alanmac

quote: Originally posted by islandmon: ... makes me wonder how much of what we do is actually original content. meaning? [ 11-03-2005, 09:36 AM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

Pep You could use layers to hide/see objects but that may prove cumbersome depending on your drawing set up and complexity. So draw items you want , say furniture on its own layer, same with other objects on their own layers and use layer visibility options. But as i say it depends on your requirements of VW. Some even use a combination of the two, class and layer visibility to structure their drawings. My heads swimming just thinking how many different permutations you could have. Thank goodness my drawings are much simplier. But thats the beauty of VW, you can work at all levels of complexity with it. Alan

Pep My pleasure. Note also that when you create a guide, (and anything can be turned into a guide), as well as changing into a guide and taking on your chosen guide colour, this is automaticly set to the "locked" position, but can be unlocked, then moved , locked back again or deleted if required. Alan

Hi Pep Can answer question two easily. You can lock any object in a drawing. See lock under the edit menu. You'll know when an object/s are locked the selection handles at each corner turn from solid black to grey. Also check out align under the tools menu. As regards question one I think you are right in your understanding of how to hide objects Alan [ 11-03-2005, 04:26 AM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

Me again Looking into it further it appears that because you can draw walls at all angles and continue with a mouse click for each point then thats were these buttons work. If I draw a wall using my typing in method I mentioned before, then it does show the length. By the way you can use the tab button to move along the boxes to the length box you don't need to move the mouse and click in the box. The minute you go off in another direction then of course its seeing another wall in the OIP. I'll say no more for fear of confusing you still further and hope somebody else jumps in. Good luck Alan [ 10-27-2005, 12:44 PM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

Sorry I may have been speaking out of turn a little, and showing my ignorance of the wall tool, which I rarely use. In my work I tend not to use that tool, and if you look at the oip it has a series of buttons above the Z figures, small ones that if you select give the details, but it looks like this is based on the wall in relationship to the orgin point in your drawing. Somebody with use and knowledge of this tool needs to chip in. What are you using VW for, to do what with would answer if you use the wall tool. It's very good but I just don't use it. Alan

There is what is called the object information pallette, refered to as OIP in many posts here, which should be floating around your workspace somewhere. This will give you all the information on an object selected. Type in the changes there. It can even add and subtract. If starting a new object once you've started to move the mouse go to the length box, in the top coordinates bar (see it changing as you move the mouse) click in that and type in the size there, hit enter and then all you've got to do with the mouse is position the end location. Alan [ 10-27-2005, 12:25 PM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

Hi Amante.D I would say no to your last question. Certainly for drafting purposes the Intuos would be a waste of money. Its strength is in its ability to act almost like a real brush or pen, with greater levels of sensitivity and tilt angle, flow etc. just not needed in CAD work. If you had your heart set on a pe/tablet then the more cost effective lower priced ranges would be fine for this, the Graphire as Nicholas mentioned. If of course you are doing a lot of freehand drawing in more graphical based programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Painter and the like then you'd value the extra capabilities of the Intuos. I have seen comments over on the cgtalk.com forums that indicates that pen tablets are a greater cause of RSI than the mouse and the best advice given is to have a mixture of devices to ward off the problems that RSI brings on. I find very little , certainly in Vectorworks, if anything that would benefit from being done with a pen rather than a mouse. Even the freehand tool which I rarely use gives me bezier points which I pull about until the curves etc are right (just like Illustrator) and a brush tool would not help anymore than the mouse in doing this. In my opinion you'd be better spending the sums of money ensuring the ergonomics of your working enviroment were up to scratch, chair, seating position, monitor height, etc. If you do buy one and don't end up using it much then you'll always find a buyer on ebay. Worth you checking out to buy as well. Also check out the Wacom site, they often have refurb' units for sale. This is the Europe addressed one http://www.wacom-shop.net/cgi-bin/wacom.storefront/EN Alan

