alanmac

John Worries me in your last posting, it's your remark that.... "Heck, I just played some of the clips for sketchup and I'm amazed at what some people can do w/ that s/w...but I'm under no delusion that I could produce anything close to that." Sketch Up has got to be one of the easiest programs to use and create with, so if you feel the work shown is beyond you I'm concerned how you'll manage with the more complex 3D solutions such as VW etc. Don't get me wrong I don't regard VW as difficult, but I'm approaching it from a different priority and perspective. Going from board based to computer aided I was looking for the program that suited me, my career and requirements. In that respect, Vectorworks was at the time, and for the most part still is, the best solution. Don't know Chief Architect but have heard good things about it. Is it not Windows only though? You mention your busy life and family commitments, which I see at odds with spending time learning a professional program such as VW to undertake the remodelling of part of your home. For a "one off" I'd even be tempted to do it the way an old dinosaur like me did it pre VW - by hand if i didn't have the equipment already.. Anyway glad you to the time to look at Sketch Up, it's one of my favourites along with VW of course. Alan

Andrew Bell andrewb@nemetschek.net I am not an official spokesperson for NNA I am not an official spokesperson for NNA I am not an official spokesperson for NNA Unless he feels like it ;~)

Can you not do extrude along a path with a scaling factor to introduce the tapering from one thickness to the other for half the ring and then mirror and add solids ? Biplab explained how to for me on a tapering chair leg I wanted to do once, over on the VW list. Alan

Are you planning on creating your own construction drawings? If not and all you want to do is get your ideas mapped out in 3D with some dimensions on look at the Sketch Up program. Do take a look and you get an 8 hour full working trial version to download. watch all the tutorials to save time. you may even complete it before times up !! For a one off, learning VW or any other production level CAD program seems a little OTT in my opinion. Good luck Alan

Without a model to test on until they became common knowledge last week NNA of course can't give an answer, and can only now start to work on ensuring VW will run on the intel based production models Apples rolling out. With the speed increase of the new hardware I'd hazard a guess under Rosetta emulation they will be at least as fast as the models they replace. When you upgrade Vectorworks to VW12.5 the "Universl" version will only improve in speed terms on Macs with Intel processors.

PDF is a route I've taken for some time in providing file images to clients but never using Adobes full product - for my needs the additional facilities and features are not worth the much higher cost. I use pdf995 with its suite of products on my Windows machine and the built in OSX pdf creator on my work G5, with pdflab to merge pdf's into one. I've never had the requirement for clients to open the pdf to add notations but in the interests of possible future use I did a quick search. For Windows users this may be a solution http://www.visagesoft.com/products/pdfreader/ although I've not tried it yet myself. For Mac users I have not found anything yet but if your on a Mac creating the pdfs the priority, the receiver may well be Windows based, and you mentioned Autocad so I guess they are, which means the above will work. Whilst its not what you wish for, as in VW Viewer having redlining facility, it may be a reasonable workaround. Because its those four magical words it may persuade your client to go with it ...FREE In my opinion you are never going to persuade a client to stump up the money for and use Adobes Distiller to communicate changes they want to your work. Alan

Please go to the Apple web site and read, you'll not only find all the details of the machine but more importantly it will tell you when this model becomes available! Unless somebody making these at Apple also moonlights using VW I think you'll find it impossible to answer your question at this time.

quote: Originally posted by Katie: It is important to note that when NNA provides a compatible version of VW with Intel Macs, the compatibility will start with VW version 12. Which for Mac users with any version lower than VW12 you'll be looking at buying up the last models of any none-Intel processor Macs you can find to run VW or quite understandably, allow a sum of money to upgrade VW to the compatible version in your purchase of a Intel driven Apple. Alan

You obviously know how Artlantis works, and the only problem I've experienced is if the VW file is very large or has overly complicated elements. Upon updating things will not change or not appear at all, but this is the exception rather than the rule. With these "corrupted" files I bite the bullet and create a new file, but open the old one to note colours, settings etc. So getting back to a good version loses about an hour, but like I said this happened once in the last twenty projects, and I can put it down to the 120mb file from VW just too big !! I use classes to export my files rather than pen colour or fill etc. Keep those classes to a minimum if you can. Although better than 3.5 I'm still wary of the number I create and assign. Found more than thirty was kicking out an error in updating. Maybe as this is a VW site email me off list via private message with any questions. Best of luck Alan

Hi take a look at this see if it helps http://www.resolve.ca/addons.html Alan

pdf995.com for another pdf creator. if you download the suite you can create multipage pdf's but from the sound of it you just want images for Quark. It's free with a repeating sponser page on use but cheap enough to buy if you want to stop that happening. Goes up to the bigger sizes, A0, which some others don't. I use it to get large construction drawings printed by a local printshop when I need bigger than my A3 HP. Alan

What version of artlantis do you have? Alan

Try "rotate 3D" command in the edit menu. Enter 90 degrees for the angle and then choose the correct plane. No need to make it a symbol. Alan

Use pdf's instead. That way you can review the files with Acrobat Reader as your printer will see them. Use a free pdf program to create them such as 995pdf which will create up to A0 sized pdf's. Alan

