MKingsley

Was there any resolution (so to speak) on this issue?

This is definitely a wish list item here, too. In the meantime, I've found that you can make what feels like shaky but accurate measurements with Stacked Layers on just by floating the 2D selection tool from point to point, first waiting over the first point until the coordinates in the mode bar read "0" and then moving to the next point without clicking and quickly looking at the relevant coordinate before it resets itself if you move the mouse a little. That's the shaky part. This only works from end points, however. HTH.

How 'bout making your grid and converting it guide lines using the Make Guide command? They don't print but you can snap to them.

In the stair preferences window, in the flights and platforms tab, with the platform U section highlighted, adjust "Length side 2". And I, too, wish there was more control over the arrows. You can always uncheck that preference in the next tab and then add your own arrow and text over the stair.

I just tried it with the greyed layer stacked above the active layer and it still works.

I am able to snap to greyed objects with the following set-up. Layers options set to Show/Snap others. Greyed layer is below active layer in stacking order. (Greyed-out using the navigation palette) Snap to Objects constraint is on. Stack Layers is checked. I added Align Layer Views back to my workspace and that might be the kicker. After all the above is done, align the layer views and then I can snap to the grey. Does that work for anybody else?

Thanks for your help guys. Right under your Texture offering at VectorDepot, E.J., is a standing seam texture offered by someone else, however I was unable to find any such texture in that file. I forgot about SketchUp. Thanks Peter.

Thanks Dave, but I was able to do better with the Vertical Stripe shader. I don't know anybody putting that type of metal roof on their house; maybe on a warehouse. Can't believe there isn't one typical residential metal roof texture in the Exterior texture file. Thanks again though for your help.

Does anybody know where I could find some standing seam metal roof textures? I can't find them in VW RW or anywhere else on the web.

". Video card - considering 512mb nvidia quadro dual monitor or vga graphics card" What about the video card? I'm considering an upgrade as well, although in the Mac arena, and was wondering if the Quadro would be that much faster at rendering than the next level down 256mb version.

I think this is a screen resolution issue. If you zoom way in, I think it may look more like what you want, but that may not work well in a presentation setting. See what happens when you print it out if that's going to be the final output.

Has anybody found a solution to this problem. It just happened to me.

Jase, When I tried making images out of hatches, the line quality was really poor, lines were really fat, or there was a gray backround to the rendering. I was wondering how yours was and what steps you took to get there, JPG, PNG,etc. Does anybody know how to get rid of the gray so it's just line on white?

I?m trying to sketch a hatch in a viewport but it isn?t working. This is what I?m trying to do: With an elevation set to hidden line render, I?ll go into the edit annotation mode and add hatched polygons to the elevation using the Create Polygon From Inner Boundary mode of the polygon tool (this tool doesn?t seem to work unless you?re in Annotation mode). Everything I can think of is set to sketch mode including the hatch itself from within its edit dialog window. When I try to apply a sketch to that hidden line rendering, everything but the hatches renders as sketched lines. Is this a wish list item or is there a way to do this? Another problem that came up during this was that after sketching the hidden line viewport I lose one of my window symbols as the hatch fills in over it. With no sketch the window is not covered. Bug?

With Layers and classes set to at least "snap others", you can then go to the Navigation palette and set any layer that is above the active layer to grey and be able to snap to items in that greyed layer.

What I don't understand is why the Roof Face and Create Roof commands are have such different parameters. For example, I can't seem to get a 3D-only skylight symbol to cut a hole in a Roof Face, so I have to manually cut a hole. The Create Roof command doesn't have the Rise over Run option, but the Roof Face does. If we are having to ungroup a Roof object into multiple Roof Faces to add any complexity beyond the given, we are then dealing with a different animal. If that roof object had soffits and fascia applied before being broken down to roof faces, you get roof faces and the fascia and soffits become a group of many NURBS surfaces which are editable but not worth the time. The soffit and fascia features are nice but clunky and with no class options and the soffits don't work well with gable roofs. The rake dimension option doesn't seem to be working for the gable ends. Please don't neglect advances to the Roof Face command as well. As a one man show here, I'm doing all custom work and though I haven't been with VW long, I have yet to do a project where my roofs end up as roof objects and not roof faces.

Wouldn't the "Fit walls to roof" command work here too? Checking the box "Constrain bottom of walls to 3D geometry" and then whatever layer your constraining geometry is in, maybe the same layer.

