Cloud Hidden

In v9 to add a texture (turf 2 from Landscape) to a file, I'd double click textures from Resources, dc landscape, and dc turf 2 to import it. Made sense at the time. With v10, I haven't been able to find a method that works. Somehow I found my way to textures folder and the find command located the landscape file (but it didn't find it till I set the location to textures folder, rather than just Vectorworks 10 folder). Then when I tried to double click the turf 2 picture, and later to Import from the Resources menu, I got the message: "The record format for Plug-In Objects names "NNAPhong" cannot replace the existing regular Record Format with that name, and these cannot be renamed. The entire operation is canceled." Huh? Anyone have that in English? Anyone have what they think is the simplest set of steps to add a single texture to a single v10 file? Thanks. [in the "say something nice" category, I _do_ like that the Resource Browser shows the thumbnails. Nothing like having to import all landscape textures to see the diff between turf 1, turf 2, grass, etc. That said, I've yet to come to appreciate the new design of the Resource Browser. Maybe one day it will seem easier to navigate, but today has not yet been that day.]

Thanks Katie. I looked around before posting, but must have missed that one. btw, did you notice that if you drag-select a bunch of files in Finder, and then double-click one of those to open them all in VW10, that the one you double-clicked shows up as the active window and you cannot draw in it? You have to make another window active before that first one can be drawn in. [ 11-14-2002, 07:14 PM: Message edited by: Cloud Hidden ]

How will Jaguar make a difference? (Oh, and I mistyped, it's 10.1.5)

Installed v10 and rendered same image from my last two projects w/ 10 and 9.5.2. On one, they were essentially identical at 2 min 50 sec. On the other v10 was 3:31 for the render while v9 was 2:40. On that one v10 was faster by a minute on the "geometry" component, making for almost a draw overall. OSX 10.0.5. G4 iMac w/ 500 mg RAM. I thought rendering was to have improved dramatically. Any theories on why I might not have seen rendering speed improvements?

Thanks! OK, so I download a piano.mcd from VectorDepot and put it in the Object Libraries folder, but VW doesn't recognize it as a VW file and neither does Finder. Whatcha gotta do to make it usable? OSX 10.1.5 VW 9.5.2

How would you clean up the line where they join that show white artifacts in your render? Better, worse, or indifferent, those don't seem to happen when the actual curve of the circle is lofted.

This exact shape was discussed recently at http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=002131 . The advice for reading the thread is to ignore my posts and read Mike's. The summary is to use 3D PP's half sphere tool to get a hemisphere of the right diameter. Convert to nurbs. Squash the hemi- to set the ellipse minor axis. Then extract the bottom curve, move it to the depth of the cylinder and loft to create the cylinder base. Full credit for the answer to Mike...I just plagerized his answer.

Maybe this is just my own style, and if so, "never mind". If I have a staircase from the first to second floor, and I'm drawing the second floor layout, I'd like to show the stairs (2D so I don't have redundant 3D objects) with the arrow direction "down" and with the 2D break so it just shows the top steps rather than the bottom. But regardless of the arrow direction, 2D break seems to only show the bottom steps. Is there a way to reverse this, or alternately, a better way to handle stairs than I've fallen into? Thanks.

Is anyone aware of a piano object--upright or baby grand? I always have trouble trying to find objects in the browser. Thanks.

Cancel the psychologist...I'm not crazy. It was confirmed as a VW9 anomoly...is that the best word?...that works fine in 10. Thanks Katie for the quick help, be/c I gotta show this concept to someone today.

Kevin, I understand the explanation. Is it reasonable for someone to be confused by this? Can any improvements come out of this? If all I can see is evidence of it being in one class, but it's not really in that class, and there's no way I can find to isolate on just objects in that class.......well, what's a person to do? It is frustrating to have to guess that maybe some intentionally hidden classes are involved when all your objects disappear while you're trying to specifically to see them. What would be bad about Class menu logic that would show an object if either a component OR the container matched the active class?

I create a column with a column object from the browser. It's automatically assigned the class Structural-Column. I confirm that in the OIP. I create more. Later I want to do something to them. I figure setting the active class to Structural-Column and showing Active Only from the Class menu would display only those columns. But no, it hides all the objects. What have I missed?

This one will sound like I'm under the influence of something, but I swear I'm not. I have this nurbs object. Not that it matters, but it's the cone-shaped roof of a gazebo, with the support beam, rim board, and roof decking that were created in profile at a 3 in 12 angle and swept 360 degrees. Once I sweep it and convert to nurbs, I need to move it into position. The problem comes in with the moving. I can move it a little bit this way and a little bit that. I can move it from where it was created to 0,0. But when I try to move it anywhere near to where it belongs, which is 69'10",-63'8", the cursor just spins and spins and spins. Doesn't matter if I'm dragging or using the move command. The object never moves, and I have to crash the app. It's like the Bermuda Triangle. I can't get that roof within about 30' of the location without a lockup. I simply cannot fathom an explanation for this. Any ideas?

There ya go! I feel validated. You got the same thing I got, except for the crash. Since you showed me a good way that works, I don't need to use that other method, but it sure strikes me as a bug that NNA should look at. Whaddya say NNA, can y'all verify this yourselves?

No idea why my arc sweep didn't convert to a good nurbs, but since your method gets me where I wanna go easier than my method even if it worked, I'm not gonna sweat it. Thanks for the advice!