Nice tip Kevin Alan

So you have your Building Information Model created. Its accurate right down to the last screw,nail, wall tile, floor tile and door hinge, each piece in place, every fixture and fittings in place. Its nothing out of the ordinary, a four storey block of flats. Data at your fingertips for everything within it. Every detail is there, just in case you want to cut a live section through it to show the detail, that's "anywhere" within the building. (How many different section details to show construction and materials of a wall in one building do you need anyway?) Despite the fact that you may only need to show a sample section to give the detail, the whole model is "lumbered" with this computational overhead. So an ideas how big this file's going to be, and what sort of computional overhead that's going amount to when viewing and moving this around in 3D view? Any ideas as to what type of computer, on your desktop, is going to have the power to do this ? As for hitting the "render with hidden line view" command. Although I'm not an Architect, most of the work I do in VW is 3D modelling. Most average file sizes are at least 70+ MB with the level of detail I put in. A drop in the ocean compared to what you guy's are discussing. Converted to 2D line for construction drawings they'd come in at around 4 MBs. I can't see under the current software designs and hardware specs this being a reality any time soon. Don't get me wrong, I think you need to get more meaningful information from what you are creating rather than "dead" lines, images on a drawing sheet but I think maybe its getting like "Hollywood". Alan [ 10-27-2005, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

Hi As a starting point, unless you have not already done so, try downloading and using the free dwg file viewer available here http://www.infograph.com/products/dwgviewer/ to see if you can see the files. Alan

quote: Originally posted by CatWhisperer: I not even AutoCAD's viewer or the VectorWorks viewer can open these files. Cat I think the problem with regard to the opening here is, and others correct me if I'm wrong, that the Viewers only open native files to view, so VW Viewer only opens VW files not dxf's, dwg's or any other file formats. It sounds like you need to successfully import the dwg files into VW then save as VW files to use the VW Viewer okay. But if you can get the files imported into VW you'll not need to save as VW or use the Viewer , just export out again to the format you need to do your work. That is providing VW has that export file option. Alan [ 10-27-2005, 07:55 AM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

quote: Originally posted by michael john williams: The drawings need to be saved in .mcd format on the mac before they will open in a pc, then convert the older version of VW files to the VW version you want to work with and / or export in .dwg if you want to work on them in another programme. Wrong . A VW file will open on a mac or pc irrespective of what it was created on. File saving as a .mcd file is automatic from within VW whatever platform you run on. You can't just save a file as .mcd and VW will open it. It has to be a VW file in the first place. You can't rename a .dxf file to .mcd and get VW to open it. The file conversation to the latest version, as in the version of VW you are using, happens automaticaly when you open the file. (This does however only goes back so far as regards older VW file types). It creates a copy of the file, which you can then save as a current version file or export down to an older version, again a limited amount of older options is available. What it appears is the orginal poster has files of unknown program creation, which they have dwg file copies of, but is unsuccesful at opening these and wishes to, once successful in opening them, then save them to a file format they can use in their graphics programs. [ 10-27-2005, 07:36 AM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

To be able to convert the files to another type such as you require what is needed is to know what they were orginally created with. Hence islandmon asking Type and Creator. You won't for example open Vectoworks files in anything but VW. But once its open in VW you can export it to another format, but without the orginal file type/program you can't move on this unless its a common format like tiff or jpg. Does it show any letters after each file name, for example vectorworks will have myhouse.mcd or mygarage.mcd just as a word document has .doc If you can see this you can search on the net through for example the microsoft site to see what file type description this is and what opens it etc. EDIT- read your post again - are you sure they are dwg files ? Alan [ 10-26-2005, 07:54 PM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

Hi As I'm sure you know, but to bear in mind that as these objects were created in versions earlier than VW10 the program will have to convert these into the VW10 file. I usually save this upon opening, and you'll then see it on your hard drive as a VW iconed file, not just a doc icon with .mcd after it. As said before VW needs write permissions to open a file. A burnt CD does not give that of course. Make sure you are up to date on releases. You should have 10.5.1 Alan [ 10-26-2005, 04:23 AM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

lmt In Windows XP, press the following keys together, control-alt-delete. This will bring up a Windows Task Manager window. Tab onto the Performance tab. If you have HT enabled you will see in the area marked "CPU Usage History" to the right top side two grided windows each showing the use of your processors. If you have say VW doing a hidden line render you'll see one window with the green graph line way high, whilst the other is low. If you have Renderworks (I don't) and are rendering you may see both graph lines moving high up the scale. Just like the heart rate machines in hospitals. If by any strange chance you don't have HT enabled its I believe an option you change in the motherboard bios. It sounds like you are not to happy on messing about with machines, so seek advice from your supplier before going into this area. One wrong move and you have a non working PC. Going back to the Windows Task Manager in the other tabbed areas you can see the processes on your machine working. Click on the Processes tab, scroll down to VW and see the memory usage it's using. Go back to VW choose a hidden line render, go back to that window and watch the memory usage climb !! Regards Alan [ 10-25-2005, 06:53 PM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

