topic OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet in Modeling

OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Anonymous — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 23:11:50 GMT

Is this a wish or a bug?

Working with polygon shapes and the Offset edge tool on the pet pallet works fine, it does just what you want.

However, when it comes to editing a polyline or a selection of unclosed elements (see topic on this), such as a selection of walls or lines, then the behaviour can be rather strange.

Select several joined lines/walls and then edit the end one using the Offset edge.

Then what happens is this:

Rather than extending the adjacent elements and keeping the end one at the original length, you find it lengthens or shortens the element, depending on the undrawn line between the first and last element you have selected.

In the example below, the closed shape would be a triangle, and the wall is either lengthened or shortened according to which way you offset.

This is not what I want to happen.

Am I the only one who thinks this is not what the edit should do?

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Dwight — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 00:06:42 GMT

Right. It doesn't work the way you want.

I am surprised, too, because it obviously creates a centroid and scales the wall against that reference point.

Bugya!

If I understand correctly, you want to move an intersecting wall and shorten only the adjacent leg.

That is easily done with a marquee stretch, instead.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Thomas Holm — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 19:08:17 GMT

The thing is, it works identically as in polygons. Actually it assumes the polyline is a polygon, closed or not. I assume that is what an "Offset edge" command would do. Try Dwight's tip if you want something else.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

__archiben — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 22:17:24 GMT

Thomas wrote:
The thing is, it works identically as in polygons. Actually it assumes the polyline is a polygon, closed or not

... and you know what they say about assumptions right?

i'm 80% in agreement with andy. i don't want to mess around with the marquee tool when i have several linear elements already selected. it frustrates me that i always have to adjust the outside elements back to their original length.

i would say it's another example of a solution not thoroughly thought through - the functionality of polygon editing on an open 'polygon' should be different from the functionality of operating on a closed polygon.

the trouble comes when trying to workout the default logic of open polygon editing:

- should the endpoints remain fixed and a new linear element be created between the fixed end and the new position of the end element?

- should the default angle of the end element relative to the fixed endpoint always be 90º?

probably . . . but not always. and therein lies the rub . . .

~/archiben

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Anonymous — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 22:21:16 GMT

I share Andy's frustration. I do use a marquee at times to avoid this, but think I shouldn't really have to.

Also, I use polylines as leaderlines for notes, and if you do stretch or offset the line, the arrowhead end often switches on you, so when you Alt-click to get properties for the next line the arrowhead is now at the wrong end.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Dwight — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 22:23:23 GMT

So the tool has limits.

And to make it serve everyone's assumptions as to how it works, there's potentially another layer of options in a palette to slow the tool down even more.

Sort of like those Objects with too many parameters.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 13:03:36 GMT

Dwight wrote:
.. to make it serve everyone's assumptions as to how it works, there's potentially another layer of options in a palette to slow the tool down even more...

Dwight,

My points are:

1. Does anyone really want it to do what it current does? I certainly don't.

2. I don't want to have to select the marquee tool to do this.

P.S.
It can produce bizarre results, depending on the geometry of the group/polylines which surely no one would want....

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 14:10:50 GMT

Perhaps that pet palette should not be available when you select individual walls. This is really a polygonal editing tool and I use it all the time when editing polygons and I want it to act exactly how it does. If it acted differently (as you are suggesting) it would not be consistent with how it is used with polygons. Perhaps you are looking for a different functionality that could be addressed with a different pet palette icon.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 21:41:51 GMT

Mike,

The Offset edge function works fine for polygons.

I am not after any change in its function for polygons! Nor am I after removing it from the pet pallet.

The pet pallet has some nifty functions.

One smart thing about ArchiCAD since version 8 is that by selecting several joined elements, be they walls or lines, you can edit them using the pet pallet with many of the functions available for editing ploygons.

My point is that rather than close an open polyline shape with an arbitrary virtual line (which is effectively what the programme does at the moment) it should not close the polyline and allow the final vector line to remain the same length. See below:

I'm sure the guys in Budapest are smart enough to do this.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Dwight — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 22:38:57 GMT

Andy wrote:

I'm sure the guys in Budapest are smart enough to do this.

