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2021 - Material Control Over Cut


Tom Klaber

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Is this the most up to date one?

 

https://www.iso.org/standard/69130.html

 

It hardly encourages everyone to follow these standards, when they are not made openly and freely available, but you have to pay a large-ish amount just to see a PDF that tells you what hatch to use. Especially when you suspect it'll refer you to multiple other standards, each of which you also have to pay for.

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10 hours ago, _c_ said:

The coercion of the fill has to go.

 

The fill and texture aspects of Materials are super useful to me (moreso than data), but your clear examples show why it doesn't work in your case. So it seems like a good solution would be for the Fill and Surface dropdowns to include an option "Do Not Apply" - meaning each object could still set its own Fill and/or Texture but you'd still reap the benefits of the material data.

 

For now, I wonder if the "Class Style" option might be more flexible in your example? So you'd have one Material and 6 Classes? Not entirely elegant but it might avoid some of the issues you encountered.

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1 hour ago, line-weight said:

Is this the most up to date one?

 

https://www.iso.org/standard/69130.html

 

It hardly encourages everyone to follow these standards, when they are not made openly and freely available, but you have to pay a large-ish amount just to see a PDF that tells you what hatch to use. Especially when you suspect it'll refer you to multiple other standards, each of which you also have to pay for.

 

We don't have to. The sensible thing would be for Vectorworks to get a copy and add them to Vectorworks' library.

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2 hours ago, line-weight said:

Is this the most up to date one?

 

https://www.iso.org/standard/69130.html

 

It hardly encourages everyone to follow these standards, when they are not made openly and freely available, but you have to pay a large-ish amount just to see a PDF that tells you what hatch to use. Especially when you suspect it'll refer you to multiple other standards, each of which you also have to pay for.

It is indeed annoying that you have to keep buying standards documents because of all those referrals to other standards within standards.

 

However there may be solution, if it still exists, ISO used to publish a ISO Standards Handbook on Technical drawings. It contains the most important standards for technical drawings, i.e. symbols, proper use of scales, annotations and to some extent hatches as well as a bunch of other things. Though this particular title was more focused towards the mechanical engineering drawings and not so much about architecture. There may be a similar title about architecture or landscaping.

If I recall correctly they may also have standards bundles which may be more cost effective than buying each standard separately, but that only works if it has (most of) the standards you need.

 

Or you could visit the (technical) university library to borrow a copy of a book about/containing relevant standards. Most likely the cheaper option as well. 🙂

 

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2 hours ago, Andy Broomell said:

 

 So it seems like a good solution would be for the Fill and Surface dropdowns to include an option "Do Not Apply" - meaning each object could still set its own Fill and/or Texture but you'd still reap the benefits of the material data.

 

Yes, my point entirely. Do not apply.

And yes, class are better, but will have to be duplicated too and you still have that blocked fill. I admit I dwelled in the worst case scenarios a bit. 

 

All in all Andy, I took in Materials with an enthusiasm which was unparalleled: exactly the thing I needed.

But after endless workarounds where this and that couldn't be overridden just because of that coercion to a fill, I was fed up and removed them all. The advantages don't overcome the disadvantages and they -for the moment- add a pretty annoying level of complexity in the display management.

 

When there will be a cut plane interface, I am all for linking appearance to data, but for now I just wish only the data.

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On 9/23/2020 at 12:05 AM, zoomer said:

It took a while to understand what your problem is.

I don't deal much with SLVPs.

 

But now I realized.

I often overwrite my Glass Class for Elevations to change

my RW transparent Glass to an opaque Glass like RW Material.

 

So I would also need :

Materials should be able to be overwritten in VPs !

 

So for your Plan vs Section vs 90° Sections,

replace Material 1 linear view with Material 2 head view and such ....

 

 

Hmmh,

 

looks like Materials have the option to define a RW Texture (Render Material)

also "by Class"

Doesn't that help for the Viewpor issues (partly ?) ?

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19 hours ago, _c_ said:

Given that there should be the option NOT to have attributes coerced into the Material, should a cut plane interface be developed, please mind that in many parts of the world architects use semantical cuts and not a thick surrounding line as is the praxis in USA.

 

So we need the pen being set by the Materials, not being somewhere else.

Fix all this scattering of interface.

 

Basically, the interface of Autohybrid would do for us. We would have all by class and override as needed in plot files.

We don't want to set up every viewport. We want to set up classes into the materials, in order to be able to override the attributes ONCE at document level. This is far more efficient than setting up each viewport.

 

In our environment, the main source of frustration is the complexity in getting the needed cut/not cut display for walls, slabs, structural members etc. out of the box. This lack of spontaneousness is what, paradoxically, confirms VW as a 2D application the more it tries to be seen as BIM-compliant: one needs lots of annotations to fix the wrong display. Most people don't generate sections after scale 1:100 (me included) simply because it just doesn't pay off.

 

Fix that, and it will go a great length in keeping existing users put. Don't fix that, and they'll keep migrating away.

 

More or less this is what we expect being set in the Material appearance tab, whereby, I repeat, we'll have all displays by class:

 

 

806110546_ScreenShot2020-09-29at07_48_00.thumb.png.35be3b146b6e0ce82c3604b4a4849b25.png

 

 

"Great" Sections (ie horizontal sections from 2019) do give you plans generated by Auto-Hybrid sort of.

 

Maybe that is the future but for now it's lacking.

