- Visualization Issues with Parallels 16
In Parallels 16 (released August 11, 2020), OpenGL 3.3 is enabled for all VMs (and an option for to be changed (“lowered”) by the user is not available). While this would normally be great news (because visualization that was not possible in the past should now be possible) we’ve discovered that several standard OpenGL 3.3 extensions (functions) that are required by WYSIWYG are not actually enabled in Parallels. The result of this is Shaded View issues which make it impossible to use the software in this environment.
Workaround: Until OpenGL 3.3 support is fully-enabled in Parallels 16, or until Parallels offers a means for the user to set which OpenGL version it should use, the only way to use WYSIWYG in the Parallels virtual desktop environment, is to roll back to Parallels 15. Alternately, BootCamp may be used – and is a superior choice.
- Print Color and Grayscale Options Are Ignored by Truss.
Truss pieces, regardless of whether or not they’ve been assigned a custom color in the Truss Manager, always ignore the Print Color assigned to the Layer they are on AND the Grayscale option for that Layer (if it was enabled) – and instead, always print with their Layer’s colour or the custom colour they were assigned in their Properties.
- Users running wysiwyg on computers with integrated video cards have reported quality and performance related issues in the wysiwyg Shaded View.
This problem is related to very limited hardware support for features required by wysiwyg’s Shaded View. Please ensure that you have the latest graphics drivers for your computer. If issues are still experienced in Shaded View, please turn off any unnecessary visualization features, as per the advice offered in the following article: http://cast-soft.com/wysiwyg/improving-performance-in-shaded-view/.
Note: Although wysiwyg will run on a computer with an integrated graphics card, this is not recommended, especially for pre-visualization or pre-cueing. Please use a computer with a dedicated/discreet video card instead; please see the ‘Further Advice’ section of the page above for information about appropriate computer hardware for wysiwyg.
- The glow feature for LED Wall and Screens will always display a white glow when running on systems using integrated graphics.
Integrated graphics cards do not support Enhanced Visualization or Deferred Shading. As a result, although the glow is visible, the color of the glow remains white.
- If a change is made to the video resolution while a CITP source is playing, it can take up to 10 seconds before the video is displayed without artifacts at the new resolution.
During this time, some artifacts are visible in the video displayed. It is advised that you set the video resolution at the beginning of your design work, and not change during your presentations.
- It is not possible to perform a second Merge operation on a merged item that has been mirrored.
After mirroring an object that was originally created through a merge operation, you cannot reliably perform another merge procedure on this object.
Workaround: Merge all objects before mirroring them.
- When rendered (via the Render Wizard) Single-Sided Surfaces that have Light Emission enabled, as well as Screen objects, “glow” on both sides.
When you assign light emission to a single-sided surface, and then render it with Radiosity turned on, the surface appears to glow on both sides.
Workaround: When using a light-emitting surface, create a second surface (with no light emission) of the same size and place it just behind the light-emitting surface, 1 or 2 millimeters away. This will mask the second light-emitting side in your rendering.
- For fixtures with multiple circuit types you cannot manually select which type to display in DATA mode.
Regardless of the number of circuit types associated with a particular fixture and the Regional Settings that you choose for your file, there is no way to select which circuit type to show in DATA mode; instead, the program will always show the first circuit type listed.
- Saving a wysiwyg file directly to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device or any other external drive/location, including USB sticks and even USB-connected drives, the file may become corrupted.
Workaround: Open files only once they are stored on a local/internal drive, and only save them onto the same drive. If you prefer to store files in external locations, copy/move them to your local drive before you start working on them; once you are finished working on them and you’ve saved them, move them back to their original location.
- Transparent surfaces that touch non-transparent objects are not transparent in the rendered image.
To ensure that transparent surfaces touching non-transparent objects are completely invisible in renderings requires a slight workaround. When placing the transparent surface or object in your drawing, ensure that a minuscule space exists between it and any non-transparent objects in your drawing (this space can be as small as you like). For example, if you are placing a transparent surface on a floor, nudge the surface just above the floor. When you render the image, the surface will be invisible.
