Tom W. Posted August 6, 2022 Share Posted August 6, 2022 If I have a project which is split over several different files + I am publishing sheets from each of those files, is there a way to produce a single drawing issue register that pulls all those different sheets together into a single register or do I just have to do it manually? What do other people do? Thanks Quote Link to comment
Boh Posted August 6, 2022 Share Posted August 6, 2022 (edited) In the file with the register I duplicate the sheets that are in the other files. These sheets just have a titleblock. If I add a revision to a sheet in one file I have to make sure I do it in the duplicate file. Edited August 6, 2022 by Boh 2 Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted August 6, 2022 Author Share Posted August 6, 2022 Thank you @Boh good tip I'll give that a go! Quote Link to comment
Jeff Prince Posted August 6, 2022 Share Posted August 6, 2022 If I had to deal with such a situation, I would do it external of vectorworks in a spreadsheet rather than develop an internal VWX solution. That external document could then be referenced into your Vectorworks file and serve other managerial purposes. I imagine it could be addressed inside Vectorworks with some automation or programming if you really want something automatic. Hopefully someone with such skills will chime in. Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted August 7, 2022 Author Share Posted August 7, 2022 11 hours ago, jeff prince said: That external document could then be referenced into your Vectorworks file and serve other managerial purposes. What do you mean exactly? 11 hours ago, jeff prince said: I imagine it could be addressed inside Vectorworks with some automation or programming if you really want something automatic. Hopefully someone with such skills will chime in. Within the Title Block Manager you can load multiple open files + add an issue to all of them at once so it feels like there should be a way to pull that info (across several files) into a single report without having to copy the TBBs into a single file first...? Similarly, from the Publish dialog you can publish sheets from outside files as well as from the current one... @Nikolay Zhelyazkov? This isn't a massive deal for me - I'm quite happy producing an Excel doc manually or using @Boh's method when it comes to generating an issue register for this project - I'm just interested to know Quote Link to comment
Jeff Prince Posted August 7, 2022 Share Posted August 7, 2022 1 hour ago, Tom W. said: What do you mean exactly? Keep track of your drawings and dates in a spreadsheet manually. Reference that spreadsheet into Vectorworks if you need to report the information on a drawing sheet. It’s pretty common practice on large projects to share such information with others via email or in reports which do not live in a drawing. It would certainly be better if the vectorworks file could just report the data from multiple files. 2 Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted August 7, 2022 Author Share Posted August 7, 2022 Thanks @jeff prince. 3 minutes ago, jeff prince said: Keep track of your drawings and dates in a spreadsheet manually. 3 minutes ago, jeff prince said: It’s pretty common practice on large projects to share such information with others via email or in reports which do not live in a drawing. Very happy with both of these. But out of interest when you say: 4 minutes ago, jeff prince said: Reference that spreadsheet into Vectorworks if you need to report the information on a drawing sheet. Do you mean File > Import > Import Worksheet...? I've never done this before. When you say 'reference' does that mean a link between the original Excel doc + the worksheet created in VW remains + the one continues to update the other? Sorry lots of questions but I appreciate you taking the time to fill me in. Very interesting! Always so much to learn... 1 Quote Link to comment
Jeff Prince Posted August 7, 2022 Share Posted August 7, 2022 1 hour ago, Tom W. said: Do you mean File > Import > Import Worksheet...? I've never done this before. When you say 'reference' does that mean a link between the original Excel doc + the worksheet created in VW remains + the one continues to update the other? Sorry lots of questions but I appreciate you taking the time to fill me in. Very interesting! Always so much to learn... I haven’t personally linked an excel file to Vectorwork (used to do a lot of that in AutoCAD), but that would be one method. Connecting to a drawing management database would be another way, but that’s a little tricky given Vectorworks method of external database connection. The simple method of referencing PDFs generated from your application of choice would even work. Simplest would be to create a native worksheet within your master file, cover sheet, or it’s own file. Advantage of the latter being easy referencing of the worksheet. Quote Link to comment
Popular Post Tom W. Posted August 7, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 7, 2022 Thanks @jeff prince. Well as an experiment I decided to delete all the references in my master file + import the geometry from the source files directly into it. So now I have completely dispensed with the referencing set-up + all the geometry is in a single file. The master file had the site model, trees, some massing models, vehicles + hard landscaping on it. The source files (10 of them) contained the detailed building models for the site. Now the building models reside directly in the site model file + those individual source files are redundant. But get this: the original master file where the building models existed as references was 1.49 GB in size + this was with 'Save referenced cache to disk' unchecked which is meant to keep things as light as possible. So I was fully expecting once I started deleting the references + importing the geometry + resources directly into the file that the size would start ballooning into something completely unmanageable but at the end of the process the new file was only 1.51 GB in size so only marginally bigger. Which makes me wonder why I bothered with layer import referencing in the first place! After I deleted the sheet layers in this file the size came down to a positively ethereal 1.15 GB. I went down the referencing route simply taking it for granted that if I didn't I would end up with utterly enormous + unmanageable files very quickly but that doesn't seem to be the case at all. In fact it's been a real pain using this set-up because as the project has grown the time it's taken for references to update has gotten longer + longer to the point I was having to plan my day (+ night!) around when to carry them out. The longest update I recorded was 2 hours 40 minutes...! I have now referenced my new all-in-one file into a new blank