Urbanist

If you are not really desperate for work, let the other architect take the responsibility of the existing conditions model, unless the client is willing to pay the real cost, in which case a reasonable hourly rate would be the only sensible way. Also, laser scanning might be necessary, I've not tried the point cloud functionality of VW, it may or may not work (my guess is the latter) , but the survey company should be able to provide a 3D-model as polygons.

Never heard of that program and never had an interest in drawing homes. Incidentally the creator of ArchiCAD was also a Physicist, maybe there is no enough interesting work in that sector.

I see. If I would have listened to students, I'd be using pencils, Rotrings, Letratone & scalpels, Derwents and stencils (why, oh why, I did not listen to them; oh those innocent days!) or, with students later on, AutoCAD (well, lucky me, I did not.) Interior design is a very broad-ranged industry, the tasks of which I have gladly delegated to professionals, whenever possible, but in my previous life I had schools, offices, libraries and such needing schedules of loose furniture and custom cabinetry and such. With ArchiCAD of my time, loose furniture schedules were not possible as there were no equivalents to symbols, database and reports. Any repeating item had to be programmed with the built-in obscure programming language GDL but not even counts of items were not possible. Free-form modeling was totally absent. but one was able to do Cubistic models using "bricks" and such ArchiCAD may well have been improved, but do check that the outputs you need can be achieved. Don't get me wrong: ArchiCAD is a remarkable program, spawning the entire BIM-concept and having a fascinating history including the Iron Curtain. I saw a pre-release demo of it in the backroom of a small Apple dealership and compared with AutoCAD and other clumsy drafting programs of the day (1986?), it was really something completely different.

I would think that it is quite the opposite: ArchiCAD is an excellent program for European-style modern architecture, but that's it. I am a former ArchiCAD user and switched to then MiniCAD to be able to do other things as well. Now I'm struggling to do European-style modern architecture with a program focused in McMansions.

That should not happen, but I really do not know for sure.

I don't need to select multiple objects or remember anything when I move 3D polys to the desired z-level. It is unfortunate that the VectorDepot market place has been closed: there was a quite useful Contour tool there, addressing a number of pertinent issues. No sales, no service.

A training and customisation client of mine insists in drawing his huge industrial faciilties (bakeries) in 1:1 scale and then complains that text items etc. do not print as he hopes. I wrote a Conveyor plug-in for him and had serious problems with text items, arrows and such in it. He used to be an AutoCAD user in his previous life.

Looks interesting! I played around the idea a few years ago and got my PIO working reasonably well, but symbol selection was destroyed by changes in VS (functions removed and replacement functions were just too much. One hint to Andrea: a menu command for converting existing polygons to baseboards. This would enable one to first use the bucket mode to have a poly around the perimeter and then splice it for doors etc.

I'm not quite sure if it is easier to issue a command before drawing the contour line than to move one after drawing it. In general, the object-verb syntax makes more sense than verb-object, used by AutoCAD and some other old fashioned programs. Command line is an awful way to do anything. My first encounter with "CAD" was the huge flatbed plotter bought to theDept of Arch of my Alma Mater ca 1980. It was used by means of punch cards, 80 char command lines. If something was not satisfactory, the offending card was replaced with a corrected version. It took me years to accept the possible usefulness of CAD, occasionally I still wonder.

Indeed one can, shame if not from M objects. However, my point was that if the needs can be met using the built-in functionality, one should not create a PIO. I believe that most users do not know how to create database driven tags in symbols. The simple solution to the issue at hand would be that the Object Info would remain in Data tab mode, either as default (ie. in the last explicitly selected mode) or via an option. The report is a workaround of sorts, but not unproblematic, of course. One of the problems with parametric objects that the programmer can very easily get the serious disease called featuritis and a small and simple scripting job, which produced a working tool as a matter of hours, becomes a project taking weeks. In the case at hand, there might be a need to use a user-defined symbol as the graphic, add a leader line of a certain style and so on. An ideal door tag would be associated with the door in question and be able to query & display its parameters. (Did I mention featuritis?)

Modified in what respect? Unfortunately there are few learning resources, but you should have a look at the examples here http://www.vectorworks.net/support/custom/vscript/example Also you might ask the same in the Marionette section. People using M may be more forthcoming and helpful than Vectorscripters and I understand that there are learning resources for M.

Well, excellent! You've done what one should get from the developer VS site, that should of course include also those hidden functions that cannot be found even by the Grand Master of Vectorscripting. Hats off, lads: if Ms. _c_ does not know something about VS, it is well and truly unknowable.

A tall order: one has to go through the library file MiniPascal Callbacks (or something like that), which incidentally has at least in the past contained functions that are not in the official documentation. Nice method, though, thank you.

OK, did not know that. Well, the reduced functionality should me more than enough.