 

 

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Ideally, there should be a default behaviour where one

  1. sets up a cut plane (design layer level)
  2. has materials properly configured (a library matter)

and

  • every design layer shows as expected according to the cut plane
  • every viewport and section viewport fulfils our basic drawing standards (screenshot above)

Without a single extra click.

If we must cut horizontal sections to see if it's good or not, set up all that set of overrides at object and viewport level, it only means that the concept is not OK.

My fear is that they are developing around the legacy of walls, with their schizophrenic wall instance + components pen-fill gap (see here).

 

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4 hours ago, _c_ said:

My fear is that they are developing around the legacy of walls, with their schizophrenic wall instance + components pen-fill gap (see here).

They showed some stuff related to this in a video at the design summit. It looked already very promising and I am wondering why it was dropped for 2021. My guess is that something substantial was not working yet. Or the pandemic screwed up the time line.

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If this goes as I fear, the default will be that we must cut sections and configure the whole business just for seeing things in plan.

That should be only the exception.

 

Something quite saddening is that there is no trust any longer that they will ever meet our needs.

I am not alone here.

User since Minicad 7.

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5 hours ago, _c_ said:

If this goes as I fear, the default will be that we must cut sections and configure the whole business just for seeing things in plan.

That should be only the exception.

 

Something quite saddening is that there is no trust any longer that they will ever meet our needs.

I am not alone here.

User since Minicad 7.

Year or year there are some continual disappointments about things that do not work, don't work well, or are left out entirely - but if I look at the Vectorworks9 when I started, there has been steady growth.  I think the real problem is that expectations are growing faster then the ability to grow the software.  All the backend maintained like moving to 64 bit, changing modeling engines, and all the other threading things that I do not understand are all things that have resulted in a better more stable and faster program.

Still when I look at the marketplace - the power per dollar ratio I get from Vectorworks is still the greatest.  But I do fear of troubled waters ahead. 

 

The legacy workflows and divergent userbase do make it hard for the program to concentrate and make larger leaps.  Having to stratify legacy 2D users, event planers, landscape, architects, and BIM enthusiasts is a tall order and the needs of each of these communities are sometimes at odds with each other.   The next 5 years will be interesting to see how VW handles this. 

 

 

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6 hours ago, _c_ said:

If this goes as I fear, the default will be that we must cut sections and configure the whole business just for seeing things in plan.

That should be only the exception.

 

Something quite saddening is that there is no trust any longer that they will ever meet our needs.

I am not alone here.

User since Minicad 7.

Don't worry. Based on my experience, starting with MiniCAD +4 about 27 years ago, Vectorworks 2065 should be well able to do what you expect.

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1 hour ago, Tom Klaber said:

Year or year there are some continual disappointments about things that do not work, don't work well, or are left out entirely - but if I look at the Vectorworks9 when I started, there has been steady growth.

 

It is understandable that VW concentrates on what it knows better, its own direct market: the small sized American office.

That is unfortunately the reason for the loss of confidence from the international user, who diverges towards its most immediate competitor en masse, here. I won't say the A-word.

 

That one, weirdly, manages a pretty universal user satisfaction in spite of using so much less interface, interesting, isn't it? 😉

 

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@_c_ 

I think that AutoCad's high satisfaction rate is because they do not know any better.  Most AutoCAD users simply have never used anything else - except SketchUp.  It would be like being dissatisfied with a pencil - it just is what it is. 

I had the opposite trajectory - started on VWs and then moved to AC and was totally astonished about how backwards it felt in comparison.  "I have to draw a door out of lines?  What is this 1986?"  - I did not get it.

 

I have worked as the VW trainer and chief at several firms - and brought many people into the VW world.  Almost everybody I have trained have a gone through a predictable progression of - bafflement and Frustration (No command line??? / Layers are classes and classes are line colors???) / begrudging understanding / continued frustration as they learn the more advanced features and master the list of VW workarounds, back doors, and troubleshoots  / acceptance that VW does have advantages over AC / then finally most report having serious frustrations with AC when they are forced to move back.

 

 

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@_c_ 

12 minutes ago, _c_ said:

 

It is understandable that VW concentrates on what it knows better, its own direct market: the small sized American office.

That is unfortunately the reason for the loss of confidence from the international user, who diverges towards its most immediate competitor en masse, here. I won't say the A-word.

 

That one, weirdly, manages a pretty universal user satisfaction in spite of using so much less interface, interesting, isn't it? 😉

 

I think VW is more popular in oversees markets than it is in America - or so I have been told.  Australia / Japan is where I heard it has more significant market share.   But that is based on hearsay.  

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Since the last version of the stepsister software in the nemetschek family I am no so sure that lots of offices will change. They added not much in terms of functionality. A workflow that only applies to a very small set of projetcs. And the other features are cloud related and add additional cost to the software. They have good marketing and word to mouth. And which office would openly admit that they made a mistake switching.

I am more excited about the guys from belgium. They leverage AI in a interesting and useful way and seem to be very nimble in terms of development of new features.

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1 hour ago, elepp said:

I am more excited about the guys from belgium. They leverage AI in a interesting and useful way and seem to be very nimble in terms of development of new features.

 

Yes, Blockify, Bimify and Propagate are pretty awesome.

 

I still don't like the whole Autocad behavior, dealing with Block mess,

Export quality and look of generated Plans.

But everything belgium inside very fun to work with.

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