zoomer

I don't get what the problem really is, Preview App works well on everyday use with PDFs and large amounts of highres Images. Just typical plans and elevations wit a certain amount of details and especially landscape plans from VW users, likely containing additional teaser images are extremely slow. It feels like old times when you had too few RAM and it needed to swap to HDD or some kind of single threaded or 32 bit only behavior, in fact even slower.

I'm highly interested in your Tablet Workflow as I also don't find a satisfying Keyboard/Mouse Workflow in VW. As it was no problem pre VW with my left hand shortcuts only, right hand mouse and NumBlock input in any App, I think it is VW's need for Drag/Selection Tool to still keep pressing the mouse and left hand NumBlock for numeric input and such things that drives me crazy. I wanted to retry my old Wacom tablets (A3 with Serial Plug and old Volito ?) but unfortunately none of them will run on macOS Sierra anymore. I have no handicap with mouse hand at all. If I got that correct, Mouse is no option for you in any way.. So I have a few questions. 1. What are your UI problems exactly, has there something changed significantly after VW 2016 ? 2. Did you ever tried Magic Trackpad (if you are OSX) as it is reasonable large ? (Current Macbooks are equal and OS X touchpads the first that I was ever able to use or even to renounce of the mouse in most cases because of their quality. For Windows, only the 2 Surface laptops from MS seem to have similar ergonomics, but irrelevant for VW) 3. Did you use Mouse or Tablet Mode for Cursor Movements with you Pen 4. What Size of Tablet did you prefer ? (I had to set my A3 to a small A5-like Area to not have too long tedious ways in either mode (!) while smaller tablets did not work either)

If I am not the only one interested in, I would of course like to see that as a wish to be considered in future development. And yes for now I would like to know if VW will run on a Surface Pro4 or a lower specced Surface Book in any way. If I should see hardware recommendations as a recommendation for comfortable working for current project needs or as an absolute minimum needed to make the software run at all.

It is not meant as a replacement for a CAD workstation. Screen estate or rendering demands may not suitable for comfortable working anyway. As long as I had my 17" Macbook Pro and it got old and slow for current software I could use it for such low level purposes on files in that case of course until a come back to my main machine. But that was such a brick that you avoid to take it anywhere if possible. These new devices are very mobile, can serve as Tablet and Laptop at the same time and provide still much more power than my older software was ever used to have at times when it was in real use. CPU, RAM and SSD are not limiting at all and much faster in Ultra Books now. Just their use of onboard GPUs is a problem in VW, while these are also much faster than what was used in the past and allowed to work on complex models at that time. Older Software with its limited Toolsets would be quite ok for such tasks but often prevents from opening current file versions or import formats. So for me it would be nice to be able to use such a device to just open a current file or import a DWG or IFC to examine a new project and give some quick feedback. Maybe someone else was curious and already tried VW on such a device and can give some feedback.

Thinking about the students posts that try to run their VW on weak machines, a current standard VW will likely not run at all instead of just being slow. Maybe that would only work with older VW versions, or a very unlikely special Low Spec or Tablet edition of VW. Should work on Windows with it's legacy support. Not on OS X though because of OS support between App and Device.

I see it the same way.

I'm not sure if it is a good idea, in case of your non rectangular plan, to mix these 3 Levels of complexity : 1. Hyperbolic Paraboloids 2. Sloping Eaves 3. Sloping Ridge I would expect that having one sloping eaves or one sloping ridge are used to avoid any Hyperbolic Paraboloids. If you use both for design reasons I would still expect being used to avoid any Hyperbolic Paraboloids. Or the other case, keeping the roof edges level and use Hyperbolic Paraboloids. If you could live which such a design approach it would be quiet easy with an Multiple Extrude. Draw the first End Profile and the second end Profile and Multi Extrude. Just make sure to keep the same 2D Slope of the Roof Area for both Profiles. You can go into Edit Mode and change your Profiles to play with points of ridge and eaves for their resulting slopes.

Thanks Benson, seems that I get it partly. What mostly works : - Select a Drawing Tool - Set "G" at a given point - Navigate to a special position from there by numeric input - After Enter+Enter you have kind of a temporary snap point to click for your Tool's first point 1. The Drawing Tool has to be activated first 2. "G" has to be used before using any click of the Drawing Tool. 3. That created snapping point mostly works. But sometimes I see 199,999999 cm instead of 200 cm though. 4. I can't repeat "G" to set a new zeroed out Origin to move from there again. 5. I can use "G" when I am already in my Tool mode, by pressing TAB until I reach the end of the Cursor Bar, which finally will not give the size of an element but the distance from "G" 6. For rectangles, changing edges by Drag Tool or 3D Modify Tool, there is no way to "G" or TAB to move at a given distance from the previous location. OK, I think I can do what I need. For me it looks a bit complicated and unergonomic and needs much concentration. For me it will be easier to renounce of the "G" and do it in tedious but less concentration needed 2 step way like first snap it to the given point and move to desired direction in a second step, or even input the new distance by some OIP math for rectangles.

With those Sub Notebooks coming like Surface Pro, that have a "real" OS, RAM and CPU but are still under VW's hardware requirements by not having dedicated GPU or VRAM on the lower end. Of course no CAD workstation for daily usage, when you are far from office, will these still allow to open VW Files for smaller annotations or initial project settings, and are just too slow to really work or will they not open at all or have parts of the software not working ? I think something like a maxed out Surface Book has the minimum requirements at least for VW 2017 now, but is a bit pricy and I think a Surface Pro4, without dedicated GPU, has the better form factor.

