Andrew Bell@NV

Note that in other cases, you may want to call NNA tech support; I've been part of helping them repair several corrupted files. Also, often it helps us find a bug.

Our CEO -- who is an official spokesperson -- made this statement on the VectorWorks e-mail mailing list yesterday: NNA will issue a press release with information about Rosetta compatibility with VectorWorks 12 as soon as we have it. We (along with all Mac developers) are waiting for our release Intel-Macs now to test with final customer hardware, I'm hesitant to use any results from our prototype machines and software. VectorWorks 11.5 will be more lightly tested but we suspect results will be similar. Our goal is to make sure that our current product line runs successfully, but not to spend time tweaking for Rosetta performance. The universal binary development is making major headway and we've already made several trips to Apple to get through some difficult problems. Right now, it is still too early to make a schedule guess for the release because it is such a big job. I'm hoping we'll know a lot more in another month of development. Luckily, VectorWorks 12 made a lot of internal advances to use newer OS X systems which will make the job easier. Sorry I can't offer any more details than that right now. Apple is very good at keeping secrets which makes for exciting announcements but also means that their developers will need a little time after the news to fill you in on the software details. As we hit major milestones of testing and planning I'll push to get the information published quickly. Sincerely, Sean ----------------------------------------------- Sean Flaherty CEO Nemetschek North America 7150 Riverwood Drive Columbia, MD 21046 Tel.: 410.290.5114 mailto:sean@nemetschek.net

NNA has given you no assurances about VectorWorks working under Rosetta, and Apple specifically says there is software that won't. Why would you rely on that unproven combination for a significant element of your business?

Right. Especially given that Apple isn't guaranteeing compatibility with up-to-date apps, NNA and other software companies aren't going to guarantee Rosetta compatibility for older major versions of VectorWorks. VW 11.5 may work great on Intel Macs, it may be slow, or it may work incorrectly in a few or many cases. If it's either the second or third, don't expect the situation to improve.

Support for or Intel Macs is still off in the future; it will be available when it's ready. Older versions of VectorWorks may work on Intel Macs under Rosetta, but it is not recommended for serious work (by Steve Jobs of Apple as well as by NNA.) Upgrade VW when you upgrade your machine.

Note that if your detail viewport converts to group without negative effects, you could simply do that and then Create Symbol, and paste the symbol directly on the sheet layer.

What version of VW are you using?

I can't imagine VW working better under WINE on Linux than on platforms we specifically support. If you want a unix-like OS that runs most of the stuff that runs on Linux, why not run OS X?

My apologies, I didn't notice this was the VectorScript section, and thus my answer wasn't VectorScript-related. (I check out the most recent posts list rather than going group by group.)

Given Virtual PC allowed you to run PC apps and OSes on a PowerPC machine, I'd be shocked if there wasn't a good Virtual PC for Intel Macs. Apple or someone else might even create a Windows compatibility layer for OS X, just like WINE for Linux, which would allow you to run Windows programs directly.

Try Compose on the lines plus arc. If it gives you two pieces, do Add Surface on the results.

Also, if it's not fixed in 12.0.0, you can file a bug report (whether you return it or not) so it is more likely to be fixed in a bug fix release to 12.

Note that you can use symbols in solid operations if they have the right sort of contents. So in this case, you could turn the original solid into a symbol (leave an instance in place), duplicate it, and do various ops to split off the two pieces. One other op to split things is split by line. However, that seems to be set up such that it won't split if you don't have any surfaces that intersect the splitting line. You could add an object on the split line to your solid, split by line, and then edit the original to remove that object on the split line.

You could convert to nurbs, then select each part independently and call Add Solids on each.

Radiosity is not multithreaded. Multithreaded means it will take advantages of all the processors on the individual machine, so four with the dual-dual Mac. No render farm support.

The smart edge does tend to slow things down, which is one reason to make off the default. Try creating a script SetPref(48, Not GetPref(48)); create a plug-in menu command from it, add it to your workspace, and assign it a shortcut key. Message('Edge snap is ',GetPref(48)); will show you the current setting.

This is a known bug with a fix ready that should be in the next release. The banging sound you may hear is my head, from frustration that this somehow made it past the internal and beta testing...

If you want to send me the IGES file, I can take a look at it and what VectorWorks is doing with it.

Hmm. The lines you're seeing there almost certainly are nurbs edges, not isolines, or they would disappear in hidden line. Somewhere along the line some of the nurbs surfaces seem to have been split in two. If you convert the solid to NURBS, and then add the NURBS surfaces back together, is the result any different? Also, if you have any other program that reads IGES, you might want to try importing that same file and see if you get the same surface divisions.

Are these isolines on nurbs surfaces and the like? They won't appear in rendered modes, they're just there to give a better impression of the shape of the surface in wireframe.

Try "Convert to Group" on a viewport to get the various component pieces, rather than Convert to Line or Convert to Polygon.

Also note that if you want to create an identical copy in the same location on the same layer, it's easiest just to click on the object while holding down control or command. (You'll see the cursor show a little + sign when you do so, which makes it more obvious what's going on.)

What do you mean by moving it? A WGR bring a copy of a layer in from another file, so it effectively adds a layer to your document. Layers don't have positions per se, they are independent spaces. If you bring in a layer and want to view it is a specific position relative to another layer (And their origins aren't the same), you'll need to create a layer link in that other layer. You can then move that layer link around after unlocking it. A layer link acts like a symbol, except that the objects inside the "symbol" are in the linked layer.

Are you doing all your work in a top view? Stacked layers affects the view when you're doing 3-D modelling. I don't think it's particularly useful if you never edit outside top or top/plan view.

What kind of 3-D object? Image fills are for 2-D, and are generally only visible in top/plan. This is different from a texture, which can apply an image to objects in 3-D rendering. Do you have RenderWorks?