Petri

The lesser evil? Instead of forcing us to pay licence fees to Microsoft, the ISO has mandated that in order to comply with a standard, we have to pay similar fees to Adobe. The French seem to be the only ones standing for anti-monopolism.

While I agree with many of your points and would definitely like to see at least as much improvements as you: A BIM and detailed working drawings are two entirely different woks of tofu. BIM-sections and conventional sections don't even belong to the same diet. A BIM-section (eg. the one we have in VW, with certain improvements) is not a "rough overlay": it is all there is - and needs to be - for the BIM. Apart from this, I must say that I'm a bit curious about the angst sections seem to cause. To me, sections are an important design tool. I've done jobs where they have been more important than floor plans. Well, it seems that Taproot has somewhat similar view ("A section needs to be predicated on...") Finally: in domestic jobs (houses etc), forget BIM. If "framing and material offsets" are driving the job, BIM has nothing to offer. It is for big jobs and big clients.

But indeed they were! Should you have wishlisted the development of the stair tool to something actually useful, it would have been good news. Regurgitating about someone being "continually working" is meaningless: the tool has been extant for years and shows no signs of becoming useful in projects that are not McMansions in the U.S. of A.

Actually, it should go the other way around: when a user assigns a colour to an object (or part thereof), it becomes (if required) data in an alphanumeric database. "Explicit" alphanumeric data is the last resort, since it usually has no relevance to the user and needs to be separately entered. One of the many advantages of VW is its rich vocabulary of "implied" data which can be queried and developed further by inference, often in conjunction of explicit & inherited data. (The term "inherit" used somewhat freely here.)

Textures, maybe. They are of no use in the real world.

In my very limited experience: the aerial and the vector data should match. If you need to scale etc. the aerial, then it may not be in proper format.

Yes, but that would entirely defeat the purpose of wall styles! I paint a wall red - now, I no longer know its thermal or STC performance. Well, too bad! While a Divine Guru & Operating Theta like yours truly might be able to script something like what you suggest (not sure, but the idea has passed my mind), it would rely on 7 or 8 large libraries and, according to the Creed of VectorWorks (as revealed to & witnessed by the Most Reverend Robert Anderson), could not be made publicly available.

No, I'm not. We have to translate Pidgin CAD to Vectorworksese, but as long as our latest translation has the same file path as the previous one, we are lumberjacks.

Good thinking, Ariel! It does. The newly-imported file just has to be in the same folder and have the same name as the previous one. Vice versa, by the way. And only exchance YOUR data: do not Return To Sender, even with Attachments.

When doing an export in VS format, VW 2008 uses functions marked obsolete in the documentation. Cute!

And this, Charles, reminds me of an important question: How are we supposed to know what VS calls are supported in which VW version(s)? Naturally I refer to GETENABLEDMODULES and its consequences.

Is that so? Well, then the implementation of textures in VW is anarchy. Now, tell me how does one deal with even 4320 paint colours and some 20 mandatory conceptual classes for walls? If the alternative to 86400 wall styles is anarchy, I'll take anarchy.

Bad tidings, Robert!

Yesterday I spoke with a new user (since 2 weeks or so). He had lost all section markers and all sections. Despite 4th grade interrogation, he did not confess having done anything wrong. Now, I am breeding a new pack of rats, to be used in my Friendly User Rehabilitation Room 101, but if he still insists that 2+2=4, what should I do?

Good tidings, Bonus!

Of course you CAN, but...

A good article, Robert! Those who intend (or fear being compelled) to do even slightly complex scripts would be well advised to adopt a structured way of programming from the outset. This includes also standardisation of common variable, constant and subroutine names. With this approach, one can easily redeploy functions and procedures, ie. copy and paste them (or even establish 7 or 8 large libraries used via $INCLUDE). Like this: PROCEDURE My_Script_Name_123; { declarations } CONST VAR PROCEDURE abc; BEGIN { code } END; PROCEDURE bcd; BEGIN { code } END; BEGIN ( main } { code } abc; { call to subroutine } {code } bcd; { call to subroutine } { code } END; RUN(My_Script_Name_123); VS is based on Pascal, so textbooks on Pascal can be useful. The good doctor Wirth developed Pascal to encourage structured programming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_(programming_language)

An annoyed user has drawn my attention to a fundamental flaw in styled walls. If a wall style has been defined NOT to use class attributes, he thinks (and I agree) that he should be able to give each wall an individual colour. At present, if a wall style is defined as above, walls using it won't even get rendered (ie. does not have a fill). At the same time, the attribute palette choices are greyed. No-one can have a wall style for each colour they might want to use. "What," asks my irate correspondent, "is the point, the b-dy point, of having all these paint colours if I can't use them in walls?" So, here's how this should be: - Use Class Attributes: as is - Not Use Class Attributes: pop-up to have --- none --- object attributes --- solid etc Hope this is clear. And fixed at least partially (to enable object attributes) ASAP. Yesterday would be fine. EDIT Use Surface Components' Attributes (class OR colour) would be good, too.

Dave, I'll try to find out if it's still there in the client's machine. I think it was saved at some point; I just have to muster all my courage to contact the person.

Extrude: showed how to "do this" in front view. Just draw a rectangle, the in Object Info, change the size by minus 4 mm by the center - uhhuh, minus 4 there - and Extrude. Now in Top view Align Bottoms. Yeah, that's right. Now, let's see what've got. Right. Apply a glass texture and it'll be transparent. What? Apply another glass texture and it'll be transparent. What? Apply yet another glass texture and it'll be transparent. What? Reapplied (both fill & texture; also texture & fill.)

I know little about rendering and textures. Today I, however, showed a brand new user (as from today) how to do 3D models of simple furniture. Everything went well until I wanted to show how to make glass doors to an "entertainment unit" (whatever that is... I thought something like Sly & the Family Stone is an entertainment unit...) Created an extrusion. Applied Glass. No transparency. Applied Glass Blue 2. No transparency. Edited textures. No transparency. Redid the whole shebang. No transparency. (I tried this successfully at home, so I've busted the myth!) What could be the problem? Fundamentalist + RenderWorker. Mac Mini, OS X 10.4.11.

Right. You claim to have the moral grounds to demand others to donate their intellectual property, but... I'll keep this in mind when you next time say that unless I give the results of my research to NNA for free (to be sold as your product), I don't have the "moral authority" to criticise your products.

Great - thanks, Pat & Katie! (I thought this would be the case: that I'm the incompetent ignoramus.)

I thought so. Your hourly rates are just too low to afford an all-dancing, all-singing, all-in-one machine, so you have to resort to the world of flexibility, confidentiality and redundant capacity, with Less Time Spent at the Printer Room Bonding and Socialising with Coworkers while Waiting.

No, it's a Tiger issue. There are no Issues with VW - they're all related to Third Parties who do not communicate with NNA. As we know, NNA communicates with all third parties.