MacG3Freak

Aahhhhh, that makes sense. Hmm...well, if you have a copy of photoshop, I suggest making a cmyk photoshop file with blocks of colors that you want to use (your cmyk values) and using the eye dropper to get the pantone values. http://www.ehow.com/how_5091235_convert-cymk-pantone.html Then you'll have the named versions of your colors, which I imagine will make it even easier.

It is possible to get a similar look from Renderworks look at my file, you can get them even closer, but I did it in about 2 minutes.

I have used it successfully, but if navigating in OpenGL you need a beast graphics card to render as you move, something with at least a Gig or VRAM. If you're using a Mac I'd suggest EVGA GeForce GTX 285 at the MINIMUM, it will run you about $450 from the Apple Store. There are some better ones that will kick some serious butt in the $1,300-$1,800 range, but they might be overkill unless you're doing some seriously complex modeling.

When I tried doing this, I had a similar problem, the people at NNA could never find a fix. I have 2010 now and it works fine.

My suggestion is making a duplicate version of your VW files, and converting everything in the files to polygons. Then export the files to 3DS with textures. And I'm not sure why you'd want to use Sketchup as a renderer, Renderworks is the same renderer that's in Cinema 4D and besides PIXAR's RenderMan is probably the best one out there. Definitely the best for the money.

I found that you don't have to restart VW to get the pane back and working, just go to your workspaces menu and click whichever workspace you want, it should pop right back up.

That is exactly what was happening to me when I first tried to import Sketchup into 09SP4. Can you send me the file, or a link to the file? MacG3Freak AT aol DOT com

That's a good idea, use built in Pantone colors. Are you printing this yourself or having someone else print it? If you're printing it yourself, what software are you using to print it?

You forgot the Cupertino Tax. Hahahaha!

Try turning off Quartz imaging processing.

If you can afford it, then it's worth it. Not that I'm saying that it isn't HORRIBLY overpriced. That's why I model on my desktop and laptop but use a scalable server for rendering, so I've never needed a heavy duty graphics card, but if I didn't have that, I'd most certainly go with a heavy duty graphics card. The other upside to having a beast of a graphics card is if you ever intend on sending your models out to something like Cinema4D or Maya those suckers need a big-boy chipset.

I actually just imported a ton of Sketchup models from a client for my current project. VW 2009 functions best with Sketchup 6 files IF you have VW 2009 SP4 installed. If that doesn't fix it then it's possible that you aren't waiting long enough for the files to compile. I know for me running a top of the line fully loaded MacBookPro it took several minutes to import some of the more complex Sketchup files. The more curvature the object has, the more polygons VW has to attempt to translate. Also if you're getting your files from 3D Warehouse, you need to remember that many of the artists on there are novices and do not fully understand how to model in Sketchup. I found that the more experienced users tend to group shapes which VW understands and imports beautifully. The ultimate quick fix solution though, is to buy a copy of Sketchup 7 Pro (around $550) and export out of Sketchup as a 3DS file with textures (MAKE SURE TO CREATE A NEW FOLDER TO PUT THE 3DS FILE IN! Or else you'll be very sad when one of your nice, tidy folders is mucked up with hundreds of files). The Sketchup->3DS->VW translation comes with a price though, and that price is outrageous file sizes. This is because 3DS is not a solid modeling program like VW, Sketchup or SolidWorks, it's an animation program that sees each individual poly face as a fragment of a texture (VERY inefficient). Truth be told, 99 times out of 100 you're better off modeling it yourself in VW. Hope that helps. -G.

If you're running Mac OS 10.6 than the operating system will leverage additional processing power from the graphics card. So having a top shelf graphics card is never a bad idea. -G.

Does anyone else keep getting the annoying, "Personalize Your Copy of Vectorworks" dialogue box when they start up 2010? And is anyone else having problems with the mysterious disappearing Navigation pallet? I'm running OS 10.6.2 with VW2010 SP1. I tried installing it on another computer with the same results. -G.

Hey everyone, I can't get the wall framer to work properly. I can frame the whole wall, but the framer puts the studs in the exact center of the wall. This would be fine except the studs in the walls I'm using are offset slightly to the inside of the building. When I try to select just the wall structure class (which is what I have my studs classed to in the wall attributes) the framer tells me that no walls have been framed because there are no walls to frame on the selected layers/classes. I'm so frustrated and I'm up against the wall here. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! -Warren In the picture the green lines are obviously where the framing members are being put, the red lines are where I need them.

Thanks to both of you. -G.

Can I bring those right into VW 09? -G.

I looked there but there are no furnaces.

Hey there, does anyone know where I can get 3D symbols of appliances? I need some standard furnaces and hot water tanks, there are none in the libraries that come with Designer 2009. Thanks, -G.

Do you have layer stacking on? Go into a Top/Plan view, then click the icon that looks like a stack of papers directly to the left of the render settings at the top right of main window. Then switch back to an isometric view.