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Anthony Masinton

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  • Occupation
    Architectural Historian/Archaeologist
  • Hobbies
    Medieval Church Architecture - 3D modelling of historic buildings
  • Location
    York, UK
  1. I'm using VW10.5 in MacOSX and would like to take the 3D models I've developed in VW and turn them into 3D Models explorable in realtime. Can someone out there recommend a program that will allow me to do this with a VW-created file as the base for the model? I don't need high resolution texturing or anything like that - just a way to produce my model as a neat little package explorable on any platform and in real time. Should I use a game engine for this? If so, what works best with VW?
  2. I know there's a bit of a history about VRML and VW, but I thought I'd give it another go. I'm using Cortona for OSX as the MSExplorer plugin for viewing VRML. Cortona only reads VRML97 and I gather that VW10.5.1 only exports in VRML1. Does anyone out there know of a reliable converter to convert VRML1 to VRML97 on Macintosh? Any general tips on working with VW exports to VRML would also be appreciated. Thanks!
  3. I'm trying to capture a 3D version of a piece of sculpture by surveying the sculpture with a theodolite and creating a cloud of 3D loci - a cloud of 3D points (hundreds of them). Is there any way of converting this point cloud into a 3D surface? Thanks!
  4. Katie and Dave, Thanks for your help on this. I'm running VW 10 on a G3 iBook with 256RAM (will upgrade to 640 in a couple of months when I get back to the States and can get cheaper RAM) and System 10.2.3 There is only one lightsource - the sun (I'm trying to see how sunlight is distributed in the interior) set using the Set Sun Position option under Lighting. I have tried rendering with Fast Renderworks but that hasn't worked either. When rendering with Open GL, after about 20 or 30 minutes at the 'Geometry' stage (it gets just over half way through) VW quits and I get the error saying that the application has unexpectedly quit. The funny thing is, that a version of this same project that was nearly 300MB (I've found ways to save space now) rendered fine in OpenGL. The only difference between the two now is that I've converted a lot of my complex objects into symbols (to save space) and I have inserted tracery (made of extruded polylines) in the windows (this tracery and all of the symbols have rendered fine in OpenGL on their own). Thanks again.
  5. I'm trying to render an interior I've built. It is a church, so there are very richly moulded surfaces. Practically every surface, in fact, has some moulded ornament. The file is about 90MB and all of the objects I'd like to render are either NURBS surfaces, solid subtractions, solid additions, or plain extrudes. There are no textures and I have the VW and the doc. prefs set to maximize rendering speed (so, lowest level of detail, light sources not visible, etc.). All objects are solid and are plain white. The interior is built up mostly of symbols - each of which I have seen render just fine in Open GL separately. However, when the whole lot is together, it chugs away at rendering and then, after about half an hour, the application 'unexpectedly' quits. What's going on here?
  6. I'm surveying a building with a Leica TST. Leica has an add-on to Autocad that allows the TST to export in realtime to Autocad running on an attached computer - essentially turning the TST into a digitizer. Is there any such add-on for Vectorworks
  7. I'm not sure where to post this, but this looks like the best bet: I'm living in the UK and purchased VW10Industry from an online retailer here. I would like to update to 10.5.1 but my internet connection is too slow to make downloading the files a viable option. I'd like to get the update on CD, if possible. I was given contact details of someone in the UK, but they have never replied to my request. Should/How I contact Customer Service in North America to request this? Has anyone else in the UK updated via CD? Thank you
  8. Dear Dave, Thanks very much for these tips. They are helpful. As I've been working more with the model, I've been learning more, and can use your tips well. I have a couple of more specific questions: Are you making repetitive items into symbols? That can greatly reduce the file size for repetitive geometry. I do have repetitive items as symbols. The file size still seems large - the symbols are 3D only (I haven't quite figured out how to make them hybrid - I've tried selecting the objects in Top/Plan View and choosing Create Symbol to create a hybrid but this seems to only make a 3D symbol). Would hybrid symbols reduce the file size? If you don't have RenderWorks, OpenGL should provide a better rendering than the polygon modes, unless you want to see the edges. If you think the polygon rendering is incorrect, please call tech support and find out if this is a bug we should be fixing. I do have RenderWorks, and I've gotten OpenGL to work. However, when I render an object created from extruding along a path as a hidden lines render, I get a lot of extraneous geometry shown, especially in areas of curves. Is this a common problem? Thanks again for your help.
  9. I'm surveying medieval churches and using my survey data to build their interiors in 3D in VW 10.1. These interiors are very complex, using large, complicated mouldings. My question is, what sort of strategy should I use to generate the smallest possible file sizes while maintaining a fairly high degree (within 5mm) of accuracy? I have been creating moulded surfaces by extruding a 2D polyline profile along a 2d polyline path (sometimes a 2D polygon path as well). This usually works out well, but when I assemble all the members of the building the resultant file is 250MB and growing - which is difficult for my computer (G3 iBook 700mhz 256RAM) to handle. Also, when I extrude a 2d Polyline I have not been able to get it to render correctly - when I render in unshaded polygons no lines - I get a mass of confusing geometry shown. Are 2D polylines good for this sort of thing or should I first convert to NURBS curves - what is the advantage of converting to NURBS? As you can tell, I'm a little inexperienced and any advice would be much appreciated. Ideally I'd like to export a model of a church to VRML (which, I know, will greatly reduce realism and accuracy - but hopefully improve 'explorability').
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