joe newell's ghost

Oh my goodness It's an imposter!!

an ugly name for an old topic. I have still been having crashing issues. I have narrowed it down to drawings of building elevations. The differences between my elevations and say, my floor plans is that I use a lot of hatch in the elevations to denote different cladding materials, otherwise they are much less complex drawings. No walls, fewer symbols and these are mostly simple drawings of windows in elevation. The size of my latest crashable elevations is down to 815 kb or something. On someone's advice I have played around with my extensions turning some off a few at a time to see if crashing issues are resolved. I couldn't resolve the CI's but I did manage to shut down my network system, cause VW not to start, disable all the stuff needed to run Renderworks etc etc. VW still crashes. There are hundreds of extensions and finding the conflicts if there are conflicts between extensions is a lifetimes work examining all the permutations. I don't have a lifetime unfortunately. I have tried various combinations of virtual memory and RAM. I have 256 MB of ram in the machine now as well as a partitioned section of my hardrive acting as the maximum amount of Virtual memory that I am allowed. In the drawing I have converted all the window symbols to groups and purged all the resources from the drawing (or a copy thereof) This brings the File size down to 802 kb...tiny. The smallest drawing I have on my computer. Still she crashes. Oh one more thing, the crashes happen mostly when I am moving an object by selecting and dragging. Not always but mostly. This crash is reliable enough that I can test the various extension on/off combinations by selecting an object in the drawing and dragging it around until the program freezes. Usually forcing VW to quit gets me back into an operating operating system. I'm stuck. Sorry I keep bringing this up but I am truly stuck. I will keep trying things, but if anybody has a suggestion please let me know. Also if it is, as I suspect, the hatching, is there a work around? Oh yes....VW 8.5.2, MacOS 9.2.2 Mac G4, 256 MB RAM 20 GB HD ATI video card stuff. Previous suggestions included: turning on and upping virtual memory and the memory allocated to VW (done and done); Updating OS to 9.2.2 (done); Updating ATI graphics vards drivers (done); Checking for conflicts in extensions (done); corrupted symbols definitions (don't know how to check this but as mentioned I have converted all symbols to groups and deleted the definitions); The one thing I haven't done is delete all my hatching and I am about to try that.

blah blah blah blah blah I think I am going to weep. The feel good vibes are getting so strong in here.

didn't mean to circumvent your new thread tit, I was apologizing to Katie. Katie, I apologize. I think the solution is just to offer free upgrades to the people who have a lot of questions in this forum. Like me for instance for my ill thought out rants and like Tit for shear volume and cuttng edge topics.

Of course of Course, you're right Katie, I was not entirely fair, or clear. I was refering to a note from what I assume was people involved in looking into bugs, software people I believe. They seemed not to care anymore about previous versions. I on the other hand buy software and use it for several years. No reflection on the work and support you people do (and you did try to answer everything I post here). I resent having to buy new software every 18 months because the software company has determined that that is all the support they will provide for the product I have purchased. It effectively forces me to buy new software at the developers time table (and pay the associated costs) I don't want to do that. The software doesn't degrade, It does (more or less) what I bought it to do. For all my questions and whinging It is a good package. So here's a thought. Put a small select group of your SD people, preferably the nostalgic ones, to work in a little room by themselves at Nemetschek, figuring out solutions to the bugs in all the previous versions that people have questions for. If they figure out a bug, they post the fix and I can download it for say a small fee of $5, or whatever. Course it won't work because of economics but wouldn't it be great if it did. Car makers are responsible for their cars for what seems like forever, issuing recalls when something doesn't work the way it was designed to. why can't software developers adopt the same ethics. I, as an architect, am currently liable for my work for the next thirty years (the clock starts ticking when the problem is found, not when the building was completed, effectively increasing liability the infinity. Why shouldn't software developers be liable at all??????? Somethings not right here, Nemetschek should buck the trend and lead the way to a better age where everyone stands behind the products they sell forever!!!!!!!

er... I mean november 9, 2001

So.... Last reply was 3:44pm, clients were coming at 4:00. Renderworks doesn't seem to have been installed. Am I the only one who wants to know what happened on September 11, 2002????

I want to show a shadow swinging around the building as the day passes. An animation. Is this something I can do in VW 8.5.2 with REnderworks?

Lots to read here. My thoughts are as follows: The upgrade process should sslow down to allow time to acknowledge and implement the wish list items (where they are relevant). If VW started work on V10 when V9 shipped then it dosn't allow a whole lot of time for V9 users to get feedback and suggestions in for development in V10. When will it appear? V11, V12???? Why should we pay for all the dross before our suggestions are implemented. I am on VW8.5.2 and am more or less content. Should I skip 9 and 10? and wait for 11? tech. Support: my expserience is that VW versions are supported for a while. At least until there is a newer version and then tech support dies or techies disappear and the new ones only know the new pprogram. Case in point. I have e-mailed tech support regarding 8.5.2 and if I could find the e-mail I could quote verabtim an interoffice memo between techies asking poor beleaguered Matthew to see what could be done about me because they 'weren't supporting VW8.5 anymore" Katie has said herself that if I upgraded I wouldn't havve the problems I am having with 8.5.2 which may be true but I would be having loads of problems with 9 if these support forums arre any indication. Software is expensive and until you have a product that is reliable and responds to users comments and suggestions, don't ship it. I will stay with VW8.5. a.k.a the devil I know

oh never mind. I'll just blunder along like I always have. It get's the job done. I'm beyond this anyway, on a higher plane.

there is no connect command in 8.5.2, none that I could see anyway. Doing the polyline as you say with the various vertex modes is dashedly difficult. I don't understand what the computer is usng to calculate the arcs so I can't draw an arc where I want it.

Something that hass bugged me from day one is Vectorworks apparent lack of accuracy in locating the end points of arcs and lines such that having constructed a set of arcs and lines describing a closed area (but not actually a VW polygon) Vectorworks is then unable to 'combine into surface' this closed area because (I assume) some of the lines and arcs don't quite touch. Is there a way around this in VW8.5.2? without having to extend the arcs a little further in their circle so that they go past the end point of the line and then drawing a third line that crosses the arc and the line at their supposed point of intersection.....This is what I have been doing. very time consuming. It's all very imprecise and annoying and I need some help. Anyone?? Also is there a way to accurately draw a polygon with a mix of arcs and straight line segments? I know there is I just find it very confusing and never know when the arc is going to stop and the line start. If you know what I mean.

uh...what do you mean? I changed the units to be in millimetres and changed the scale to be a metric scale. The only thing I am stymied on is all the little datum elevations on my site plan which aren't dimensions and so won't convert with the units options. Also all the dimensions I fudged are sticking out like sore thumbs as imperial in a sea of metric.

No answers required, I figured it out

Is there a fast and easy and completely AUTOMATIC way to convert imperial dimensions in an imperial drawing to metric dimensions in a metric drawing. I know I can just change the scale and monkey around a bit to make the drawing metric but I need to provide a metric dimensioned drawing to a municipality for a building permit and an imperial one to a contractor for construction. How do I convert without having to change each and every dimension manually. Anyone? thanks!