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Mark Aceto

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Posts posted by Mark Aceto

  1. 18 hours ago, zoomer said:

    Because it is just so much more tedious to target the arrows to expand

    these hierarchies for Class access than it is to scroll through the list.

     

    I like the pilot's instrument panel analogy: everything is immediately accessible (on a large surface). But that's what works for me. If another user likes clicking to expand / collapse their instruments... I'm glad we both have options.

     

    18 hours ago, zoomer said:

    Also did the "-" separator did not fit my upper case Naming with "_" if

    needed - Which I find much more legible. In general and it makes still

    the full Class List Scrolling more legible.

     

    I'm on the verge of going ALL CAPS because it seems like no amount of begging and pleading will ever succeed in increasing the smallest text size on my screen even 1 point.

     

    18 hours ago, zoomer said:

    The only advantage I could see for the Hierarchy option, in it is current state,

    is when you have really large amounts of Classes like 300+,

    because VW does not really intelligently remember the last Class scrolling

    Position when you do the same task over and over again.

    VW arbitrarily opens the new Class chooser at any strange position and you

    always have to read in again to find the scroll direction way up or down

    to your current interesting Class "group".

     

    I may be misunderstanding the issue you're describing but these 2 checkboxes should help manage that:

     

    335384182_ScreenShot2022-07-15at8_49_12AM.thumb.png.f489817caeefd82afa136858e28da063.png

    • Like 1
  2. 33 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

    Are you controlling visibility of objects using Data Viz? (by setting all attributes to None)

     

    In a nutshell, I'm saying that I use Data Vis to control attributes of objects that use records (for example: existing, new, truss length, truss color, even line weight of all objects in a viewport) vs using class attributes or class overrides. I mean I still use class attributes but have prob replaced 20% of what I was doing up until 2020 with a data-driven workflow.

     

    To make an analogy, before I used conditional formatting in Excel, I would manually change the color of cell fills, borders, fonts... 

     

    But to keep it on topic, my point is that there's a law of diminishing returns with any of these workflows. Where the classing rules start to fall apart, another workflow might take the frustration out of the classing workflow (for that last 20% of head-scratching).

  3. Also, custom records are a great way of managing phases: existing, demo, new... 

     

    Attributes can be controlled with data vis, and they can also be managed with worksheets (change the phase / attributes of objects from the worksheet).

     

    And there are styles too... 

     

    I love class and layer filters but tags are "not my tempo."

     

    I'm a class minimalist, especially as more and more plug-ins and add-ons (Braceworks, ConnectCAD) are generating their own classes, so less is more. All of the recent Data* advancements have helped me eliminate a lot of the incessant clicking, fiddling, class overrides, etc.

     

    On that note, turning off Hierarchical display is one of the first things I do with each VW install. Talk about incessant clicking... 

     

    I'm about to build a new template file based on the ConnectCAD template, so I'll be following this thread closely.

  4. 2 hours ago, Peter W Flint said:

    These templates are super helpful. Thanks.

     

    Curious about how folks set up saved views and use filters/tags in these custom classing systems to draw efficiently...I created a custom system by virtue of having no clue what I was doing (and therefore not coherent enough to share here), but it has now evolved into a hot mess of redundant tags, records, data views, etc. that is slowing down workflows as my projects have grown more complex. I've explored filters and these seem limited in their ability to combine class visibilities, for instance if I want to see irrigation classes but also be able to manipulate objects in site classes, currently I have to switch filters, which grows cumbersome after a while.

     

    It looks like more functionality with filters is in the list of feature requests, but in the interim it seems like a combination of filters and tags would help limit the amount of visible data in the nav pane while moving through various phases of design. Just wondering how y'all are managing visibilities with these tools.

     

    PWF

     

    Might be helpful to think of a Saved View as a "Filter View" (that's filtering all manner of criteria; not just classes or layers). The actual view itself could be arbitrary depending what you need.

    • Like 2
  5. 14 minutes ago, zoomer said:

    It is still 🙂

     

    Hahaha it does have that "infinity room" effect which is something we're battling with projection brightness and blending, paint color and gain... so having a speedy workflow on a Mac for once in my life is super beneficial.

     

    For Mac users, which are lot of us here, this feels like scratching the surface of what's possible (instead of resigning ourselves to what's good enough for now). Feeling very optimistic about the near future as M2 and M3 are released.

     

    Now if Apple will just release hardware accelerated ray-tracing support... 

