domer1322

sorry... I should have been more exact in my description of the problem. I have a 3D terrain already modeled and showing in top/plan view with contour lines. As soon as I click on the nurb roadway tool, the terrain disappears from view. It is still there, since I see the curser snap points as the mouse hovers over it. Then I draw a nurbs roadway that is clearly inside the boundary of the (invisible) terrain site model. The roadway appears in all views (2D, 3D isometric) but the terrian is still invisible. When I click on the invisible snap point for the terrain and then in the OIP I click "update" I get an error box that says "pad intersecting the fence or a hull" That is it. From your answer above, it seems as though my problem is unique. It could be operator error, since I am sort of at the "advanced beginner" level. Any help is appreciated.

thanks for the response ... but the problem is that I can not see the landscape. I can see the 3D nurb roadway just fine. The site model disappears when the road is generated. I can't even see the wire frame site model ... just the road surface. I have tried the things you listed... including the "update" button.

I've never been able to get the nurbs roadway tool to work. When I try it, it will draw the roadway just fine, but the 3D rendering of the landscape disappears. The other roadway tools work fine.... and I can see the rendered surfaces and contours .... but not with the nurbs tool. Is this a bug or am I missing something ? using VW Arch 12.5 on Windows XP

has anyone tested VW 12.5 using Windows Vista and if so, can you report any speed decrease or incompatibilities ? (This question is for you, Katie)

I recently imported a pdf formatted survey document and it came in at EXACTLY the correct scale. Was this an accident or is there something about the way the pdf was made (or other VW factors) ? If this is predictable behavior please tell me .. how so? (I've imported many pdfs before and always had to rescale them. I can't find any info on this in the VW manual or upgrade companion CD.)

First: I wish you could select anything you see on the screen, then with the export image "marque" tool crop the image, and turn it into a texture directly, instead of having to first export the image into Photoshop (or other program) then crop the image, then go back into VW and select "make new texture". Second idea: I wish there were a quick way to have concrete block wall texture where you could select the paint color .... and decide if you wanted to turn on/off the "bump" (the mortar joints) to allow quicker rendering or more detailed.

I think I have a win-win situation for Nemetshek and us VW users. Why doesn't NNA price the next upgrade such that it could give a discount to anyone who submits VW symbols for everyone's use? For example, say the upgrade costs $600, then NNA says anyone submitting 5 hi res or 10 low res symbols gets $50 off. Many users already have their own symbols/objects and the file server at NNA could load up with lots of freely available symbols/objects. As a result, users get many more symbols, and NNA can expand it's user base (ie... sell more software) by advertising "50,000 symbol library" or similar claim. This system already works for SketchUp and their google web site... look at tons of sketchup symbols. NNA would have to dedicate soemeone to monitor the validity of the symbols (duplicates, poor quality, etc..) but the cost for someone to do that is much less than NNA paying someone to draw their symbol libraries as they do now. What do you think, fellow posters and VW users ?

thanks for the response.... the bigger HDRI files that don't work are 14 meg and 9 Megs and the ones that worked are 1 or 2 meg files..... I guess your answer is on the money.

I just discovered HDRI use for backgrounds and came across these problems: 1) on first attempts, the sample HRI I used for environment backgrounds worked well, except it always appears the VW ground plane is too low for the background image.... it is as if the "sky dome" needs to be lower to make the perspective vanishing points match with the VW drawn objects VPs. Any solution ? 2) I tried some other HDRIs from another web site, and this time when I try to render the image in Final RW I get a dialog box saying "Rendering Failed due to lack of memory". I don't ahve any other applications open, and the VW file is a very simple test file with only two objects and a 3D VW people object. Any suggestions? VW 12.5.0 Windows XP sp2 Pentium 2.8GHz with 1 gig RAM

I read this thread and I feel like I'm missing something.... I can't find any menu item for exporting to PDF files, including under the "Export image" menu item. I looked in the "help" document and can't find instructions. I looked all over for a way to export a pdf document (including the print menus) but no luck. Someone please give me a clue. (I checked my computer and it says I have administrator priveleges, and I did already update to VW Arch 12.5.0) Windows XP sp2 VW 12.5.0

I basically agree and second the motion........ VW 12 is a great program but NNA needs to make sure everything works well before adding new features .... and of course ... speed is always an issue. I want faster, better, not necessarily more features.

I suggest making the batch render reflect the drawing at the time the view was initiated. For example, if a create a batch render view of a house with white trim, and before I do the actual image render I change the trim to yellow, then my batch rendered image will show yellow trim (under the current VW 12). I want to set multiple views with different colors (or sun angles) and then walk away from the batch renderer while it renders many options at night. I would think this would be easy programming.

Robert: I'm interested in your solution. Please put something in the knowledge base.

I read most of the other posts about VW 12 speed, but I want confirmation of this question before I buy a new computer. Is it true that if I buy a dual core PC Windows XP CPU at, say, 2.0GHz, that it run VW 12 slower than a single core 2.5GHz CPU ? I understood (from other posts) that the only operation that works with VW 12 on a dual core processor is Renderworks - Final Quality - ray tracing. All other operations would be slower. True or false ?

when ever I draw a light light, it shows up as a black line in my renderings. How do I get the light, without the black line?