- wysiwyg does not detect the appropriate size of color frame for some fixtures that have interchangeable lenses.
wysiwyg is not distinguishing the lens from the body of certain fixtures that have interchangeable lenses, such as the Strand SL. In some cases, therefore, it allows you to use the incorrect size of color frame for the current lens. For example, a Strand SL fixture with a 26° lens uses a 6.25-inch color frame, but wysiwyg also allows you to use both a 12-inch and a 14-inch frame (the frames used by 10° and 5° lenses respectively).
Note: This issue was previously experienced with the Source 4 fixture, but it has since been fixed in R38.
To avoid this issue, ensure that you know the appropriate color frame for each lens that you are using. Select a color frame from the accessories tab of the library browser and insert it into the fixture(s). Then open the properties of the color frame and select a color to apply to the accessory.
- Deleted Presentation items are still available in Layouts.
Removing a new plot, image, report, worksheet, key, legend, or spreadsheet from its respective shortcut bar using Undo does not remove it from the list of items available for insertion in Layouts. Such items are named “new view” in their respective list and can be added to the layout but may cause wysiwyg to crash.
- Positional link not broken for grouped objects in a New Plots view.
Performing a Move or Rotate command on a set of grouped objects in a New Plots view does not properly break the positional link. If you try to restore the positional link for these objects, they will return to the position they were in immediately before the positional link was broken, not to their current position in CAD mode. They will move to the correct position if the objects in CAD mode are ungrouped and regrouped.
- Positional link not broken for grouped hang structures in a New Plots view.
Performing a Move, Rotate, or Rotate Position command on a set of grouped hang structures (such as truss) in a New Plots view does not properly break the positional link. If you Move or Rotate the hang structures in CAD mode, the hang structures in the New Plots view will change their position as well. They will not be moved if you ungroup the hang structures before moving or rotating them, and then regroup them when the operation is finished.
- ‘Windows’ created with the Boolean > Subtract tool disappear when the file is re-opened.
If ‘windows’ are cut out from a ‘wall’ surface when both the wall surface and the surfaces that will be used for the cutouts were created by extruding lines, after saving and closing the file, re-opening it causes the windows to be filled in again in Shaded View. In Wireframe views, the cutouts are still there.
- Bring to Front and Send to Back commands in CAD Wireframe and in Layouts cannot be undone.
The Undo command will undo the action previous to any Bring to Front/Send to Back commands. Reversing the operation must be done manually and it may take several steps to return objects to their original draw order.
- Performing 15-20 Boolean operations in a File may lead to a crash on the next Boolean operation.There is a limit due to geometric complexity, but it varies depending on the file and objects and is unpredictable. If performing repeated Boolean operations on the same objects, it is recommended that you save and back up your work often – perhaps even after every successfully complete operation.
- When undoing and redoing move commands involving objects attached to an axis or frame or a grouped axis or frame, the objects may end up positioned incorrectly
- In Layouts and New Plots, the measurement unit type shown in the Status Bar does not always match the unit type used in the Layout or New Plot.
- Changing wysiwyg’s (Wyg.exe’s) task priority from Task Manager does not always result in that priority being retained.
- Undo/Redo is not supported for Camera Path nodes set to User Defined.
- Multi-part Automated fixtures that which feature color mixing on more than one part (e.g. the Showgun’s beam and its ring) cannot display the color wheel preview information on the Color Designer Tool.
- Custom Library Items that are no longer part of the application library and deleted from the wysiwyg file cannot be deleted from a file’s private library.
A wysiwyg file which contains some custom library items that are not listed in the Application’s Library Browser (accessed from the Welcome Screen), and that are deleted from the file cannot be deleted from the file’s library, because the Delete option is disabled when you right-click on the custom library object inside the file’s Library Browser.
Workaround: Performing a Purge Operation on the file will detect the unused custom library items in the file and can delete them if the user wishes.
- The Symbol Alignment option in Show Options inverts Fixture Lens Number in the Fixture’s symbol when displayed in Wireframe views.
- Linear Scale objects do not export in 3D DWG/DXF exported files.
