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Irrigation Catalog Additions, and Perf Prec Rates


Luke Gilmer

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I'm just beginning to use the irrigation tool set.  Two questions:  

 

1) I'm using impact sprinkler products for field pasture irrigation which are not in the VW Catalog.  It seems I can not directly add new manufacturer outlet products to the irrigation Catalog ... but can do so indirectly by, for example, selecting a rotor outlet product that does exist in the Catalog, draw this outlet, then on the Obj Info select 'Get from Catalog', then duplicating the Catalog entry, and adding my new sprinkler data to this duplication.  This process seems REALLY awkward, and difficult to later find my edited duplicate.  Any direct way to enter new outlet device data so new manufacturer's data readily shows in the Catalog?

 

2) Related, I'm reviewing precipitation performance data for outlets, and something seems in error.  The precipitation rates in the performance data are shown in 'ft/sec' units ... which no one uses.  And, the data seems wacky ... a small Hunter rotor shows a precipitation rate-rectangular of 0.27 ft/s.  That is impossible.  It seems the units should be inches/hour, then the rate seems more believable.  Many other outlet devices seem grossly in error.  Is this a software bug in the display of performance precipitation units?  

 

Thanks, Luke

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  • 2 months later...
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hi @Piotr Karczewski and @Luke Gilmer,

 

Yes, it is awkward to add content from the feature UI, but there is an easy way to do it via Excel.

Go to the 'Libraries\Defaults\Irrigation\Catalogs' location in your Vectorworks installation.

There you'll see a list of files organized by name which relates to the tool and mode, they are named well so you'll orient easily what is for what.

Then notice that there are three files with the same name, and then another three with the same name suffixed with ' - Performance Data'

The idea is that the first triplet will list the available products, and the 'performance data' file will specify the performance of each product listed in the other file.

 

The triplet files are with extensions: xml, xlsx, and txt:

- The XML file defines the meaning of the columns in the xlsx (Excel) file, listing the type/unit of the value in this column. Please do not edit the XML file, but you can use it as a reference to understand the data.

- The XLSX file is an Excel file with the data. For example the 'Outlet Rotors.xlsx' will list rotors. Note how not all the cells on column A and B has value. This is because there is implied rule that if a cell is empty, the value of the last non empty cell up on this column will be used. This makes for easier reading of the tables.

- The TXT file is an export from the XLSX file. Have the XLSX file open in excel, then go to 'Save As' and choose type 'Unicode Text (*.txt)' before saving.

 

So, the process for adding content is that you edit the XLSX catalog file (e.g. Outlet Rotors.xlsx), add the products you need then edit the corresponding 'Performace Data' XLSX file (e.g. Outlet Rotors - Performance Data) providing performance information for the products you just added. Then export both XLSX files to unicode TXT and override the ones from Vectorworks. Then you'll see your data show up in Vectorworks.

I'm not sure at the moment, but you might experiment to put the TXT files in your user folder, and Vectorworks might pick them up instead of the ones from the application content.

 

Note! When editing the 'Performance Data' XLSX file. The Column B is 'Model (criteria)' This means that you can use '*' (any sequence of symbols) and '?' (any one symbol) to specify several models that share the same performance data. This is for convenience and makes the data more compact. (see attached image)

 

image.png

 

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
On 1/31/2021 at 7:39 PM, Luke Gilmer said:

2) Related, I'm reviewing precipitation performance data for outlets, and something seems in error.

Hi @Luke Gilmer can you please take a look at the catalog files (see my previous post) and check for errors there, as there are two things: display units are specified by the irrigation settings and that's where the error is, or the catalog contains errors.

 

Please file a bug in Jira about any bugs you see in the feature or in the catalog, providing a test file to demonstrate the problem.

If you don't know what Jira is, or you cannot access it, please send me an email explaining the problem with a test file at vstanev@vectorworks.net

 

Regards,
Vlado

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  • 9 months later...

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