I agree that there should be more adaptability to the pet palette and its subsidiary commands.

But do they CARE enough to do it when important things like saving the Sketch rendering settings with a single button click are ignored?

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 12:27:33 GMT

Dwight,

True, there are plenty of wish list items that are more desperate (a Redefine button for Layer Combinations & Model View Options).

However I sometimes think that we end up putting up with features that don't quite work as they should because we don't bother to complain.

This certainly was the case in the pre-ArchiCAD-Talk Forum days.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

__archiben — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 22:13:57 GMT

Andy wrote:
However I sometimes think that we end up putting up with features that don't quite work as they should because we don't bother to complain.

well said!

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

LiHigh — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 02:48:09 GMT

IMHO, I don't think it's a bad thing. What more can you do about edge editing?

If we look at different senarios as illustrsted in the attached image, it might be good to have the invisible vectors which pass through the 1st and last points of the serie of connected elements.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:38:41 GMT

I think the end segments of the polyline (or selected walls, lines, etc.) should simply retain their original length.
This seems the most commonly desired behavior and easiest to understand.
In the rare cases where one wants the edge to stretch it can be done manually as a second step.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

SeaGeoff — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 20:00:43 GMT

I agree. The Pet palette should work the way Andy and Matthew describe. With regard to walls I would like to see a specific Connected Wall Mode so that, when activated, you could simply drag any wall and all intersecting walls would extend or shrink accordingly. Similar to using the marquee but without all the hassle of protecting all the stuff you don't want to move. VectorWorks has had this for years and it works great.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

SeaGeoff — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 20:40:21 GMT

I did a little experimenting and discovered that if the walls are grouped, and groups are then suspended, that offset edge works closer to like we want. The key is that the walls need to form a closed polygon but will still work if one segment extend past the closed shape. The same works for lines and polylines. Things break down if segments extend every which way and T intersections are not maintained. Basically only corners are preserved. At first I was pretty excited, but with all the limitations I still think there's room for improvement.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Laszlo Nagy — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 08:49:01 GMT

I have an idea. It is obvious to me that both ways of how it works are useful under various circumstances. So why not have a keyboard shortcut using which you can toggle between the two working methods:
1. The offset edge does not change its length
2. The offset edge changes its edge just like as an edge of a polygon would.

Then the user could control what would happen.

The other choice would be to make Archicad smart enough to be able to decide which method to use in which case. But there may be so many possible scenarios that it would inevitably make mistakes in some of them. So the user should have the control.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 12:26:09 GMT

Matthew wrote:
I think the end segments of the polyline (or selected walls, lines, etc.) should simply retain their original length.
This seems the most commonly desired behavior and easiest to understand. ...

Exactly Matthew.

I can never remember using the function deliberately to achieve the effect that LiHigh illustrates, but I have tried offsetting polylines and walls and realised that the function doesn't do what I want several times (may be I'm just thick).

So I don't think Laszlo's idea is necessary.

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

__archiben — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 22:08:51 GMT

laszlonagy wrote:
Then the user could control what would happen.

i like smart solutions like this. it's the mac OS way of working: a feature works in the most likely used way by default, but holding down the ALT key opens up a whole new world of alternative functionality.

unfortunately (in my opinion - others would say fortunately!), graphisoft's approach to user interface in 10 is one of making all commands visible on the interface, (such as picking up and injecting parameters, trimming, etc...) and so all new functionality from now on seems to require a full command be available rather than just ALTernative options on the one command . . .

~/archiben

Re: OFFSET EDGE - Pet Pallet

SeaGeoff — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 20:45:40 GMT

While we're on the subject I have another complaint about Offset Edge. Once started the cursor does not recognize other edges (no half-filled pencil) or invoke guide lines. Only vertices are detected. As other pet palette functions do not suffer this malady I consider it a bug.