Appearance Profiler: Losing Profiles

[dennis]

I just saw this happen and tested, where I was able to duplicate the issue.  I create some appearance profiles, I use SearchSets and assign them to colors, then save the NWF file.  If I load another NWF file, or just hit NEW, then reload the NWF with the Appearance Profiles, I still have the listing.  However, if I save the NWF with Profiles, and then close NW completely, when I reopen NW and load the NWF file that I had just saved with the Profiles, they are no longer listed.  I know I can save the profile out to a DAT file and reload, but would rather it be saved/embedded in the NWF file.  Am I missing a setting or is this flow as intended by the programmers?

[lee.mullin]

The appearance profiler just sets up color and transparency overrides. So when these are applied to the model, they are saved as per that model. It is likely that the model is being reopened with a viewpoint with different colors and transparencies set. So if you have the NWF set up with viewpoints that have the Hide/Required Setting switched on, with the previous colors and transparency settings, then these will override the ones you changed them to in the earlier session.

So to correct this you would need to ensure that the viewpoints do not have color and transparency overrides in them (Edit the Viewpoint and switch off Hide Required), then right click and update the Viewpoint. Or set up new viewpoints with the updated color and transparency overrides.

You can switch on or off Hide/Required in the Options > Interface > Viewpoint Defaults > Save Hide Required Attributes

[dennis]

I am sorry Lee, I must of not made clear the problem I am seeing.  It has nothing to do with viewpoints.  It has to do with the list of profiles listed within the Appearance Profile dialog box.  If I create, let's say four profiles called: _STEEL, _ARCH, _DUCT, and _ELEC.  Each are defined using a SearchSet of the same name and assigned a color.  When I save the NWF, let's call it AP.NWF, open another NWF (or just hit the NEW button), then reload the previously saved AP.NWF, the four profiles are still listed within the Appearance Profile dialog: _STEEL, _ARCH, _DUCT, and _ELEC.  However, if I close Navisworks completely, and relaunch the application, reload the AP.NWF, when I open the Appearance Profiler dialog box, the four profiles are no longer listed and I have to reload the DAT file to get them back.  This seems like a bug to me, but ya never know, it may be the intent of the programmers.  I can post screen shots or a video if that will help.

[dennis]

Further testing: I went to our training room and tested on three different PCs, all with the same results.  The NWF file when saved does not retain the profiles created in the Appearance Profiler thus forcing us to use DAT files.  Seems to be the way it was programmed to function -or- maybe it is a bug that has just now been discovered.

[lee.mullin · Accepted solution]

The profiles are not saved within the file, the Appearance profiler is a simpler way to color the model by search sets and selections, if you update the model and add more items that fall into a search, you would still need to 'Run' the Profiler again to recolor these items.

I've added an enhancement request for us to save this within the file

My mistake for misundertanding the problem.

[dennis]

Thanks for letting me know that I am not messing up somewhere.  I also posted in the wishlist to have the profiles saved with the NWF file.

[FrenchQuarters]

Dennis,

Thanks for raising this question. I was getting confused about the exact same issue. The behaviour of the Appearance Profiler to not save it's settings is  so counter-intuitive that I though it was a bug.

and Lee, thanks for clarifying that for us. 

[VWD-MLM]

I 2nd that.......I hope they get it into 2014 next year..........

Mike

[madpiper75]

we need the abilty to load and run certain profiler .dat files from a batch script.

[austenhugill5720]

Hi we currently have the same problem.

It would have been nice it the Profiles were saved in the NWF.

We update the NWD file overnight from the NWF, to complete the process we need some script that will load the Appearance Profiler and Run it.

Regards

[Gangula2]

Any update on the enhancement?

[RyanWalsh8255]

Well it's only been 11 years waiting for this "enhancement", so I think it's safe to say Autodesk could give 2 forks.  

[DAB-DMI]

Please Autodesk.... it drives me crazy that the Appearance Profiler not only isn't saved inside the file, but the file actually takes on another .dat that was never associated with it from another project file. For now, I guess I need a folder with all my dat files.... no 2 projects are identical.

[Richard.Oakley_AECOM]

another BASIC FUNCTION ignore from AUTOCRAP

well done chaps ... showing your true capacity on this amazingly difficult bit of code to write into the program, shouldnt take more than about 15 years to ad a simple save script