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matto

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Posts posted by matto

  1. Regarding number one,...

    What you may find useful are "Red Symbols". setup a base version of the PIO you want including any and all common settings that will speed up your workflow.

    With it selected make it in to a symbol, click the options button after giving it a name.

    First option you want is the tick box for "Convert to Plug-in Object" and the next one just below where you can select what class you want the object to insert in to.

    As you pull these symbols into the drawing they become PIO but all set up for you.

    Maybe not the solution you want but does have some advantages as well to make up for the change.

  2. This doesn't need to a windows only or mac only thing, or a googleapps only thing.

    There are many open documented standards out that could be adapted to do this same job on all platforms. What Google Apps are already doing shows that most of the features you'd want to embed could be done well using web protocols.

    Easy to integrate as well, each player only needs to support webviews to render content in their application. We still need a nice documented way to display CAD/BIM data via a webview.

    btw... the superdog pic really suits the topic.

  3. CS1,

    I'm going to guess you never worked on a Drawing Board (gee i feel old asking that)

    We had two waxy coloured pencil blue and red, both of which wouldn't be picked up by the printer.

    Blue lines for setup or Guides.

    Red for the Architect to make notes or markup changes for the team.

    Matt

  4. Maybe 40 storey building for Revit.

    VW can handle building of 30 storeys BIM or no BIM.

    BIM, building Info Model.

    The basic idea is model real world objects like walls, concrete slabs, doors and windows. From there the computer produces the dumb line drawings for you as the promoters of BIM will call them, or the comics as the builder calls.

    The hope is that this will save us a lot of time on co-ordination services, structure, fittings and all the others things that make up a building.

    BIM systems are more about how many objects they have scripts for Plug-in Objects in VW languages.

    VW is coming along.

    It's a nice objective.

    Vectorworks has had BIM like feature the whole Hybrid Drawing System could be thought of as Reverse BIM if you want, or BIM done right. you draw in real world objects that are presented in the drawing language we use, but with little or no extra input they are 3D as well. Which can produce co-ordinate elevations, sections and the like.

    The change in the last few years computers are getting fast enough to render these models fast enough to not get in our way well they where meant to but processors hit the wall and started going multi-core. CAD and BIM have issues with Multi-core.

  5. Great series so far.

    Really interesting.

    As some who straddles the divide between big and small firm. It really confirms that VW is heading in the right direction. It's mind full of our craft/art of our profession, and of the pressures of delivering quality on time and budget.

    I agree blindly following IT folks would be bad, but to be understanding that timetables for upgrades and budgets adds confidence in the product in it future and opens doors big and small.

    And if a yearly Developement cycle means ticking the big feature boxes like 2008 has then bring it on.

  6. Remember that saved views have one important advantage over Viewports.

    They don't have save certain aspects, if you just want a class set up, or a just a layer set up, or just a view, then saved views can do it.

    Viewports are a combo of all and have to be all the time.

    So in your templet file you could have saved views of just the class configuration for common drawings then when anyone wants to set up a viewport called the saved view then create the viewport knowing the classes are taken care of.

    Very useful is the old simple saved view.

  7. Well, that is the easy way.

    Copy, apple arrow to next sheet, paste in place, repeat steps 2 and 3.

    Or create one sheet complete, then duplicate the sheet, which will copy all the sheet a number of times.

    If all the viewports are truely the same you could create one sheet then use a class for each of the titleblocks

    It all depends what you want to achieve your first method is going to give you the most flexibility in the long run making it easy to add layers to each veiwport for the unique parts of each.

    what you need to ask is, if it doesn't vary why show the same thing more than once?

  8. The workaround to this in VW12 was two have two identical viewports stack on top of each other each set to different render modes. (must give credit to someone else for the idea) It works really well.

    So well that in VW2008 you don't need two viewports as sheet layer viewports can render in two mode and underlay which you use something that give modeling, shadow, texture colouring you want. Then the top Layer in say Hidden Line, to get the line work you want.

    Also have a look at OpenGL mode new options. Shadows and hidden line very nice.