Hi David Saw the link you posted and thought it was the answer to one of my long held wishes for VW. Have to say that by the time I'd read through the pdf I'd gone off the idea. With all due respect long winded to say the least. I've used Autodesks Inventor for a very short while and am now using Sketch Up. In both these programs 3D dimensioning is a breeze, as easy as 2D dimensioning in VW. As more and more complexity is added to VW with it seems Architects being the focus of NNA efforts I can see me using VW less and Sketch Up more and more. Its simple interface and great capabilities make it not only a good program to use but a fun one as well. Alan

Hi Katie If the first line of your reply was in response to my mentioning memory issues, this was not refering to the amount of ram installed, although this of course is important and 1 GB should I thought be fine. It was in reference to some users experiencing what has been described as memory leakage, whereby the longer they are in VW the slower it gets to the point of unusability with only closing the program and restarting it sees it return to speed, but slows the longer in the program needing the same action to get it usable again. Looking into their systems they were seeing the memory usage just continue to climb rather than rise and fall as normal. I don't know if a successful outcome came to these issues raised. Alan [ 12-21-2005, 05:27 PM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

John I think it would be wise to mention, as you did before, that this problem is only occuring in Vectorworks. It's all very well recommending updating drivers and ensuring service packs, OS is up to date, and its good advice from Katie, but if the problem only manifests itself in VW clearly its to do with VW and how its working with your system. I would try a re install of VW, making sure all traces of original are gone. Does this happen straight away or after a period of time. I'm thinking of memory issues others have experience before now. One other area to check, is what mouse are you using. My cordless one was affected by a cordless digital phone stood close by to the receiver unit. Just a long shot, especially as you say it's only VW that has this problem. Alan [ 12-21-2005, 03:31 PM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

You may well have a faulty disc if all the other options outlined have been tried and in which case you'll need to contact either your local supplier or Nemetschek direct to request a replacement. Should be no problem to get one other than the time involved. Bit of a bummer when you'd probably planned to use the weekend to play and get use to it!! Whilst on the subject of new versions I'd like to reiterate a piece of good advice given out some time ago on this forum. Always finish a project in the version you started it in. Helps with those unexpected results from version to version. Sure you are going to need to open older version files at some stage with the latest but why not increase your odds of getting it right first time. Alan

Katie's right although it does work strange. If in OSX you hide VW, and out of interest I tried this with Sketch Up also, then using say a multi button mouse right click on the icon in the dock and use the show option in the menu it does not create a blank new document. But just double clicking on the icon in the dock will unhide it but does give you a blank document.....guess Apple know what they are doing! Alan [ 12-12-2005, 05:56 PM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

Patrick I've tried to avoid solid subtraction because of the increased file sizes, but in its defence it does leave you with a fully editable object, and it's my favourite method of modelling, not taking into account file sizes. I like the way you can go right back and change things all the way back to the original 3D object or 2D profile, then come back out and see your changed object. The same can't be said for 2D shape clipping and merging etc. once its done thats it, other than using undo of course, to the limit of numbers you specify. Sods law sayes the one you want is always the one before the last it gets to on its undo limit....ggrrr. Alan

Can the object be split before its a 3D solid ? Say you've drawn a face and then extruded that to create your solid object. You could then use the clip surface command which would give you two pieces to then extrude to a 3D solid, and should make for a smaller file size. Alan

Support for Windows is better than Apple with HP, but you don't say which OS you use. Having said that I know I use a HP1220c with both my VW10.5 Windows XP version at home and with VW11.5 Apple (Tiger) version at the office and have no problems using the drivers contained within both operating systems. I prefer to use Apple but have to admit due to the greater market potential of Windows this gets priority with most companies these days if any drivers get worked on or any support available. Alan

Just in case you miss it on the VW list, perhaps NNA would be so kind as to please tell us why this plug in does not work with the now called Fundamentals version of Vectorworks ? As a user of Sketch Up I see no reason from the SU side of things why the models I make in SU cannot be imported into VW using this plug in. As a loyal and supportive user of VW, but only requiring the features of the base version so only have this license, I'm not going to be able to use this plug in, but I'm hoping you can tell me why. Alan

Macintosh: Mac HD >Users >[your log-in name] >Library >Application Support >VectorWorks >12 >VectorWorks Log Windows: My Computer +C Drive: +Documents and Settings +[your log-in name] +Application Data +Nemetschek +VectorWorks +12 +VectorWorks Log Don't thank me, thank Julian Carr on the VW list. Answered a similiar question there Alan

Just one thing which did occur to me, but I don't use them so didn't consider it - Viewports were introduced in VW11. so I don't know how that's handled when you save down to VW10. As I work mostly with VW10 I'm still using sheets for multipage documents when I do them, never looked at Viewports but I feel I should. Maybe over the Christmas break. I do most of my stuff in 3D and as I've said no problems so far. Older files from VW8.5 my earlier version, into 10 or 11 sometimes has minor issues and shapes such as ellipses will go screwy sometimes, but not to the point of files completely corrupted. Alan