I've been a carpenter for twenty years and am now getting into building design. In all those years, a lot of cabinet-making and remodeling, I never had the opportunity to build a winding starcase. My question is about how the v12 winders look in 3D. Surely, this can't be the way a winder gets built and is a bug in the tool?

I could show you with an image, but I don't know how to do that without having a website. Is there another way? It's the geometry under the stairs that I'm talking about. In an L-shaped staircase with a winder containing five steps, the bottom of the stairs in between the first and second winding step, in plane with the riser of that second step, angles DOWN toward the inside of the turn, but past the bottom of the stringer of the previous flight. The next three winding steps in the middle seem appropriate. The last winding step has its bottom angling UP to the inside of the turn completely oppposite of the previous steps. So in other words, there isn't a smooth plane, albeit fragmented, underneath the stairs. A picture here of course would explain everything. Does anybody else see this?

I use a slab plug-in made by Patrick Higgins which is posted in the Vector Depot plug-ins. You can assign the top, bottom and sides to different classes and thus different textures or colors. Great tool.

In the flights and platforms dialog of the stair settings, you can edit each flight or platform. When you get to the platform part after clicking the "next" button, there is an option to change the angle of the platform and the default is set to 90. Add a minus sign to that 90 and it will flip that platform.

1. http://aibd.org/ 2. http://www.uniteddesign.com/ They have lots of prescribed contruction documents and estimating forms in editable Word and Excel formats. 3. Since my design business is still starting up, a date with my insur. agent is still on the to-do list. There is an indemnity clause in one of above-mentioned design contracts that I probably have too much faith in. 4. I tell the client that the spiral princess tower they really, really want will require engineering skills beyond my really cheap fees and cost extra for those calculations. The engineers drawings or calcs are included with the constuction documents. The clients either say OK or stay within the prescribed bounds of the county building departments engineering guidelines. HTH

"PatWorks" under the Tools choices in mine

I'll add my voice to the 3D chorus. As a former builder, it is in my blood to know if what I'm designing can actually be built properly. I've seen many construction plans drawn only in 2D where different elevations don't match up with each other or the floor plans. The Building Information Model (BIM) eliminates that problem. When designing a staircase, for instance, after placing the staircase in plan view, I can press one key to see the elevation of the stair and find out how big the hole in the floor above can be to allow for proper headroom, or if that required headroom is running into the framing of the roof above. I agree with Mike M Oz here: "They are not motivated like "the enthusiasts" are to explore and experiment, working out the best ways of doing things. Not being provided with the resources to help them learn how to do this quickly leads to frustration and angst." Even if those resources are available, if you don't have the desire or positive attitude going into something like this it is bound to lead to the frustration and angst. Most of the learning process definitely has to come "off the clock". It takes time and practice and you can't charge anybody for that. No one that I know of ever gets paid to go to school. I'll spend hours after my kids have gone to bed exploring features I haven't learned yet or reading these forums. Count me as an enthusiast. An architect who was still drawing by hand (nothing wrong with that, by the way) asked me how easy it was to learn VW or how long would it take to be up and running with it and my question back to them was do they like working with computers? For me, I love computers and think what VW can do is really cool and fun; the desire and motivation comes easily for me. It's obviously not for everyone. Different people use different tools and they even use the same ones differently. In the words of a Clint Eastwood character: " A man's got to know his limitations".

I don't care how many times you watch a movie, the best way to really learn either of these programs is to use it yourself and practice with them. SketchUp gives you 8 hours before you have to buy it, Vectorworks gives you 90 days to try it and then get a full refund. Vectorworks is a much more powerful piece of software, but you can learn a lot more in 90 days than 8 hours. My eight hours with SketchUp was gone before I knew it. I ended up buying the program but it still seems to make more sense to me to model and scheme in VW, it's easier to be precise, and then I'm halfway to completing construction documents. SketchUp is still fun to use and can do things that VW can't and is useful to me for cabinetry and smaller projects. I'd also like to take this soapbox to comment on the small wave of nastiness and negativity I've see on these boards lately. Everybody gets frustrated at computers and corporations but making wanton generaliztions about how someone's needs are not being met seems inappropriate to the purpose of these boards. We all should be here to help eachother instead of flinging accusations. There. Thanks for listening to my rant...