Mike, thanks for the reply. My prior note was just more of my talking to myself. I hadn't yet seen your note. Yours makes sense. I learned something, too, because I never considered squashing a nurbs-ed sphere into an elliptical boundary. Pretty clever approach. I guess the summary of the way I tried it is to start with the arc and wonder why I couldn't end up at the same place. Why start with the arc? Well, because the shape is an ellipsoid (such as you've rendered) but on a stem wall--your shapes, but on a 5' vertical footer, if you will. When I start with the arc, I don't get good results under one of the sequences that at the time seemed logical to me. Try this: Create a quarter arc. Sweep it 360 at whatever resolution. "Convert to Nurbs". What would you expect to result? Is that what does result? And thanks for the response and suggestion.

That led to another experiment. If I sweep the elliptical arc and then do a solids subtraction of any sort from it, I get a Nurbs surface (or a solid subtraction object...don't really know the difference). And that I can use. But if I sweep the elliptical arc, and convert to Nurbs, I can't do much of anything I need with the result. What's the reasoning behind this? I guess really, why doesn't convert to nurbs on the sweep create the object in the way that the solids operations do? [Does that make sense?]

Seems I have to draw an ellipse (oval), cut it in half along the sweep axis, sweep a complete ellipsoid, and then cut away the bottom portion to get an ellipsoid-shaped nurbs surface. If I create a quarter ellipse with the quarter arc tool and sweep that polyline and "Create Nurbs", the resulting object won't render. If I turn the quarter arc into a polygon and sweep that and "Create Nurbs", what results is a group whose components look like trapezoids from the side (I guess technically they are segments of a cone) and unusable for Solids operations. This is all so strange. What am I missing? (I know there's an ellipsoid object, and I'll mess with that next, but the quarter arc sweep should seemingly work, too. No?)

My goal is to have an oblate ellipsoid on a stem wall--the top half of a squashed sphere elevated 5' on a circular base. So if you take the quarter arc and set it 5' above the x-axis, and then extend a vertical line from its outside edge to the x-axis.....that's my sweep section. But when I sweep that and convert to Nurbs, I end up with the nurbs object being defined by LOTS of concentric circles (the number depends on the 2D Res setting). This causes the renderings to look more facetted than I'd prefer. Most of the nurbs objects I've created, such as with loft, show very few lines on the actual nurbs object, and render smoother. I can't figure out why this one is being so recalcitrant. It seems like it's not understanding the geometry of the underlying structure and so it's just straight-line connecting the points on the polygon sweep object.

Quarter Arc Tool

Part 2. Create a 1/4 elliptical arc 22.5' wide x 16' high starting at x=0, y=5'. Sweep it. Convert to NURBS. Make sure it has a fill and a texture. It takes a looooooong time to process the render command--in the Geometry phase with no obvious progress--and then beeps and draws nothing. What am I doing wrong? I'd think that sweeping an elliptical arc would fairly easily create a half ellipsoid.

Create a 40' wide x 20' high ellipsoid. Use the split by line tool to quarter it. The X value of the top right segment is 20'2.016" or some-such. That doesn't make any sense. It should create the same result as using the quarter-arc tool, no?

Huh? I missed something there. Do I really need a smilie for it to be clear that that sucking up line was all in good fun? For any literalists, I mean only to compliment Nemetschek on their development efforts and tech support. My context is having spent years using a different product that offered neither, and years before that on the bleeding edge of Apple's new technologies.

Three months ago I was using a product that hadn't been upgraded for even bugs in 2 years. A post on the forum would get either no response or a sarcastic response from another user like "don't hold your breath while you're waiting." Queries about OSX support, the next version, or bug fixes would get, "We don't discuss unannounced products," which was their shorthand for, "We're gonna squeeze as many sales as we can out of this without telling you it's a dead product." Love the ethics of that one. After a long hard search, I found VW. I had phone support the first day. Found this board the second day, and y'all know how active it is. There are updaters posted. There's a major upgrade within 60 days of my purchase. They have ways to model a torus with fluctuating radii on the cross-sections. They added weather effects just be/c I asked for them, for gosh sakes! (OK, they were already done before I even bought VW, but I choose to believe it was be/c of me anyway <G>) I owned a Mac software company for many years and know what it's like on the support side of the phone, and Matthew and Katie have been giving world-class service. And I know too what it's like to be on the bleeding-edge of Apple Technology as a developer (first third party app to support Apple Script), and really empathize with the development staff over issues like they encountered with 10.2. Read the MacWorld or .mac forums if you want a taste of how many other products have suffered through Apple's growing pains. On features, VW covers a wide variety of users. While some shops need const drawing features more than 3D, I couldn't survive without the zoomie stuff. And the more the better. I make so many sales because the renderings, and nurbs, and solar animations, and such provide sizzle for the prospective client....and none of my competitors seem to be offering it. We certainly need the means to do drawings efficiently, but that's not what the clients notice, so the efforts in the more visual areas are by no means wasted. So, good job by all. [is that enough sucking up to get QTVR and better ellipsoid support?] [ 10-02-2002, 07:09 PM: Message edited by: Cloud Hidden ]

Mea culpa. Katie kindly looked at the file, and my evil twin had checked the VW print option of "Postscript Only", which for reasons I haven't bothered to think through, has the effect of not putting lines into a PDF. All's well in Mudville. VW performed as it was told to.