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Coordinates labels in viewport annotations


DaxinWu

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Hi, 

 

I'm using stake tool as coordinates label for my drawing. However, the stake placed in viewport annotations (underlined in yellow) shows different values from the stake in design layer (underlined in red) for the same insertion point. The scales of stakes are different as well. Could someone point out what's the possible causes of this issue? Thanks in advance!

 

My software is Vectorworks Designer 2021 on Windows 10.

VW coordinates.png

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This is not solution, but rather offers confirmation of the problem and keeps this thread alive:

 

I experimented and found that a stake in VP annotation shows xy value relative to center of the VP rather than referencing the design layer context.  Switching to the various modes (site modifier, send to surface, etc ) and the variouse display options (lat/long, xy, etc) does not force reference to Design Layer.  Also false result if stake is set to report site model z value. 
 

Question to the masters: Is stake intended for use in SLVP annotation space? What are methods cause stakes in annotation space to report correct design layer data?

 

-B

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This is why I always put stakes with coordinates on design layers with the same scale etc. as the layer with the objects to be annotated so that I can be sure it stays correct.

 

In theory annotations should be put in the viewport, but frankly that can be a quite tedious experience if you need the same annotation in multiple viewports with different scales etc. so most of the time I put the annotations on a design layer.

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14 hours ago, Art V said:

This is why I always put stakes with coordinates on design layers with the same scale etc. as the layer with the objects to be annotated so that I can be sure it stays correct.

 

In theory annotations should be put in the viewport, but frankly that can be a quite tedious experience if you need the same annotation in multiple viewports with different scales etc. so most of the time I put the annotations on a design layer.

 

On 10/30/2021 at 11:46 AM, Benson Shaw said:

This is not solution, but rather offers confirmation of the problem and keeps this thread alive:

 

I experimented and found that a stake in VP annotation shows xy value relative to center of the VP rather than referencing the design layer context.  Switching to the various modes (site modifier, send to surface, etc ) and the variouse display options (lat/long, xy, etc) does not force reference to Design Layer.  Also false result if stake is set to report site model z value. 
 

Question to the masters: Is stake intended for use in SLVP annotation space? What are methods cause stakes in annotation space to report correct design layer data?

 

-B

Thank you guys for contributing to this thread!

 

Currently, our team is doing the same thing. Put stakes in the design layers. But I wonder why this problem occurs: the coordinates values only differs by 50~100-ish, not a huge difference.

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2 hours ago, DaxinWu said:

Currently, our team is doing the same thing. Put stakes in the design layers. But I wonder why this problem occurs: the coordinates values only differs by 50~100-ish, not a huge difference.

If you really want to put the stakes in the annotation layer of the viewport then you could try to size the viewport to the minimum extent needed to show the area and position the center point of the viewport in such a way that the coordinates inside the viewport align with those on the design layer.

 

I.e. Figure out the exact difference in x,y and relocate the center of the viewport to compensate for that difference.

 

In theory this difference should be proportional to other viewport sizes with the same length/width ratio and same scale and a shift of the center would then be a matter of adjusting for that proportional difference.

 

If the viewports have different length/width ratios then you would have to do the whole process of finding out the exact x,y difference and compensate the center position for each viewport, which can become quite tedious if you have a lot of viewports. In that case putting the stakes on a design layer is probably the more efficient route to take.

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@Art V   Method described is dependent on the VP object center and extents. Not sure the vp can always be configured to match the dl. I think this also means any changes to the vp center point will also alter the stake data? Eg crop edits, addition of text or other annotations which increase existing extents. I need to experiment more to really understand best practices.  Thanks for describing. 

 

Too bad the stakes cannot somehow read the Design Layer.

 

@DaxinWu This could be a good wish item but needs to offer guidance into how it should work. Might not be so simple. Feature set could involve capabilities and parameters similar to those for vp overrides, section line instances, associative dims, and other vwx processes which “see” from slvp to dl. There are also potential issues and conflicts eg. - the site modifier option might not be a good idea for stakes in SLVP? Geo ref context might have issues? Z data? Non planar views? DWG and other exports? More. 
 

Or could be a dummy object with no actual link to a DL. But would benefit from method to set a reference location in the vp assigned with known values matching the DL, similar to the elevation benchmark tool ref point mode. All subsequent stakes display data relative to that point or marker. 
 

-B

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1 hour ago, Benson Shaw said:

Eg crop edits, addition of text or other annotations which increase existing extents.

Well... this would be another reason to avoid putting annotations inside a viewport. I used annotations inside a viewport for only a very short while because it was just too cumbersome for my use case so don't know how much putting annotation inside a viewport would affect the center location.

 

In DWG based software the annotation on a layout (sheet layer in VW) is on top of the viewport and not within the viewport so the viewport itself is never affected by annotation on the layout.

 

If putting annotation inside a design layer does change the boundaries and therefore also its center point then imo it is not a good design as it could cause unwanted side effects.

 

1 hour ago, Benson Shaw said:

@DaxinWu This could be a good wish item but needs to offer guidance into how it should work. Might not be so simple.

Yes it needs to be made clear to the developers what is needed and how it should be implemented/work. Especially the latter can be quite important as it may make the difference between somewhat useful or really useful.

 

E.g. in my other CAD program they implemented something that solved a quite major issue but the implementation while not bad in itself causes a new issue that needs to be solved. Had I known in advance how they would be implementing it then I could have mentioned that and they could have made a change in the implementation to avoid that issue. Software developers are not always aware of how things are done in practice so they need to be made aware how you would like it to work.

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2 hours ago, Kevin McAllister said:

place a reference object

Seems brilliant, but can it work consistently?

 

Would this mean a separate symbol instance on the DL for each required stake in the VP annotations?

Or can a single DL symbol act as a locator from which all the annotation stakes measure?  

 

If the former, probably better to just put the stakes in the DL and class them for desired visibility in SLVP.

If the latter, then would there be situations where the reference symbol has to be placed far from vp center?   or placed in the view, but somehow calibrated in order for the stake coordinates in the view to be correct?

 

I guess I need to experiment with all this.

 

-B

 

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On 10/31/2021 at 1:04 PM, Art V said:

how much putting annotation inside a viewport would affect the center location.

One example is text blocks or geometry which extend past existing extent. The SLVP adjusts to a new, wider extent and center moves accordingly. Such annotations are not automatically limited/truncated by the SLVP crop. The Crop only limits which portion of the DL is visible. 

 

-B

image.thumb.png.b380776ea0ea71982e0e7b385305a19e.png

Edited by Benson Shaw
image
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This is one of several reasons why, as I already mentioned, I don't like using viewport annotations.

 

I'd classify the OP's issue as a bug in this case as it is not working as it should. Even if it would align with the design layer and stakes would report correct coordinates anything that would extend the viewport size would then alter the coordinates and when one is not aware it is a recipe for trouble.

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I'd like to point out one other thing for discussion on this thread.

 

Once the stake objects are created in design layers, the scale of stake objects does not respond to any scale value change of the design layer.

 

Further, stake objects does not respond to the scale of related sheet layer viewports. Our team consider this as inconsistent object behaviour compare to other objects in VW.

 

P.S. Big thank you to everyone whose sharing their knowledge on this thread!😁

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  • 1 month later...

I just annotated a drawing with georeferenced building positions in a sheet layer and realised all the positions were a little bit of just before sending the drawing. I feel like whatever I do in this software there is a little bug in there that I have to round somehow. All this drives me nuts. Also auto numbering of ID stakes only works on design layers, not on sheet layers for some reason.

Edited by Anders Blomberg
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