I do lots of 3D renderings and find that VW is more than good enough to give accurate renderings of buildings that clients enjoy. They may not always be photo-realistic, but then, the clients don't need a photo to understand the concept. VW remains a great value, and I don't have Cinema 4D or Artlantis or anything else (Photoshop Elements comes in handy for texture creation). I especially like the Quicktime VR panoramas .... great to view interior spaces and small file size makes them easily emailed. PS: I went to an AutoCAD / Revit sales pitch yesterday, and much of what they raved about were things tha VW 12 already has.

this should be simple, but I can't figure it out. I want to 3D model a roadway curb and gutter profile, and the curb goes up and down a hill, while curving horizontally. If I make a NURBS or 2D section profile for the L-shaped curb/gutter and extrude along a NURBS path, the sction gets twisted as it goes up and down. If the road were perfectly horizontal everything would be OK, but with the Z dimension in play, the section twists such that the gutter pan is longer horizontal. This is obvious if you exagerate the vertical dimen, but still introduces small errors when using with normal parameters. Any suggestions ?

I'm very sad that I can't really use VW 12.0.1 yet because it can't render the areas around the windows correctly in RW. Also, the dialog box for detailing windows is so big it takes up my whole screen (almost). And I hope VW looks into this major irritation... when I change a window detail (sill, jambs, trim, etc...) with every change the screen has to redraw the RW image. This is very time consuming.... unless I always remember to switch into wireframe before looking at windows. Please see if the window dialog could have a box that says "don't re-render on every change" (until you click "done"). If anyone has good "work-arounds" I'm ready to read it. Another idea... show the window "preview" box in 3D isometric so we could really preview the changes better than the 2D view we have now.

jonas mac .... in my field as the owner's rep (client), the Architects I deal with always blame the doors hitting the lights as the contractor's failure to coordinate the work..... Also .. Robert.... I see drawings from about 4-5 different Architect's per year, and I don't recall any of them ever showing the door swings on the reflected ceiling plans.... but anyway.... I think VW is a fine product and I recommend it to others.... (but I don't tell them about the problems menitioned above.... and by the way, the current bug in VW 12.0.1 with the windows/door trim not rendering the wall properly is a big deal for me.... I show my 3D images/movies to many who are impressed.... but I can't impress them now. Looking forward to a fix in VW 12.5

I presume you already noticed that the distortion is related to the trim size.... bigger trim on interior than exterior, yields distortion on exterior (using RW Final Qual) VW 12.0.1 Windows XP (I am also one of the disappointed ones )

I often make 3D VW models (houses), then export a Quicktime animation (usually an exterior "orbit"). I have never been able to solve this problem: if I use QT pro to piece together different clips, I have much trouble with different size movies (pixel width x height) and different frame rates and compressors, but the biggest problem is that I can't generate a QT movie that is detailed and yet big enough to show on a projector or TV. The reason is that my computer (or any computer) can't play the bigger movies at full size smoothly.... it gets choppy and misses frames. I am trying iMoive to change it to digital video and that solves the speed problem, but the images/movies from iMovie lose resolution and generally look bad. I've been experimenting for a long time, and never found the choice of QT compressors to solve this. Please don't tell me to make sure I'm not looking at the iMovie "preview" pane ... that is what everyone has suggested. I love iMovie but can't get it to make my VW models look good. Any suggestions? (I used both VW 11 Windows and VW 10 Mac OS 10.3.8 and use iMovie HD ... the HD part doesn't make any difference from the preivous older versions)

I can't find any mention of VW 12 support for the future new MACs using Intel CPUs. Could Tech support answer: does VW 12 support MAc OS on Intel CPUs? If not (as I suspect), can you state a policy or timeframe for such support of the next release (VW 12.5 or 13?) Also, does VW 12 support use of multiprocessor core CPUs as installed on the current (new) G5 PowerPC chips? Also: some statement on the rendering speed of VW 12 would be nice... even if you just state that it is about the same..... don't leave us guessing and counting on other poster's remarks.

thanks ... but ....the thread you listed gave a response from June and said they would update us. I'm looking for the update ... now that it is 5 months later..... and I suspect Apple will announce an Intel machine at Macworld in January .... and I may hold off on VW 12 until Apple's new CPU arrives.

Does anyone know how to change the resolution of a QT panorama? I tried resetting the export resolution pref and changing the size of the window when exporting the QT pan, but neither had any affect. Also: Nemetschek.... can you post an instruction manual on the QT panorama feature? It isn't in your manual nor in the on line help.

I use a 64M flash drive to move files between a MAC OS9 beige g3 desktop, a G3 powerbook in OS X and a Dell PC Pentium IV all the time and never noticed any of the problems mentioned above. I have VW 10 at home on Mac and VW 11 Windows on my work PC .... again.... never noticed any problems ..... just lucky I guess.