Sean Thanks for that. What do you mean about "slightly different for Series B license though ? I'm UK registered, Windows licensed version of VW10.5 with HASP dongle (although it does not look very purple up against my company Mac one) looking to upgrade to VW12, hopefully dual license. Will the change of policy not count for upgraders is what you are saying, only new licenses of VW12 ? Please clarify. Looks a great upgrade by the way and looking forward to it. Thanks Alan

Hi Travis Thanks for the trivia. Can't say I'll remember it so as to impress some young lady at the next party I go to with it though ;~) I did have a feeling it was something like that. It's one of my many regrets, I skipped the typing class when doing my design for print course (1974). They knew all those years ago that "hot metal" typesettings days were numbered and wanted us to get typing ready for the "revolution". Mind you the revolution then was ibm typewriters with interchangeable "golf balls" showing different font and point size. Yes you had to change the "ball" for a font or a point size.... Tell that to the kids today and they won't believe you... we use to live in cardboard box in middle of road - help getting a Monty Python moment coming over me. (British humour) So you're a wizz on the keyboard, how are you at making coffee, geting the post out and reminding the boss about his wifes birthday. Like what you've done with your hair by the way ;~) Alan Now back to the serious stuff..

quote: Originally posted by islandmon: ......pads & soft rug covering all round with a little mirror over the top, two figurines, one each side sitting on top marble inlaid pedestals, and matching drapes no doubt .. ;~) Seriously, you know the nibs are interchangable, and depending on the age of the tablet you should get at least one spare nib in the box. That is unless they changed the design in newer models. Alan

Nicholas Ah yes, need NNA's input I think. Bad news is it may be "hard wired" as they say, into the program. Alternatively make up a little raised "button" of some description and put on one of the keys so they can feel the difference. Some keys already have something similiar though I've never known why. Alan [ 10-25-2005, 07:51 AM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

Sean This is great news. I'm hoping to buy another machine and was going to switch my licence to Mac, but with this news I can still upgrade and know that whatever I use, Mac or Windows I'll have the use of both platforms. This does not mean I want to try and cheat or do anything illegal, because if I'm reading this correctly I can use the serial number for both and remain legal because the single dongle will only allow one functioning version to be working. Correct? Alan [ 10-25-2005, 07:34 AM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

Hi Nicholas I can understand what you are saying. It's seems unfortunate that these two often used function keys sit closely together. On Apples of course its the alt click key for dups. I'm using a Mac all this week and slipping up from time to time. Other than encouraging your students to try greater control on keying, maybe rather than trying to turn it off could it be reassigned to another key for this function ? Maybe as per the Macs, over to the alt key, although this does sit one more over on Windows keypads, but that may be even better. Of course so long as it's not taken or overidden by Windows OS in some way. Alan [ 10-25-2005, 07:25 AM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

Hi Christiaan I think the only reason they are keeping the 2.7 in the line up is to do with graphics cards. The way I see it certain users needs are only catered for by particular cards that are only available to fit the slot type in this machine. I think that's correct but check with Apple. Certainly by going with the new machines with changes to the graphic card connecting architecture, in line with PC machines, will increase your potential to upgrade these easier into the future I would have thought. In the same article the author did point out the 2.3 did seem poor value for money in his opinion, compared to the other models. For what it offered over the base model they felt it was not worth the extra money, and for the relatively small additional sum of money that the dual core/dual processor cost over the 2.3 did offer a great performance increase and as such made a better proposition. I agree that if buying Apple, the new top of the range seems to offer very good value for money, the base model is a good price if you need a tower unit, and the middle one struggles to offer anything really different over that. I'd put the money into more ram and buy the base model rather than the middle model. In an ideal world I'd buy the dual/dual ... Alan

From the article Rick pointed out on Architosh " In fact, early Xbench scores for the mid-range 2.3 dual core single chip machine do not point to much of an improvement to previous dual chip single core machines. In fact, there are actually some slower areas of performance, as in thread scores. Architosh will be doing a full report on Xbench and other scores early next week." Alan

http://www.unlimited.com/3ddesign/vectorworks.html http://www.unlimited.com/3ddesign/events.html [ 10-24-2005, 02:17 PM: Message edited by: alanmac ]