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Colman Stephenson

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Posts posted by Colman Stephenson

  1. I am experiencing significant colour shifts when creating PDFs from Vectorwork 8.5.

    We are running a ColorSync workflow on G4s running VW, Quark, Photoshop and Acrobat, among others.

    We have profiled our Laserprinter and use that CMYK Profile as our CMYK workspace. We use Adobe RGB as our RGB Workspace.

    I have set up Distiller with the above information.

    When I produce a PDF from Quark there is no colour shift. When I produce a PDF from VW there are significant colour shifts, particularly in the blue/green region.

    This ruinings all the work our architects have undertaken when trying to create a beautiful drawing.

    We need to create PDFs in order to place the drawings in Quark documents. We have found EPSs to be unreliable, whether produced from the Export EPS option, or via the Print dialogue box.

    Can anyone help me with this?

    KEY QUESTIONS

    Does VW take any notice of the content of the ColorSync Control Panel when printing/exporting?

    Does VW output colour info in RGB or CMYK? Is there a way I can find out the format of the colour info in a postscript file?

    Anyone who helps solve this will get a big present, regardless where they are in the world

    Colman StephensonJulian Harrap ArchitectsLondon, UK

  2. I think Brian has a point. All of this can be done with the printer driver.

    When we are printing to a plotter (via Microspot Raster) we use Dither: Bayer (page setup) and Black Ink (Print). Coloured lines and grey lines then print as grey using a half tone pattern. The 400dpi is result is almost excellent. I'm sure we would be very happy with 600dpi.

    When we a print via Postscript we use our colour printer to achieve nice greys (monochrome lasers are terrible at this, admittedly).

    Reverb, you'll hate this question: why is it necessary to use class colour to differentiate line weights? Doesn't Zoom line weight do the same thing?

    [set-up MacOS 9, VW 8.5]

  3. I frequently have problems exporting image files. This post is specifically about EPS.

    I often get unexpected lines and shapes which are totally different from the vectorworks drawing.

    Interestingly the EPS preview comes out correctly, although the eps is wrong, which can be verified by printing it or MacGSView

    A sample set of files can be found at: www.colman.stephenson.org/vwepsproblem.zip

    This includes the VW 8.5.2 file, the eps and a tif from the VW file.

    Set-up: VW 8.5.2 on OS 9.1 on a range of G4s and iMacs

    Can anyone help?

    ------------------

    Colman Stephenson

    Julian Harrap Architects, UK

  4. I regularly have problems exporting image files and am very glad to hear that I am not alone.

    Some times images have random boundaries, unrelated to the page set-up or the objects (that I can find). Worse, sometimes objects are missing or distorted. This happens in around 10-20% of my exported images and both on iMacs and G4's. I have tried updating my Quicktime to v5. This seemed to make things a little better.

    While I haven't been able to solve the issue one of the problems is often memory. Exporting TIFFS, JPEGS and EPS (the formats I need) usually needs around ten times the size of the final image size.

    Is NNA aware of these problems?

    Set-up: VW8.5.2 on OS 9.0.4 on a Mac network.

  5. The imagecels ones are nice, but they all seem to be outdoors in bright sunlights. Where can I get some people indoors in less contrasty light?

    C.

    ------------------

    Colman Stephenson

    Julian Harrap Architects, UK

  6. Can anyone help me source 2D photo-realistic human figures for placement in scenes rendered in Renderworks or Artlantis. I'm thinking of a CD-ROM or something.

    Grateful for any suggestions.

    ------------------

    Colman Stephenson

    Julian Harrap Architects, UK

  7. While this particular problem have never occured I often have difficulty exporting image files from VW 8.5.2 especially TIFF and JPEG. EPS is more reliable.

    With the bitmap formats huge amounts of memory seem to be necessary (perhaps 10 times the VW file size and the image file size). Even with that images are sometimes scrambled or have very large extents that do not seem to relate to the page position or the objects in the drawing.

    I did find upgrading to Quicktime 5 seemed to address some of the problems.

    Colman

    ------------------

    Colman Stephenson

    Julian Harrap Architects, UK

  8. Robert

    Thanks for your response.

    Unfortunately all too often I find the exporting (and importing) of image files into VW unreliable.

    The following link will download you two files, a VW file and the resultant Jpeg which is badly garbled. This sort of problem affects TIFFS also. Sometimes the imported image is curiously and randomly cropped. Is this something to do with exporting VW files which themselves have imported image files?

    http://www.colman.stephenson.org/NNA/1914.zip

    I am using VW 8.5.2, QT 5, OS 9.0.1 on G4s and iMacs.

    These problems also existed when using QT 4

    Thanks for your help

    ------------------

    Colman Stephenson

    Julian Harrap Architects, UK

  9. I am drawing a filled polyline over an imported TIFF.

    It is on an upper layer set to Overlay. Thus the details of the tiff show through the filled object. This is how I want it.

    However when I come to print the layer mode acts like Paint: ie I cannot see the tiff through the object as I can on the screen.

    I am using VW 8.5.2 on Mac OS 9.0.4 on G4 with loads of memory. Printing with Laserwriter 8.

    Very grateful for any advice.

