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P Retondo

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Everything posted by P Retondo

  1. Bill's right about how ACAD blocks work, and there's just no exact equivalent in VectorWorks. There are workarounds, but I think it's worth mulling over a wishlist item to NNA about coming up with something that will give more meaning and power to the class assignment given to container objects. With ACAD blocks, the attributes of some (not necessarily all) objects within a block can be overridden by assigning the block instance to a "layer" (= VW class) in the same way VW objects take on class attributes only if they have been created with the "by class" options selected. It strikes me that if there were a checkbox option on a symbol, whereby the user could choose to override member object attributes according to the class assignment of the symbol container object, that would do the job without creating a conflict with the normal way that classes can be modified in a Viewport. This would only operate on those objects and those attributes with "by class" selected. You could call this idea "optional inheritance."
  2. Bill, you can override the class attributes of your objects in a Viewport, so you don't need to create two symbols. If you want to display the same symbol in two different ways in one drawing, you'll need 2 viewports to do that. Look at the OIP with a viewport selected. Go to the "classes" button and when the list comes up, you can edit the class attributes, and those edits will apply in that viewport only. So you can change your linestyle to dotted for that viewport, for example. Window and Door PIO's as used straight from the window and door tools can be classed and will pick up class settings and viewport overrides in the manner you are asking for. Those aren't really symbols, per se, they're a different kind of object. So if you are looking for the easiest way to have a window or door be dotted in one plan and solid in another, assign them to a Demo class like the wall, and use viewport overrides to have that class display differently in different drawings.
  3. Peter, what is "windows XP compatibility mode?" Okay, researched that myself. I have been running without checking that option for almost a year, without experiencing problems. From what I understand, if you are in compatibility mode you may be unable to run 64 bit programs, and since some of those are part of the system, you might run into some problems. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the reason you can't run with 4 GB RAM. It's worth a try anyway, and I have an ulterior motive in getting you to try in that I'm uncertain whether to upgrade my RAM! I don't know why you are opting to use compatibility mode, but on my system the 32 bit emulator works just fine without resorting to compatibility mode. BTW, with 64 bit you could install 128 GB RAM! (assuming everything works and your buss could handle it!)
  4. Pete & Ray, someone on another thread was complaining about VW crashes or stalls, and, perhaps it's just coincidence, but he had the NVIDIA 7600 video card. If you have an extra 20 minutes, you might try swapping that for an older card to see if it is part of the problem.
  5. Well, the logic of this is that your contained objects might have different classes and attributes, so you don't want the container object to override the differences.
  6. Mike, do you think that this is mainly for folks who still do their printable output on Design Layers instead of Sheet Layers? I use Sheet Layers now for all output. The only use I think I have for Viewports on a design layer would be when I want to have more than one version of a detail on my Sheet Layer in a case where the detail is composed of 2d objects drawn over a Viewport.
  7. billtheia, you don't necessarily have to convert your symbols to groups. The same process will work in both converted and unconverted symbols. Enter the symbol or group to edit the objects. Change all the objects so that they take attributes by class. BE AWARE that it is the class of these objects, not the class of the group or symbol, that will affect how they look. So if you want to have a class that controls them, set one up and ASSIGN IT TO THE OBJECTS. Assigning that class to the symbol instance will not do anything. Assigning that class to a group will also do nothing, unless you are prompted by VW about whether you want the class assigned to the group's objects and respond affirmatively. So, I would suggest that you use some special class other than "None" to control how these objects look. The biggest use of this level of control is to customize class attributes in Viewports.
  8. Another problem with the NVIDIA GEForce 7600 video card! Peter, just for kicks, you might swap out your video card and see if that doesn't solve the problem. A couple of other users have reported problems on machines with that card. I've been running 12.5 on an x64 machine for about a year with no problem (different video card, though). x64 seems to emulate 32 bit processing just fine. I'd be curious to know what problem you had with 4 gigs of RAM, since I'm thinking about upgrading my 2 gigs.
  9. Blink, I would use NURBS for this project, and start by defining three or more circular NURBS curves, then use the lofting tool to create a solid, then use boolean process to carve out the middle, etc. Sample object created in two minutes or less by this process: If you want the bottom curve to be a faceted polygon, you can define a NURBS curve for that, and everything will be faired into a single shape when you loft. Or, you can subtract an extrude with faceted hollow inner face that clips the object in a manner similar to your image.
  10. J, wow, that was a bracing exercise! No matter how hard we try, it seems there is always something (almost) obvious that escapes us.