    You be great to know where these options fall short.

  9. If you include Loci in your symbols they will define the cut opening of the symbol.

    2D loci on will define the Plan opening.

    3D at two oppersite corners will define the model opening

    all should be on the @Y=0,

    You can then have the small walls and indeed the roof that relates to each of the clerestorey with in the symbol as well, knowing that the loci define the holes.

    These loci are useful for many things.

    Symbols for sliding doors, garage doors.

    or even framing holes in walls for built-in toilet cisterns.

    Hope that helps

    Matt

  10. Or import the the image as an image fill.

    the fill can applied to any shape and use the Attribute Mapping Tool (option-a) in the default workspace to move, stretch and rotate the image till it's in the right location.

  11. I would have thought until new stock arrives from the factory with Leopard pre-installed the machine you are likely to still buy a machine with Tiger installed and a leopard on a disk to install when you see fit.

    Even after such time the until a machine sees a refresh of hardware it should be able to be downgraded to tiger with the old installer disk.

    So you don't even need to buy second hand just talk to your mac dealer about where you stand whats coming up and how they can help you. Business is about relationships after all.

  12. Even if you have the version that needs serial numbers entered, you can enter a pool of serial numbers in and the application will just the next one in the list that isn't in use already.

    From experience I'd say give a single serial number to anyone who is likely to use the application full time, then pool serial numbers for more casual users.

    I think you'll find that anyone using the program arround 50% or more of the time will get frustrated being in the pool.

    The pricing structure to date has been reduced price on all licences after the first.

    You'll have to check current policy.

  13. Sorry to disgree, I'd say primariy No.

    Design Layer view ports are much more powerful when used in regards to BIM rule that has been floating arround here. "model it once"

    If you have a building with highly repeative elements that are to be the subject of ahigher scale drawing then you can draw them at the higher scale then use a viewport in the same way you would have used a symbol to place a version of that information in to the general model. these Veiw port can be duplicated any number of times.

    Best of all they stay current without you having to remember to update the symbol. Yet you get to control how much is seen at the location, keeping your main model focused on the big picture, yet it has a low overhead for computer power.

  14. using layer scale is the best of both worlds.

    you still think in real world sizes like we always have drawing board.

    you still draw at presentation size (WYSIWYG), like a drawing board.

    The inform is accurate like Computer are for.

    The information is usable and co-ordinated like computers are for.

  15. New Features always bring tweaks to the workflow, in-house testing or "play" to use to how it works. Not to memtion it's a time to catch up on those cad management tasks that sort of never get time made unless they are part of perparing the upgrade generally.

    So upgrading a small core group of users as size premits always seems to work well.

    As I understand it the NNA is happy for you to use both on the machines that upgraded.

    That way all the older projects can stick to the stable workflow, but you are still investing to in the future as well.

  16. there are many services who can do this for you including technoprint here in australia.

    Depending on purpose.

    I'd personnelly go with the scan to a pdf (which agian you can get done by a service such as the one listed) then bring in (or reference in VW2008) to the file and do the tracing yourself.

    You can also bring the pdf in a mark over in colour for as built drawings that we often require from builders.

  17. OpenGL is a type of rendering, it's used alot in games and 3D work like VW it can produce ok rendering quick sketchy and blocky but is more of the style you would see in a program like sketchup.

    I have a 2Ghz Macbook with the 2Gb of ram the preformance is pretty good for some fairly complex models as well as simple, although it is a laptop and well heat will build up with the rendering is running full steam for an hour or so with a few renders back to back.

    So good for occasional renders but i wouldn't want to have it do one of those overnight batch render jobs.

    I've had a chance to use a promachine as well but only for half a day, on the whole i'd say that preformance was on par with what you expect for the increase is speed, maybe a tad snappier switching applications or situation where the screen is refreshed fully.

    On the whole the pro is better where you are using it as a desktop replacement, i wanted portablity and the macbook seems a better fit for me.

    Used the macbook with second montior and projector which is ok but the mini-dvi connector just doesn't seem as solid as the full size ones you get on the pro.

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