With Surface Family from Microsoft and Dell Canvas coming beside existing Wacom Cintiqs, can a CAD App like VW ever work in a tablet mode - and how ? 1. View Navigation has to be done completely by pinch, ... gestures ? 2. When you activate a numeric or text input field there has to appear an onscreen NumPad or Keyboard ? (does it work without a TAB ?) 3. There need to be left hand buttons to force RMB Option Clicks and such ? 4. All often used tools have to be all time available as Icons/Buttons ? 5. Toolsets have to always adapt to current Selection or Workflow and appear as a floating bar ? 6. Like a Surface dial is recognized on screen, I want to use the Pen with my NFC plastic Rulers, recognized by Software ? (Protractor, Compasses, ....)

Does Chrome/Firefox allow for large surface + small surface device : - website links I have already seen on OS X also are marked gray on my iOS devices - cockies that will sign me in to login required sites + autofill.

Looks like this was improved for 2017 (?) I tested 100 Revs.

I think it is hidden in snapping settings. Could be some rests in VW Preferences though ...

I do exactly the same. For me it is also not very satisfying with Class control. I second the wish to extend/improve the Visibility Tool. Perhaps there should also be a way to be able to force Container Content of invisible classes to be temporarily forced to show in gray. To workaround I generally use one ore more special Container Classes where I place all parent Symbols and Plugins. (Like 0_SYMBOLS, 0_WALLS, ....) These, like the None Class normally stay visible all the time. They are sorted by the Prefix to stay in a block on top of my Classes. So beside some other special Classes like for 2D, all my normal Classes act like Material (and/or Part) Classes, in which Class Block I do all my normal manual visibility manipulations. (Which you have to do as the use of Containers makes a "show active only" useless)

That is exactly what I do too. So no "real" need of parametric Architecture Tools over standard 3D Modeling as long as there is no benefit for the 3D Model itself. While you can do a lot of nice things in VW, I have to admit that before VW my Mesh output had a better quality for that purpose. I had more consistency in 3D and options for easier changes by the ability to adapt all parts at one time. Would love to see improvements in this direction. On the other hand I have my first reliable direct C4D Exchange with VW 2017, which prevents me from making all changes in 2 models.

I had Revu on the already radar. Just a current general Apple App + Hardware shopping stop for a while, in case I have to switch to Windows one time.

1. There are options to constrain geometry but as far as I heard that is not so much fun. In your example, it looks like you could just scale your object. 2. Do you mean Symbols ? (aka Blocks, Cells, Instances, ...) You copy these in your file, if you edit one, all others will follow.

My problem with Preview App is only that it is so slow for typical PDF plans. Does this work smooth with Revu ? Can it also display 3D PDFs ?

Thanks ! Ah, yes, the Bloom had answered the camera or not question already. And with often dealing with OpenGL, I nearly forgot that you can set Pixel values smaller than 1,0 for edge thickness in RW Styles.

Yes, they should get their own Folder Icon It is not such a problem for me as I separated Doors and Windows in their own "Plugin" Folders manually. Which was my workaround attempt to Show multi categories like Walls+Slabs-Rest in the RM middle column. Unfortunately I can not open multiple Folders in the left column to do so. Which I think would be also a nice feature wish.

I never really cared about what was meant the official way to do so. Maybe there are other options too. Did not find something in Door Settings dialog though.

I did new Styles from my Doors. I think it is available by right mouse click option from Doors - as long as these are unstyled.

Ah, ok, you had some dimensions. While watching the video I thought for a moment you would do everything by proportions only. That is something that would be extremely hard for me, while not impossible, as long as there would not be any dimensions at all. But I think many 3D artists free from architectural background always work that way. (I see its even well documented on Richard Meier's official website http://www.richardmeier.com/?projects=jubilee-church-2 ) For me that is always very satisfying when modeling other peoples designs. When you come to a point where start to understand their intentions and design. Thanks for your insights. For the Rendering, you use heliodon, gypsum mode with AO, GI and fine gray edges, right ? Did you use cameras to control the exposure or only saved views in standard viewports ?

What I miss is the "O" (= new origin) key I was used before VW. What I want is to snap to a position relating to other elements and then start to move from there from scratch. Like I want to start to draw a rectangle, beginning from left edge X value of one element and top edge Y value of an other element. (I can get that point with pausing on snap points and use the intersection of helper lines) Now I need a way to zero out my coordinates at this point to for example go another 2 meters in X from that point to define the start point of my rectangle. (This may work somehow, in a strange way. I can move to that point using "G" but the second "Enter" will not start the rectangles first point there and if I manually click, it may not use that given position in all cases) Or I want to redefine the edge of a rectangle at a certain distance from another element. I could drag my edge to that element and move it again away by the desired distance. That is tedious and will also not work in those cases where the tool will not give you the distance from there but something like the overall width of that element, which will be arbitrary in that case. I don't get this to work with the "G" key. In my former CAD I was used to be able to lock movement to one axis and get the first point from Element1 X to Element2 Y in one go, press "O" to set everything back to zero and go from there in a controlled manner wherever I need. Plus, I can repeat that step as often as I need to jump to any position in space step by step.

^ that is a nice idea.