file + this file is 1.06 GB in size so only 90 MB smaller than the source file. My plan going forward was to progress things with two files only: the main file with all the site + building geometry in it + a referenced version in which I'd generate all the sheets/VPs (as per @Christiaan's suggestion a while back). But if the referenced file is only 90 MB smaller what's the point?!! Is it because I am using layer import referencing rather than referenced design layer viewports? Would using the latter result in smaller files? I started off this project using referenced DLVPs but was getting all sorts of problems with wall/roof clipping getting lost in translation + found layer import referencing more reliable, plus I prefer the more direct class/layer visibility control you have with layer import referencing. Anyway, the point is all this started because I had sheet layers spread over a number of different files + I was wondering if there was a way to pull them all together into a single issue sheet. But it looks like one way or another going forward I will have all my sheets/viewports in a single file now so that question is no longer relevant! 5 Quote Link to comment
Jeff Prince Posted August 7, 2022 Share Posted August 7, 2022 I hope someone still answers the question you posed, as there are situations where it would be handy to easily report information from several separate files into one summary document, I just don’t know how it can specifically be done without some programmatic trickery 🙂 1 Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted August 7, 2022 Share Posted August 7, 2022 2 hours ago, Tom W. said: I have now referenced my new all-in-one file into a new blank file + this file is 1.06 GB in size so only 90 MB smaller than the source file. My plan going forward was to progress things with two files only: the main file with all the site + building geometry in it + a referenced version in which I'd generate all the sheets/VPs (as per @Christiaan's suggestion a while back). But if the referenced file is only 90 MB smaller what's the point?!! Yeap, it's not always worth it. I prefer to keep everything in one file if I can. The projects that I split into two files are projects where I have a large or detailed model (which I'd like to be as nimble as possible) and I have a lot of sheet layers, particularly sheet layers with cached hidden line/shaded Section Viewports. I find these can significantly slow down navigation and editing of a file. File size doesn't worry me so much because file saves are fast to SSD. It's more about certain kind of content on my Sheet Layers making VW sluggish. P.S. I use Layer Import method when splitting files like this. 3 Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted August 7, 2022 Author Share Posted August 7, 2022 @Christiaan thank you for the insights/advice. You're right about file size not being the be all end all I think I will try keeping everything in one file from now then if I encounter problems start shifting sheets to a referenced file. I think I can copy a VP from one file to another? (the facility was removed then quite soon after reinstated?). I will have to try it out... 2 Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted August 7, 2022 Share Posted August 7, 2022 No prob. Yes you can. It's very easy to split files now with the viewport copy and paste feature. I've found it to be very reliable too. 4 Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Popular Post Nikolay Zhelyazkov Posted August 8, 2022 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Popular Post Share Posted August 8, 2022 Hello all, Using the Title Block Manager you can create multi file worksheets from all of the possible TBB reports in there - Sheet Revision Log, Project Issue/Revision History. Just select that you want to create a Multi Page report and you will end up with non database worksheet that has information from all the TBBs from the TBM selection. Note that this is working only with the data that is used in these 3 reports and additional data cannot be added at this time. I hope that this helps. Best Regards, Nikolay Zhelyazkov 6 Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted August 8, 2022 Author Share Posted August 8, 2022 Many thanks @Nikolay Zhelyazkov! That's just the thing I was looking for I will have to try it out! 1 hour ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said: Note that this is working only with the data that is used in these 3 reports and additional data cannot be added at this time. I have not generated a Drawing Issue Register for a while + when I did do it I used an edited version of the VW worksheet because I wanted to include a 'Revision Number' column. Does what you say above mean that I won't be able to use my own worksheet (which includes the revision no.) + will instead be restricted to using the VW one? Thanks for your help. Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Nikolay Zhelyazkov Posted August 8, 2022 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted August 8, 2022 2 minutes ago, Tom W. said: I have not generated a Drawing Issue Register for a while + when I did do it I used an edited version of the VW worksheet because I wanted to include a 'Revision Number' column. Does what you say above mean that I won't be able to use my own worksheet (which includes the revision no.) + will instead be restricted to using the VW one? Thanks for your help. - Yes, for now you can use only one of the 3 predefined worksheets from the TBManager, as they are being populated from the code. The revision number can be found in 2 of the worksheets so hopefully one of them suits your needs. Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted August 8, 2022 Author Share Posted August 8, 2022 2 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said: - Yes, for now you can use only one of the 3 predefined worksheets from the TBManager, as they are being populated from the code. The revision number can be found in 2 of the worksheets so hopefully one of them suits your needs. Thank you Quote Link to comment
Mark Aceto Posted August 27, 2022 Share Posted August 27, 2022 On 8/7/2022 at 9:05 AM, Tom W. said: Is it because I am using layer import referencing rather than referenced design layer viewports? Would using the latter result in smaller files? Yes and yes. Just looked up a recent project: 85mb file referencing 2.89gb combined file size. All caching is disabled in all documents because: I'm not an architect with a 400-sheet drawing set, so I don't feel that pain when opening files I have severe PTSD from a handful of corrupted viewports over the years I'm a weight weenie when it comes to file size, especially when project sharing heavy files from Dropbox 1 Quote Link to comment
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