    • Like 2
  6. Here's a screenshot of a screenshot. The takeaway is not the quality of the render – it's just a saved view on a design layer – it's about how fast the workflow was. For example, the mirror panels didn't exist before yesterday, so I had to model and texture them. At first they weren't "smoky" enough, so it was a totally unrealistic literal reflection, like a portal into another dimension. So it was the usual trial and error workflow: 75% black, 70%, 65%, 60%, and so on... and each time, it only took 2 min instead of 20 (imagine those Cinema render blocks moving around this 40" monitor like PAC-MAN).

     

    OK @JuanP this file is 22mb (compare to 36mb). Is it Safari? Do I need to use Chrome on Mac?

    • Like 2
  7. On 6/17/2022 at 3:39 PM, Mark Aceto said:

    Finally got to scratch the render itch.

     

    Rule of thumb for these specs: Realistic is as fast as Preview used to be on the Intel MBP in my sig.


    In this case, Preview Spotlight takes about 30 seconds for this scene, and Realistic Spotlight took about a minute and half (previously 5-10 min). Time stamp is in the screenshot below. This is on the design layer for a projection clipping study, so it's not a client-facing published viewport with RW camera, 300 DPI, and all the fixin's.

     

    I was hoping that Preview Spotlight would feel like "real time" but it doesn't really function that way. It's more like a stop-start... rotate or pan view... stop-start.... vs what we're used to with Shaded or TM/UE. In hindsight, that makes sense because each scene is "baked" with RW. If anything moves are changes (even a class visibility), the scene has to bake again.

     

    Looking forward to testing this with more challenging renders this weekend... 

     

    Ugh... upload failed (again).

     

    Following up on this with some more anecdotal observations... 

     

    Compared to my 2019 Intel MBP, this M1 machine is super wonky. They're both running Monterey 12.4 but I'm experiencing all manner of bugginess in both third party and native apps (like Mail and Messages) on the Studio. This thing is blazing fast but they still haven't ironed out all the kinks yet.

     

    I'm absolutely loving the speed of Preview Spotlight and Realistic Spotlight as part of my workflow of revising a design in (almost) real time. Below are some screenshots of design layer saved views on a 40" widescreen monitor. What took minutes today would have taken hours on the MBP (render time stamp in the screenshot). Also, imported a point cloud with 100M points, and am referencing that into the project file with no issues (a little jittery at times). But, still, that's a 1.8gb file with 100 million points.

     

    1482536164_ScreenShot2022-07-05at12_08_53PM.thumb.png.aefb9f1c93e241bc4d9d297c046dce5d.png

     

    Ugh... @JuanP I'm still having issues uploading files

    • Like 1
  8. 21 hours ago, zoomer said:

    For me that looks like a bigger issue.

    I assume a VW 2022 regression caused by something like changes with

    deprecated Screen Plane

     

    That's actually a great point that I may test. I turned on Legacy 2D features or whatever nonsense they called it, so that may be what triggered it. As I recall, every time I created the site model, I was in a 3D view.

     

    The other unintuitive thing is that often times (or at least exporting) 3D workflows require that you be in a 3D view, so when I'm working with thousands of 3D loci, I really want to see that conversation happen to verify the outcome is what I expect. Forcing users to be in a 2D plan view when working with 3D objects seems counter... I guess it's because the site model is a hybrid object? I don't know... I'll have to test all this when I have free time (never).

  9. 50 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

    I thought by default the site model is created with the skirt set to the lowest elevation of the source data. Then you can lower it further via the 'Minimum Elevation' parameter (I generally lower it by 10m or whatever to make it a bit more chunky).

     

    You're right. With the Clip Cube, I can see where I was confused but it's actually bottoming out where it should (I'm a little rusty):

     

    1684020930_ScreenShot2022-07-02at10_25_19AM.thumb.png.1687b0264404e55fe0f72c63fa857bb4.png

     

    1312190926_ScreenShot2022-07-02at10_27_13AM.thumb.png.03f40f8b0912ab133ae3301b169b070f.png

     

     

    Now, I think I just need to move the entire imported model down 1.563" to get the top of the site model to 0: 

    959099196_ScreenShot2022-07-02at10_28_46AM.thumb.png.29680b90cae9439273946074bc994f1c.png

    716236652_ScreenShot2022-07-02at10_38_55AM.thumb.png.2ba7f0b4b646ae6b9eba8dd6a8ea8baa.png

     

    576091735_ScreenShot2022-07-02at10_46_45AM.thumb.png.01d3cea3ee1ad16b812ace695c8f102a.png

     

    372463255_ArrestedDevelopment-Busterbluepartland.gif.1759bd14759f4486a811a8c31951e476.gif

     

     

  10. Thank you, gentlemen!

     

    Next question / steps:

    1. Is there a way to get the skirt to extend to the lowest point of elevation in the site model itself?
    2. For context, this site model is actually a slab. We're building walls that will need a continuous transition to the slab, so I'm just setting up the overall 3D model in a way that makes sense for all collaborators. For clarification, we won't need components or a real world slab thickness.
    3. For a little more context, the highest point of the site model will move to 0.