  11. This sounds like a memory leak to me. Pete, that was a good set of tests and observations. What is strange is that others who have been using this program with similar systems haven't reported the problem. So we need to give Katie all the information and cooperation we can to help isolate the cause. Don't lose hope! I reported a 2008 slowness issue regarding Viewports, and NNA engineers got right on it and solved the problem.
  12. Bruce, the best thing to do is post problems on this forum. Someone usually has the latest info about bugs, etc.
  13. J, make sure you have selected "Constrain Tangent" in the constraints palette. To get it to work in the opposite direction, hold down the key.
  14. Re: the screen flickering comments, I've experienced something like this as indicated above, but not to the degree some are reporting. So it seems to me that this is a complex situation that might have as much to do with the particular system as with the program itself. I would encourage everyone to post more complete system details. Mine: VW 12.5.2 and 2008; WinXP pro x64; Intel CoreDuo 3.2 Ghz; 2 GB RAM; NVIDIA quadro FX 3450/4000 w/ driver revit, in my mind your credibility is suspect because of the tone of your posts. I looked at the RA link, and Revit wasn't mentioned. Normally I'd just ignore comments like this, but in past posts you have shown some signs of being more serious. I've never used Revit, so I can't comment on the substance, but I have a hard time sorting out your complaint. How about giving us some specifics, such as how long you used Revit and in what context, how long you've worked with VW, and what your detailed comparison is? That would be useful. Crude language, **** or not, is uninformative.
  15. By "blinking monitor" do you mean that the VW window header and the little icons in the upper right seem to blink multiple times when doing certain operations? That is what I am seeing, and I'm waiting to get a good fix on it before submitting a report. Because this only seems to happen with complex projects with large filesize, my theory is that there is some kind of memory management going on in the background, and that the program is loading and unloading modules & resources in order to keep total RAM down. Or it could be as simple as some function call repeatedly asking for a window redraw. In either case, this needs to be re-engineered. As users, of course, we're more-or-less in the dark about the causes. The best we can do is give very detailed information to NNA. I think Katie is a good person to describe the problem to.
  16. Petri, thanks! So does that mean that the VW implementation of IFC format answers this wish list item, or is IFC so limited it can't serve mechanical design needs?
  17. Doesn't really contradict what Katie says. But I've never really been sure what the meaning of a "lineweight," etc., would be for a container object. BTW, it's not the active class attributes that would count, it's the class to which the object is assigned (could be one and the same unless the symbol was created to be assigned to a particular class when placed). You probably knew that. This does work the way you want it to, if the objects within the symbol are created as you normally do ("use class" for everything), and then you convert the symbol to a group and change the classes of the contained objects.
  18. Petri, it's my impression the biggest problem with script-based plug-ins vs. those built on program modules or .dlls compiled from C++ is that the latter execute a lot faster. Maybe I'm wrong, but I know this is true in other contexts.
  19. Andy, my impression is that STEP is not the current favored file format. It was always intended to do much more than IGES, which was mainly for geometric characteristics where STEP was intended to be a BIM-type standard. I'm not sure that enough people are on board with STEP to make it a real standard. Maybe someone who knows more than I do about STEP vs. IFC could comment.
  20. jw, not sure what you mean. I had to add the Cut 2D Section and Cut 3D Section commands by editing the workspace.
  21. Three, the symbol is a container object. The container object's attributes are not shared by the objects it contains. Same with groups.
  22. You can try converting your plane to a NURBS surface, then create a NURBS "box" by converting an extrusion at your boundary to NURBS surfaces. Then use the Connect/Combine tool to extend the plane to the boundary surfaces. This is a bit fussy, and sometimes doesn't succeed. The DTM method can take more time, but is more certain to give good results.
  23. I wish there were a utility that could copy keyboard shortcut preferences from one version to another, or to restore them after reinstalling VW. AutoCAD stores these "alias" settings in a text file, and it seems to me that since this is such a simple thing it would be possible to extract the shortcuts from one workspace so that they could be imported into another. And if NNA want to go all the way with this, having a mini app that could convert the whole workspace on upgrading - that would be even better.
  24. Look at your model in elevation, and take a 2d section (Model -> Cut 2D Section) at the desired height. You can use this to construct a view of the roof in 2d, or you can use it to create a mask to use in annotation space to obscure portions of the roof you don't want to see. That roof viewport is placed below the 2nd story plan viewport on your sheet layer (just duplicate your plan viewport, change the layer settings to show the roof, add mask in annotation space, and send it back). I don't think there is an easier way to do this. Unfortunately, we can't create a section viewport that cuts through the building on a horizontal plane.
  25. 1) Make sure your floor slab is filled (check attributes palette). 2) Put the floor slab on a layer that is "above" the stairs. If everything is on one layer, send the stairs to the back.
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