I've just spent some time fiddling with the "edit features" option that's been added to the editing of solids histories. Some comments -
1. I think calling it "edit features" is misleading. It gives the impression that you can edit various features of the solid independently and in a non destructive way. But that's not what you are doing. You are editing the steps that have been used to create the final solid. They happen in a sequence and the sequence is significant to the end result. They are not necessarily independent 'features'. I know Vectorworks and its ways, and it took me a little while to understand what was actually happening when I chose a "feature" to edit. It's simply taking you back to a step in the edit history. One consequnec of this is that certain other "features" do or don't vanish, according to where they are in the edit history. I would imagine it's entirely baffling to a new VW user.
2. The cursor prompts that I'm given after I choose "edit features" are not that useful. Let's say I have a cube to which I've added a cylinder somewhere and subtracted a cylinder somewhere else. And then I've applied a fillet. I therefore have 3 "features" that I can edit. So I hover the cursor over the object - if I hover over the filleted edge, the prompt says "fillet". But if I hover over the added cyclinder, or the hole from the subtracted one, it just says "extrude". That's not very helpful. Why can't it say "added solid" and "subtracted solid"? Furthermore, what it highlights in red is not the whole of the added object, or the whole of the hole... it's the individual faces. That adds another layer of uncertainty - does it matter which face I click on? If I click on the faces of the inside of the whole, am I clicking on the solid that's been subtracted from or the solid that's been subtracted?
3. It's a bit disappointing that I'm not given any kind of edit history. I'd actually been led to believe we were getting something like that, from some of the initial promo stuff. I thought maybe we'd be given a kind of edit tree, a list with each subtraction, addition, fillet, etc listed in order. A visual guide to what order everything happened in, and which bit we were currently modifying. Something like this would be really useful for complex objects where it's hard to keep track of what's happened in which order.
As an aside - it's really stupid and confusing to call the result of a fillet operation a "fillet". No, the fillet is the fillet, the thing that's been applied to an edge. I might have a complicated object with multiple additions and subtractions, and one minor filleted edge somewhere, and this complex object is called a "fillet" in the OIP. At least call it something like a "filleted object". Why does this matter? Well, just for example: if I want to use the "edit features" approach to change the fillet on that object, what do I do? I double-click, choose edit feature, hover over the filleted edge itself which highlights red and click on it. What happens? Actually nothing happens, because the fillet was the most recent operation, and what is sitting there is what Vectorworks calls a "fillet" and all I need to do is change the "radius" value in its OIP. What would happen in a programme that was designed not to be confusing? I think ths is what would happen:
-the object would be called something like a "filleted object" and maybe the box in the OIP would say "fillet radius"
OR the object would be called something like "editable solid", and I would need to ask to edit it before being presented with the option to change the fillet radius
- either way, if I choose "edit features" and then highlight the filleted edge, it is in some way made obvious to me, where I change the value for the fillet radius, and I do it and it takes effect.
As far as I can see, this "edit features" functionality doesn't really change or improve anything about the method used to modify solids with edit histories. It's just offering a shorcut to get to somewhere in fewer clicks. That's good of course, and for someone who already understands VW solid modelling it's useful and I'll make use of it, but it offers nothing to a new user in terms of making things more intuitive or less confusing.
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I've just spent some time fiddling with the "edit features" option that's been added to the editing of solids histories. Some comments -
1. I think calling it "edit features" is misleading. It gives the impression that you can edit various features of the solid independently and in a non destructive way. But that's not what you are doing. You are editing the steps that have been used to create the final solid. They happen in a sequence and the sequence is significant to the end result. They are not necessarily independent 'features'. I know Vectorworks and its ways, and it took me a little while to understand what was actually happening when I chose a "feature" to edit. It's simply taking you back to a step in the edit history. One consequnec of this is that certain other "features" do or don't vanish, according to where they are in the edit history. I would imagine it's entirely baffling to a new VW user.
2. The cursor prompts that I'm given after I choose "edit features" are not that useful. Let's say I have a cube to which I've added a cylinder somewhere and subtracted a cylinder somewhere else. And then I've applied a fillet. I therefore have 3 "features" that I can edit. So I hover the cursor over the object - if I hover over the filleted edge, the prompt says "fillet". But if I hover over the added cyclinder, or the hole from the subtracted one, it just says "extrude". That's not very helpful. Why can't it say "added solid" and "subtracted solid"? Furthermore, what it highlights in red is not the whole of the added object, or the whole of the hole... it's the individual faces. That adds another layer of uncertainty - does it matter which face I click on? If I click on the faces of the inside of the whole, am I clicking on the solid that's been subtracted from or the solid that's been subtracted?
3. It's a bit disappointing that I'm not given any kind of edit history. I'd actually been led to believe we were getting something like that, from some of the initial promo stuff. I thought maybe we'd be given a kind of edit tree, a list with each subtraction, addition, fillet, etc listed in order. A visual guide to what order everything happened in, and which bit we were currently modifying. Something like this would be really useful for complex objects where it's hard to keep track of what's happened in which order.
As an aside - it's really stupid and confusing to call the result of a fillet operation a "fillet". No, the fillet is the fillet, the thing that's been applied to an edge. I might have a complicated object with multiple additions and subtractions, and one minor filleted edge somewhere, and this complex object is called a "fillet" in the OIP. At least call it something like a "filleted object". Why does this matter? Well, just for example: if I want to use the "edit features" approach to change the fillet on that object, what do I do? I double-click, choose edit feature, hover over the filleted edge itself which highlights red and click on it. What happens? Actually nothing happens, because the fillet was the most recent operation, and what is sitting there is what Vectorworks calls a "fillet" and all I need to do is change the "radius" value in its OIP. What would happen in a programme that was designed not to be confusing? I think ths is what would happen:
-the object would be called something like a "filleted object" and maybe the box in the OIP would say "fillet radius"
OR the object would be called something like "editable solid", and I would need to ask to edit it before being presented with the option to change the fillet radius
- either way, if I choose "edit features" and then highlight the filleted edge, it is in some way made obvious to me, where I change the value for the fillet radius, and I do it and it takes effect.
As far as I can see, this "edit features" functionality doesn't really change or improve anything about the method used to modify solids with edit histories. It's just offering a shorcut to get to somewhere in fewer clicks. That's good of course, and for someone who already understands VW solid modelling it's useful and I'll make use of it, but it offers nothing to a new user in terms of making things more intuitive or less confusing.
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