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cassilly

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    Builder
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  1. Got an interesting phone call today. Ran into an architect who has a larger Vectorworks based office at lunch and he had someone from his office call. She said they spent the money for a HP1055 and it will spit out 2D views from 3D files in one minute. They can also print renderings directly from their 3D files quickly. 8mg file size. For larger 100mg files, they export the rendering as a JPG then reimport it into Vectorworks to print. Most 3D renderings are printed on small Epson inkjet printers. They are using the HP rip software only. I guess spending the money is an option. I'm thinking about taking a good look at the 800 and 1000 series printers.
  2. Actually, I'm stuck at the moment. Was trying to use Gimp Print driver for 2500cp for our 2000cp and when I downloaded Ghostprint it somehow eliminated all the printer settings in my Print Center??? Tried to re-add the printers, but I get an error message that stops me. Tried to uninstall Ghostprint to correct the problem and the uninstall stops 2/3 of the way through with an error message. Don't really know what to do but clean install the whole computer which will probably take a day.
  3. Kurt: Here's what we're trying: 1. Gimp Print. Tried the 2500cp driver for our 2000cp and it does not seem to recognize the printer. 2. Have decided to separate 2D and 3D printing. In reality, even though the documents are all 3D 90% of printing is 2D view. We have decided to have a 3D working drawing file and a copy file in which we will save 2D view sheets to print from. As our 3D working file changes we will save and overwrite 2D views to the print file to keep the print file up to date. 3. We're going to follow through on buying a new plotter. MicroSpot seems to work fine printing our 2D views. We go from hitting the print button to output in less than a minute. Our research has told us that the 2000cp is one of the slowest printers out there in terms of the mechanics of the print heads actually moving and laying ink. Slower than even older, lower resolution printers. 4. We're still a bit stumped about how we will do the 3D output. I guess we're going to experiment with saving the 3D views as PDF or exporting them to another program to print. ??? Beaster: Boy do I feel sorry for you!! Just kidding. Really if you're doing mostly 2D printing you can pick up a serviceable used HP 400 or 700 series printer that can use a gimp print drive and you can happily crank out professional documents for years to come. Kurt is way right about the difference between the 2D and 3D world. The 3D features of Vectorworks allow you to do work on a world class level for an amazingly small price, but you're stepping through the looking glass into all kinds of complexity. I think we went a little too far too fast.
  4. First of all I have to say an extremely sincere, "Thank you!" You are giving me more meaningful information that anyone I've talked to, and I've spent lots of time on this with Vectorworks staff and every manner of hardware and software rep you can imagine. We still love the program, but I've come to believe the company is critically dropping the ball by not dedicating one staff person to pay real attention to this whole new area of printing issues that have obvoiusly arisen only recently as the 3D aspects of the program have become the focus of Vectorwork's development and usage. Here's what I'm taking away from your last post: 1. 3D and 2D printing issues are altogether different, and we need to recognize some fundamental limitations here. 2. We need to reexamine our approach to using Vectorworks. Our focus has been on building our entire office from design to construction documentation to job management (we GC our jobs too) around the 3D model in much the same way Microstation intends. The possibility of multiplied errors resulting from transfering mediums by say tracing over the survey instead of importing the dwg file and going directly from there drive me NUTS, but what you are telling me indicates that we need to do a reality check and possibly let go of some of the rigors of our goals. Clearly, the sophistication of the program is up to the task, but output issues have been left so completely in the hands of third parties like HP that it is this side of the equation and the inherent limitations there that will define the our use of Vectorworks. 3. I'm going to take another look at Epson. The fact that our $60 Epson 777i has bailed a couple of huge jobs makes some sense now. 4. We're going to follow up in a highly specific manner on some of your suggestions for reducing file size. Maybe some smaller questions will follow. 5. I don't know if we'll go back to 2D production drawings, but we'll at least look at setting up the files so that 2D and 3D printing are handled differently. 6. I'm still sort of pissed at Vectorworks. In truth, for our office to use Vectorwork's 3D functions, we are having to devote as much of our resources trying to print the documents as learning the program itself. Let's face it. HP can't neglect Autocad or they'd lose market share to Epson overnight. Vectorworks has to devote some meaningful resources to these third party printing issues if they are going to take advantage of the market opportunities their development of 3D capacity affords. They can't leave it entirely to the users to work out the print issues. Not with the complexity of issues arising from the larger file size of 3D documents.
  5. I'm looking for a printer also, but I'm wondering what type of files people are sending to these printers. Our drawings are all based on 3D models and file size tends to be around 10mgs without importing objects like trees or textures for concrete. Are these recommendations being made in the context of 2D drawings or in the context of 3D drawings and then printing either in 2D view or printing renderings?