Although Linear Scale objects will export to a 2D DWG/DXF exported file, they currently do not export to a 3D DWG/DXF exported file.
- wysiwyg cannot print to a PDF file if the file’s name or path contains Unicode characters that do not exist in the current system language code page. For example, if your system is using English (United States), you cannot specify a path with Chinese characters.
Workaround: One workaround is to name the file using only characters in your system language from wysiwyg, and then rename the file afterwards from Windows. Alternatively, if you set the Windows OS language settings to a language which uses the same characters used in the file name or path, then the image can be exported successfully.
- wysiwyg cannot export the Shaded View to a JPEG image if the file’s name or path contains Unicode characters that do not exist in the current system language code page.
Workaround: One workaround is to save the JPEG in a different image format, (e.g. BMP, PNG, etc.), and it will save successfully. Alternatively, save the JPEG image file with a name and path only containing viable Unicode characters from wysiwyg, and then rename the file afterwards from Windows.
- When running wysiwyg in the Parallels virtual machine environment, enabling the “Soft Shadow” option in the Shaded Views may crash wysiwyg.
It is recommended that Parallels is not used for visualization.
- For imported hatch patterns with dots, printing may not provide the expected results.
When printing a hatched object that uses a hatch pattern with dots, the dots may appear very small and faint or may not appear at all. wysiwyg has several hatch patterns with simulated dots that use short line segments instead. This is only a problem if a pattern file is imported.
- Cell Padding is handled differently in Text label objects in versions above R36. Therefore, wysiwyg files saved in R35 and earlier containing Text Labels which have cell padding will have a different height in R36 and later.
Where up to R35 cell padding would reduce the text height, now the cell padding value is additional space added around the text. This increases the overall height of the text label object, which will make the height of a Text Label saved in files from previous releases different.
- Object order is not respected in New Plots as it is in CAD Wireframe Views.
The Send to Back / Bring to Front functions to offer the user a way to define object draw order, are not respected in New Plots. As a result, the plot will be displayed differently between the CAD Wireframe representation and New Plots representation.
- Occasionally when opening a dialog, the window’s border is displayed but the contents of the window are not shown.
This issue happens randomly. If you experience this problem, you can use the ESC key to close the dialog or click in the top right corner of the dialog where the X button would be. Usually if you try to reopen the same dialog again, all the contents will be displayed the next time it is opened.
- When switching between tabs or between Visual Themes, wysiwyg mouse clicks may affect the window behind wysiwyg.
During these slower operations, wysiwyg may become temporarily inactive. Avoid clicking the mouse until the switch is complete and wysiwyg will stay in the foreground.
- Due to differences in how applications work with text, some issues exist with exporting text labels to DWG.
Exporting text labels with multi-line text will result in a text object with one line of text in the DWG/DXF file. Text label borders and background fill are not exported. The Align to View property is ignored. Text will appear slightly larger and may be in a slightly different position from how it appears in wysiwyg, but it is much more accurate than in previous releases.
- Depending on DPI settings, Layouts may not display or print certain objects at the specified scale.
Worksheet, Report, Key and Legend objects may be smaller in the Layout due to system DPI settings above 100%.
- wysiwyg’s DPI drops after connecting to the WholeHog console via the High End System driver if the computer’s DPI setting is above 100%.
When wysiwyg is running on a computer which has DPI settings which are greater than 100%, using driver will immediately drop the DPI settings to 100%. This issue is not experienced on the same systems with other console drivers.
- Accessories’ Attribute Layouts cannot be changed in CAD Mode.
It is not possible to modify the Attributes Layout for Electronic Accessories via the Edit Fixture Attribute Layout window in CAD mode.
Workaround: when needed, these may be modified in New Plots (click-and-drag (or delete) them).
- Measuring Truss with Linear Dimensions may show incorrect measurements for a Truss’ length, width, or height.