    Now that I think about, I could add a 4th step to create a "reveal / shim / fill study" using the Project tool... 

  11. 12 hours ago, Jesse Cogswell said:

    I did some tests and think I figured it out.  Open up a new file and draw a 3D object (like an extrude).  If you go to a front view, you'll see that the 0' ruler mark lines up properly.  However, if you set a user origin, the ruler seems to no longer properly align in orthographic views.  If you reset your user origin back to the internal origin, it lines up correctly again.  There's likely a bug with the user origin (as per usual) and the ruler not updating properly.

     

    So, in your test, drawing the extrude reset the user origin?

  12. 2 hours ago, zoomer said:

    Ha, the problem is - if you want the 128 GB - you will need to go Ultra.

     

    Until the M2 Max which I'm betting 1 taco will have a 72gb option. Let's see how this ages... 

  13. 6 hours ago, dtheory said:

    How are folks feeling about the Max vs Ultra question at this point? 

    More RAM more important than the better processor? ornot?

     

    TL;DR

    • 32gb minimum
    • 48gb good
    • 64gb better
    • 128 best

    And, remember, that number is combined RAM and GPU, so you can't compare 16gb M1 to 16gb Intel (for a lot of reasons). And I'm still waiting for someone at VW to officially confirm how many gigs the GPU can pull from RAM. My wild guess based on absolutely nothing is that it's split down the middle: 50/50.

     

    I would say the additional RAM in the Ultra is a nice-to-have. A maxed out Max is a great Mac for most VW users.

     

    If you're a heavy RW user that can take advantage of (double) the cores, you know who you are.

     

    Btw I have iStat Menus running, and I would say no app developers have figured out how to optimize memory usage in these things (including Apple). Sometimes I'm using 50% when I'm barely doing anything (VW is closed). Meanwhile, right now I'm using 22% and VW is open in the background (has been for a few days). It's kind of a new frontier right now. I imagine a year or two from now, things will level off.

     

    • Like 2
  14. 3 hours ago, zeno said:

    I apologize in advance. For some things I'm interested in deepening, for others I'm not.

     

    If I may, ask a question. I have a M1max with 64GB of RAM. Sometimes I see that I struggle to do navigation and, above all, sheet layers and section viewports operations.

     

    Does it make sense to spend almost 8000 euros to take an M1ultra and wait for it 3 months, in the meantime comes ultra m2 or m3, extreme, planetarium, extramporalis, super Sayan level V processors?

     

    I know it's a simple question, maybe from newbies, but sometimes simple things are the best.

     

    (Obviously if you want to tell me which trades is best for and for which it wouldn't change much)

     

    Thank you

     

    @zoomer @Mark Aceto

     

     

    I'm still getting to know this Ultra but I'd say you're in a good spot to wait and see what's announced in the second half of this year. What you're missing right now is faster renders with RW. I would say the rest of your workflows are probably the same speed / performance as this studio because of how the ARM SoC's scale.

     

    Personally, I decided to commit to the Studio because the Pro seems to be delayed, and I needed the fast Mac I could get my hands on right now. I don't have any buyer's remorse, and honestly, it's more about software developers optimizing for M series, so our M1 computers should get relatively faster as the software we use everyday gets more optimized (kind of like when NVIDIA release a new GPU on day 1 vs a year later).

     

    The other factor that went into my decision is that I only need a laptop 10% of the time, so I'll keep the old MBP around until there's a 15" M2 Air or something. Everyone's needs are different but I'm glad I doubled my multicore performance 90% of the time.

     

    My next purchase will hopefully be a M2 Extreme with 40 cores (in an enclosure that fits my budget). However, what's more critical to me is hardware accelerated ray tracing for UE and TM. So, until that's available, I'll probably stick with this Studio.

     

    Btw there's an eponymous law (like Murphy's or Moore's) about perpetually waiting for the next tech (particularly Apple devices). The name escapes me but if anyone is still on an Intel machine from 2015, just get the best option that's available right now. Especially with the chip shortage and general supply chain issues. I sold my unboxed MBP M1 Max for the same as I paid for it 4 months later, and the buyer said that people were scalping them for $2000 USD above list price. Mac's hold their value, so you can always sell it when something better comes along.

    • Like 1
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