    Colman Stephenson

    ------------------

    Colman Stephenson

    Julian Harrap Architects, UK

  10. On attempting to reproduce the problem I haven't gotten the badly garbled jpegs that I did earlier.

    However I have created an example where an export from the this file

    ftp.colman.stephenson.org/SSGB%20CONCEPT%20OPTION%20H

    Produced a jpeg:

    ftp.colman.stephenson.org/SSGB%20CONCEPT%20OPTION%20H.JPG

    that was not the same dimensions as the current printable area and truncated at the top.

    A Screenshot of the printable area can be found at:

    ftp.colman.stephenson.org/Picture%204

    I am finding exporting jpegs unpredictable while exporting TIFFs (for example, from this file) quickly runs into memory errors.

    I have 160/202Mb of built-in/virtual RAM. 48Mb to VW.

    I am running 9.0 and VW 8.5.2 with, as mentioned QT5

    Colman

    ------------------

    Colman Stephenson

    Julian Harrap Architects, UK

  11. I am experiencing problems export bitmap files including jpeg and tiffs.

    1. In some files an area far larger than the extent of the objects and the current extent of the page is exported.

    2. Sometimes images are badly scrambled.

    I am using VW 8.5.2, OS 9.0, 160Mb of built in RAM. I have recently upgraded to Quicktime 5. Could this be a source of the problem?

    C.

    ------------------

    Colman Stephenson

    Julian Harrap Architects, UK

  12. Robert

    Thanks for your suggestions

    Unfortunately I have tried raising the allocated RAM to 60Mb and still no luck. Thanks for the suggestion though.

    For what it is worth, here is another error message I get. The error takes place very early on in the distillation and once again, it is unique to VW.

    Colman Stephenson

    %%[ Error: invalidaccess; OffendingCommand: def; ErrorInfo: CharOffsets

  13. Thanks for that suggestion but I'm afraid it didn't work.

    Version 5.0 has the same font warning options. Mine were alread set to "Warn and Continue". Nevertheless I switched it to "Ignore" and I continued to have the same problem.

    In any case the problem does not occur with other applications, which is why I suspect VW, although I know other people produce PDFs from VW all the time.

    Your input is much appreciated in any event.

    Colman Stephenson

  14. Can anybody help?

    I have recently purchased Distiller 5.0 but I am unable to produce PDFs from VectorWorks.

    Postscript files which are generated from VW (either through LaserWriter or AdobePS) fail with the error message given at the end of this post.

    The problem is specific to VW. All other applications are fine.

    I have tried with the option "Print Postscript only" checked and unchecked.

    I have tried using the virtual printer and using the "create Adobe PDF option".

    I am using OS9.0.4 on iMac with 96Mb

    Thanks in advance to anyone who help cure this problem.

    Colman Stephenson

    Julian Harrap Architects, London UK

    --------

    This is a typical error message :

    %%[ Error: limitcheck; OffendingCommand: findfont ]%%

    Stack:

    /Font

    /Times-Roman

    /f14

    %%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%

    %%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%

  15. quote:

    Originally posted by Robert Nichols:

    Hello,

    I'm new to Vectorworks, but have been tinkering with installations in several offices where I live.

    I think the suggestion that file size or memory allocation is responsible for vw instability in this case ignores a pattern shown on this list in which G4's are having trouble with display issues. I've worked on 3 g4's in the last few weeks that freeze on a tight zoom-in. I've also seen several posts on this list describing the same problems. I now have 270 or so mb of ram dedicated to vw on a new g4, and still have lockups, though they are less frquent than before. These results are occuring with file sizes under 2 megabytes in size.

    Let's try to home in on the problems that are specific to g4's. I think we're missing an opportunity to nail a bug by attributing this problem to general conditions such as file size, or memory allocation.


    Hmmm, Good point. We are experiencing similar problems

  16. Thanks to all who helped us out with - especially Janis whose books we find very useful.

    Interesting general discussion has arisen about the size of VectorWorks files. Janis, it seems that lots of people work regularly on files much bigger than 5Mb.

    Colman & Stefania

  17. We are suffering from terrible memory leaks in VectorWorks alone.

    Regular problems (aside from several crashes a day) include "Short of Memory" and "Out of Memory" messages; inability to zoom in as far as normal, restricting us to around 1,500% and other tools not behaving properly. Also copy and paste are extremely unstable.

    System: G4/400 with 192Mb physical RAM running System 9.0.4. At least 6 Gb of free HD. Problem occurs with VM on and off. No other applications need be open to create the problem.

    VectorWorks allocated 78Mb, number of undos set to 15.

    Document. The problem occurs with documents which are around 6Mb in size. One in particular which contains 39 layers, 38 classes and no TIFFs. The document is saved locally.

    A large bunch of flowers/bottle of whiskey to anyone in the world who can help us solve this disabling problem.

    Colman Stephenson

  18. I am attempting to create HP/GL2 files using MacPlot 7.5.2.

    Sometimes entire classes won't print.

    MicroSpot UK say that this is a problem with VectorWorks 8. They suggest exporting the file to MiniCad 7, opening it in MiniCad 7 and saving the Plot File from there.

    I haven't tried it but even if it works it obviously isn't a long term solution.

    Does anybody know why a particular class doesn't print or how I can force it to do so?

    Is this a known issue with VectorWorks 8.5.1?

    Colman Stephenson

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