Plant symbols not scaling automatically, size data corrupted on import into new file

[mikeheacox]

When I insert a plant symbol into a new file, all the size data is corrupted. If I insert a plant that's 3' wide it comes in at 7' or whatever a previous plant was set to.

 

The bad numbers have to be changed in three places. All spacing data from the plant style is ignored or replaced (corrupted).

 

Attached image: Object Info - Shape (plant style - symbol - selected).

 

Anyone find a workaround? Thanks

[Jeff Prince]

@mikeheacox This new version changes the behavior of the plant tool.  Your values were changed because the style of your plant has those attributes set to “by instance” and your plant tool preferences have those values set in the tool.

 

I guess the fix is to either define and use your style to govern the data

or

modify the instance data for the placed plant manually

 

I saw your question and decided, begrudgingly, to install 2022 to see this behavior in action.

 Sure enough, copy and paste one of my plants from an old project into my first session launched in 2022 and I got the same result as you.

[Dave Phelps]

I'm having trouble getting my plant "Scheduled Size" to populate the cells in the Plant Worksheets.  All other data seems to come in fine except for the Scheduled Size.

-and having to re-size each plant as I use it as it takes on the size of whatever plant I just used.

 

Looking forward to the next update/fix!

[hollister design Studio]

I have a post here about this and Tamsin answered very comprehensively about the new direction of the plant tool.

 

 

On 12/29/2021 at 1:00 PM, Dave Phelps said:

-and having to re-size each plant as I use it as it takes on the size of whatever plant I just used.

 

You actually have to go revert to SP1.1 and then convert each of your plant object and make everything 'by style' - especially plant sizes! 

Once I did that (at the recommendation of Tamsin) the plants sizes are 'by style' they come in at the correct size.

 

From Tamsin

Quote

Meanwhile, we recommend that any libraries you create should start life with ALL properties set to By Style. If you wish to override anything, you can do this by duplicating the Plant and changing the properties in the duplicate. (This will also ensure you don't have issues with multiple instances of Plants with differing properties that do not report correctly on the schedule). 

BUT, we are aware you have existing libraries where the properties may not be By Style. Our engineering team are working on a script which can be used to convert the styles properties to either By Instance or By Style, but I'm afraid this is not available yet.

 

 

I've been changing every plant in my library as I use them... 

[mjm]

3 hours ago, hollister design Studio said:

I have a post here about this and Tamsin answered very comprehensively about the new direction of the plant tool.

 

 

 

You actually have to go revert to SP1.1 and then convert each of your plant object and make everything 'by style' - especially plant sizes! 

Once I did that (at the recommendation of Tamsin) the plants sizes are 'by style' they come in at the correct size.

 

From Tamsin

 

 

I've been changing every plant in my library as I use them... 

The current corrective sounds a bit tedious. Is it truly one by one? How many plants in your library?

[hollister design Studio]

1 hour ago, mjm said:

The current corrective sounds a bit tedious. Is it truly one by one? How many plants in your library?

I have around 120 actively used plants - my clicking finger is very cramped!

 

I do wish they could release the script to change all settings at once.

 

 

AND now that I've changed everything to 'by style' I've realized I like to turn off polygons occasionally (because we can't make curved plant polygons... which are necessary for clarity sometimes... but that another issue for another day!) - and now all my plant objects have polygon ON 'by style'!

 

So now I have to turn them off 'by style' for all plant instances in a drawing and hand draw all the needed polygons -

or make them 'by instance' (which Tamsin recommended against) and turn some off and some on -

or I really don't know which is better -

and nobody knows how the plant tool will behave in the near future -

 

...Frustrating

[mikeheacox]

This works on some plants, not others: Copy plant styles from an older file where they're not screwed up and paste them in your current file. Basically bypass the plant insertion tool. So still a hot mess.

 

I have hundreds of custom (mostly native) plants already defined. Individually redefining all of them is NOT a workable solution when I'm (trying to) use Vectorworks to do production drawings. 

 

Does anyone at Vectorworks actually communicate with people doing production work, to make sure their "improvements" don't create major problems? I'm really wondering after reading about how big a mess this is!

 

Revert to an earlier SP??? Manually redefine ALL plant styles?? Really??? And NO FIX???

Your competition is gleeful on this one.

 

Can someone please tell me where I can "INSTANCE" to "STYLE"? Thanks!

Edited January 8, 2022 by mikeheacox
workaround does not always work

[Jeff Prince]

11 hours ago, mikeheacox said:

Does anyone at Vectorworks actually communicate with people doing production work, to make sure their "improvements" don't create major problems? I'm really wondering after reading about how big a mess this is!

 

Revert to an earlier SP??? Manually redefine ALL plant styles?? Really??? And NO FIX???

 

You would think these things would be workshopped extensively before developing and deploying…

The staff that participates here seems to care, but I think the company as a whole is losing touch with the impact of these improvement on people who have to make a living with them.

 

You would think a script or program could be developed to fix this problem, seems it would be just flipping a switch in a definition.  Why that wouldn’t be developed prior to releasing shows a lack of consideration towards the users IMHO.