  6. Reading through other postings I see lots of references to not needing to use postscript to print from Vectorworks. What do people mean by this. We work on Macs. Could we buy a non ps printer like the HP 500 and use it? Is there a way to send a non-postscript file to the printer using the Mac version of Vectorworks? Is the Mac platform even an issue?
  7. Katie, I'm not trying to be negative and I fully appreciate that the huge leap in capacity 3D allows. I'm also willing to accept that there is an accompanying increase in cost to print in a workable fashion. I'm willing to spend the money even for our tiny office. I'm willing to dump our printer and get a new one and even get different RIP software, but in the end I need to be able to print documents in a workable amount of time without so much complexity that I need an in-house print technician. My problem is no one has been able to tell me what to do at ANY price level with ANY equipment that will solve this problem. PosterJet swore they could rip our files like nobody's business. When they couldn't they blamed Vectorworks.
  8. Yes. But we are using a 1G G4 with 1280 ram as a dedicated print server and still having these problems. I fully appreciate that 2D and 3D are worlds apart, but printing still needs to be a relatively simple operation for most users who are not service bureau technicians to use the program. Many of the "solutions" being proposed are way behond the scope of the average user and light years away from plug and play.
  9. OK 1. Saved sheets. We crashed PosterJet the other day when we were printing one saved sheet of a rendered model so I guess we weren't printing every sheet, or am I misunderstanding what you mean? 2. Exporting to other programs to print renderings. We have done this, but sort of as a last resort. We HAD to get a big job out once that required architectural review and lots of rendered images and we exported and printed from Photoshop on a large format laser printer in someone else's office. We did get the job printed with someone not sleeping, but we still couldn't use the 2000cp and the exporting seemed to add another layer of complexity and it's own set of issues. 3. Separating the working drawings form 3D seems promising, but how do you do that? We don't really have any 2D pages or use 2D tools any more, but we do have 2D views that the printer handles much more easily than the rendered 3D views. Do you make a copy of the file, do some sort of separation, then print, then go back to the original file to make any changes? 4. We do dedicate one computer - a G4 - to printing. I think we are doing what you describe. We're on a network. There seems to be 3 steps to printing a larger file. Someone at a work station will hit print and the file will do something for awhile at that computer, then it will spool to the Microspot on the print server computer where it will queue up, then it will print form Microspot. Usually we by-pass the first step by sending the whole file to the print server and opening and printing the file from there. 5. Postscript RIP. I've heard exactly what you are saying, that if you can bypass postscript you can really speed things up. I'd love to consider this option. 6. Your print speed. How large are your files and what is your print speed? If you print from a 3D file in 2D view, how long does the process take from the time you hit "print?" Do you ever print a rendering directly to the printer, and, if so, how long does it take? When you export an rendering to another program, how long does that process take including the export? -Thanks loads for your time. I was beginning to feel lost in the wilderness with this whole thing. I'm also wondering about the future of Vectorworks if they can't simplify this thing. I mean, we went to our AutoCad based engineer's office where they were spitting out drawings like crazy. BUT, they do the same simple 2D operation over and over again. We even had to go to their office to show them how to open our emailed files which were already AutoCad documents on their desktop. Still, it's super simple and all 4 people there can do every operation.
  10. Wow! You've really been working with this. So, what you're saying, really is that I can't just set up my plotter and send the files to print and forget it. This is like service bureau stuff. I'll have to process it tomorrow.
  11. Kurt, I didn't mean to send my reply privately. Briefly for anyone else reading we have 1280 ram on a 1G G4. Microspot, PosterJet and Vectorworks technical service dept. have not been able to offer a solution to unworkable print times for our files that have grown from 200k to over 100mb in less than two years as we have moved from 2D drawings to 3D models with imported objects. I don't think Gimp has a driver specifically for the 2000cp, but had read somewhere that another driver might work. I don't know which one.
  12. We're using a HP 2000CP with Microspot Rip Vectorworks 10 and OS 10.2. Our files are up to 100meg large and at that size essentially won't print at all. Tried the PosterJet Demo with their tech person on the line today and after our file converted to postscript it crashed their software at about 180megs. We're ready to buy another printer, but need workable print speed. Right now even one page of a simple line drawing (granted from a layered 3D file) takes 20 minutes to print. Help!!! Any suggestions on which printer to buy for between 2 - 7 thousand and what printer software interface to use would be greatly appreciated. PosterJet tells me we are far from alone in having this problem.
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