWAYS POINTING TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE OR STRAIGHT UP, AS A CHOICE TO TURN ON OR OFF.   COME ON VW WHAT IS THE ANSWER?

 

 

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Just to add to the experiment.  Not only is the new title block viewport annotations effected by the non rotatable North arrow, all old title blocks within this corrupted file are effected.

 

The experiment goes on.  I then opened my template file and created a new Sheet layer, then while both files where open, I copied and pasted the new tile block from the infected file, to the new sheet layer in my template file. North rotates without an issue. So it is not the new title block.  If there is not an on /off for this problem in some setting, I am going to have to go layer by layer and cut and paste everything from the corrupted file to the clean file.  yuk!!!!!

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  • 3 weeks later...
1 hour ago, yasin2ray said:

the north arrow does not always have to be facing up. It is acceptable to rotate the drawing in construction drawings - as long as the north arrow is pointing in the direction of north for the drawing presented, of course.

This is the whole crux of the problem.  Yes, the best practice is that the drawing (especially when it is a site drawing) should be orientated North, with the arrow.  The problem is that the North point is Vectorworks doesn't point North when the drawing is facing North - it is off and you cannot change it.

 

There is a bug. My thinking is that some bright spark has decided that we should be orientating to 'True North' or 'Magnetic North' where in fact we orientate to 'Grid North' - something that every country has their own grid north for and it will vary slightly depending which country you live in, but North in drawings is relative to a defined set of coordinates and it always has been.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

On a separate but related note, I want to control the orientation of my north point on my titleblock using the heliodon. However, the plan viewport is rotated 90deg relative to the design layer (in order to fit onto the sheet nicely) is there any way to make the titleblock "read" the rotation of the heliodon within the viewport rather than showing it relative to the design layer?

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On 6/23/2020 at 8:49 PM, Kevin C said:

There is a bug. My thinking is that some bright spark has decided that we should be orientating to 'True North' or 'Magnetic North' where in fact we orientate to 'Grid North' - something that every country has their own grid north for and it will vary slightly depending which country you live in, but North in drawings is relative to a defined set of coordinates and it always has been.

Actually there is an option to show true north and plan north, configurations 1 and 2 allow you to indicate the magnetic north offset but this is useful in only some situations and the symbol is not really clear what it is showing unless you know what it is supposed to show.

 

There should be a proper northing arrow that shows CRS north (aka True North)  and plan north and the angle between the two. Plan north would be grid north and the symbol should align with the viewport rotation but that would probably require the option to establish a link between the placed northing arrow and the viewport on that sheet and this link would then be specific for that sheet only and not all sheets in case there are multiple sheets with different orientations of the plan.

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  • 1 month later...

@The Anorak 

I have this issue as well. There is currently no way to get the north arrow to follow directions from the Heliodon or the file Georeferencing for that matter. My workaround is to rotate the north arrow by 90 degrees from what north is in Design Space. If your work in Design Space has a 0.0 degree rotation, place a North Arrow directly on the sheet - not in Annotation space - and rotate it 90 degrees in the direction you need.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am also running into this problem. For some reason VW doesn't realize that it is standard practice to rotate viewports...

 

They don't allow the north arrow to rotate with the viewport or be smart enough to understand that the viewport is rotated. I don't mind a smart north arrow that realizes georeferencing, but it should also be smart enough to understand the concepts of rotated viewports.

 

This is DUMB! @Tony Kostreski....I'm tagging you on this one...figure it out.

Edited by ericjhberg
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
21 hours ago, ericjhberg said:

I am also running into this problem. For some reason VW doesn't realize that it is standard practice to rotate viewports...

 

They don't allow the north arrow to rotate with the viewport or be smart enough to understand that the viewport is rotated. I don't mind a smart north arrow that realizes georeferencing, but it should also be smart enough to understand the concepts of rotated viewports.

 

This is DUMB! @Tony Kostreski....I'm tagging you on this one...figure it out.

 

Hey @ericjhberg! I have to agree that it would be nice to have the north point of a titleblock link to a viewports rotation. I'll submit a VE but in the meantime, I would suggest placing the north arrow directly in the annotations part of a viewport making sure to check "Use Heliodon". Like that you know the north arrow will point in the right direction automatically.

Screen Shot 2020-11-23 at 11.57.51 AM.png

 

What would you want to happen in cases where you have multiple viewports on a sheet? Have you ever had more than one north arrow (pointing different directions) on a single sheet?

 

 

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1 hour ago, Tony Kostreski said:

but in the meantime, I would suggest placing the north arrow directly in the annotations part of a viewport making sure to check "Use Heliodon".

 

This doesn't work. No matter which settings are enabled, it is impossible to rotate the north arrow within the viewport annotations layer. The only way to make it work is to actually "Explode" (covert to group) the north arrow, or create a dumb 2d symbol, which is a REALLY, REALLY bad workflow considering the intent of the north arrow tool.

 

We actually ONLY put north arrows within viewports in case we do have multiple viewports on the same sheet with different north arrow orientations (not often and try to avoid, but occasionally). We never put north arrows in the titleblock.

Edited by ericjhberg
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
2 hours ago, ericjhberg said:

 

This doesn't work. No matter which settings are enabled, it is impossible to rotate the north arrow within the viewport annotations layer. The only way to make it work is to actually "Explode" (covert to group) the north arrow, or create a dumb 2d symbol, which is a REALLY, REALLY bad workflow considering the intent of the north arrow tool.

 

We actually ONLY put north arrows within viewports in case we do have multiple viewports on the same sheet with different north arrow orientations (not often and try to avoid, but occasionally). We never put north arrows in the titleblock.

Hmm...perhaps I am not seeing the problem or maybe it was a bug that has been addressed. This video is what I am seeing and it seems to be working fine for me. Selecting the checkbox for the heliodon simply orients the north arrow in the correct direction. Is this not the case for you? If so, what build are you using and I'll investigate further.

 

Thanks!

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
16 hours ago, ericjhberg said:

@Tony Kostreski...I am seeing this in 2020 SP5. Haven't tried it in my testing of 2021 yet.

 

Could be particular to a specific file? I don't even have a Heliodon in the file I am working in and when I go to rotate the North Arrow...nothing. Does it have to do with Georeferencing?

Screen Recording 2020-11-23 - VW North Arrow.mov 18.93 MB · 2 downloads


Okay...so after further testing I CAN replicate your issue—quite annoying. It definitely has to do with georeferencing. For internal I've added a bug (VB-175609)

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/23/2020 at 11:07 AM, Tony Kostreski said:

Tony,

When you wrote this: "placing the north arrow directly in the annotations part of a viewport making sure to check "Use Heliodon". Like that you know the north arrow will point in the right direction automatically." - are you saying the North Arrow in the Annotation space of a viewport will recognize the rotated design space?

Anna

 

Hey @ericjhberg! I have to agree that it would be nice to have the north point of a titleblock link to a viewports rotation. I'll submit a VE but in the meantime, I would suggest placing the north arrow directly in the annotations part of a viewport making sure to check "Use Heliodon". Like that you know the north arrow will point in the right direction automatically.

Screen Shot 2020-11-23 at 11.57.51 AM.png 

 

What would you want to happen in cases where you have multiple viewports on a sheet? Have you ever had more than one north arrow (pointing different directions) on a single sheet?

 

 

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hi @yasin2ray (Anna)--yes. If you have a heliodon on a design layer, the north point in annotations will automatically point in the same direction as the heliodon regardless if the viewport is rotated or not BUT there is presently a bug that's being worked on that prevents this from working when Document>Georeferencing is activated. I will post back here when that's resolved. 🙂

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