The wysiwyg Truss library is represented by lines along the center of the main truss chords and does not account for the thickness in the library symbol. As a result, sometimes measurements of the truss’ length, width or height with Linear Dimensions snapping to end points may result in incorrect measurements as the library models do not account for the Truss thickness. To correct this, an optional Truss Thickness was introduced to improve Truss representations, and a new Truss Snap feature which includes the truss thickness value when measuring truss can be used. This has improved measurement results for many truss objects, but some truss objects may still experience discrepancies. Also, many Imperial length truss models will continue to display a measurement discrepancy due to converting from metric to imperial, as all truss models in the library are drawn as a metric drawing.
Workaround: Use the Truss Manager and specify the correct measurements in the Auto Dim X/Y/Z columns for the Truss objects used in your files and then use the Auto Truss Dimension tool and choose the option to use Truss Manager values to measure truss objects.
- Sometimes when the truss thickness option is enabled, some Truss and Pipe may not be represented perfectly, especially when the Truss/Pipe object may be rotated.
This is also related to the wysiwyg Truss library being represented by lines and not accounting for the thickness in the library symbol. The truss thickness option adds thickness to the truss representation which works best when truss is aligned to the main axes, but if truss is rotated, sometimes it will not look correct.
When represented with truss thickness, the Truss symbols display best when aligned to the main axes. If they are rotated, the truss representation of the main chords and cross-members may not look correct in all cases. This depends on the truss’ angle of rotation. Similarly, linear and curved pipes may also experience similar issues when not aligned to the main axes.
Workaround: A potential workaround that sometimes helps with displaying truss best is to enable truss fill for the truss symbol. For the pipes, sometimes increasing the pipe thickness will help display the pipe correctly.
- I-Mag Camera is not displayed in Renderings.
The visuals from the I-Mag camera do not appear in Renderings.
Workaround: A workaround for this issue is to export the Shaded View of the I-Mag Camera and apply this image as an Image Source to the Screen before starting the Rendering.
- NVIDIA graphics cards not able to correctly simulate strobing at higher frequencies.
Strobing fixtures at high frequencies on Nvidia -based video cards is incorrect; this issue is not experienced on a AMD-based video card with the same file simulating the same strobing effect. Nvidia has been notified about this, and it is our hope that they will be able to address the issue in driver update (but, naturally, CAST Software has no control over when they decide to make this fix a priority).
Workaround: A workaround for this issue is to use the Exclusive Full Screen Mode option (set in Application Options > Simulation), and visualize the Shaded View in Full Screen, which handles strobing accurately on NVIDIA graphics cards.
- Some video cards do not support the Alpha Beam shadows feature and may experience a crash when switching to Shaded View.
To support the requirements of the Alpha Beam Shadows feature, your video card must support OpenGL version 4.3. If not, while using the Shaded View, wysiwyg will crash. As a result, and to avoid this, when some AMD video cards that do not support this feature are detected, the Alpha Beam Shadows feature will be automatically disabled. However, on rare occasions, a crash may still be experienced.
Workaround: In cases where you are attempting to open a file and wysiwyg crashes, from the Welcome Screen, open the Application Options and disable “Deferred Rendering” from the Simulation tab.
- When a Spreadsheet (DATA mode) is filtered, switching back to it can take longer.
Workaround: remove the filter to prevent this.
- After assigning certain font (for example Neo Sans Pro) as defaults via Document Options > Fonts, a font error may appear when the file is reopened.
Workaround: use a different (similar-looking) font.
- Pure black-colored objects (i.e. R/G/B = 0/0/0) and up to a color Luminosity value of 16 (in the Color Picker) do not show the footprint of light beams that touch them.
This is part of wysiwyg’s Black Body Optimization feature. In order for the beam footprints to appear, set the Luminosity to 17 or higher.
- When the model (objects) contained in files being imported are far from the origin, they will not appear in wysiwyg (even though the file imports successfully).
Unlike many (but not all) other CAD/3D modelling applications’ workspace, wyiwyg’s workspace is not unlimited, so anything drawn more than ~5Km away from the origin in any direction will likely not appear once the import is complete.
Workaround: open the file being imported in the application where it was created, move the model close to the origin (perhaps even surrounding it), save and import that version of the file.