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Gerard Jonker

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Everything posted by Gerard Jonker

  1. mmmm, I forgot about AC Arch. Here in Holland nobody is seriously considering AutoCAD (most Dutch offices have plain vanilla AC) when talking about BIM. Over here, at least so it seems, it is all between VW - ArchiCAD - Revit.
  2. Vectorworks is the bigger program. Why does the smaller program (Revit) not read read the files of the bigger program? I have stated this but never got an answer: I think at this moment Vectorworks is the widest spread BIM capable program? If I m right, how come we don't see any positive effect of that position?
  3. Hi Robert, What it looks like from my position is that the whole "2D objects on 3D planes" idea was only introduced to assist the Push & Pull tool. If that is so, I would have preferred a new set of tools that draws the 2D objects on those planes. (Directly on the object clicked on, rather than on separate planes that have to be established first. More on that later). Now it looks like we want to have 2D objects on several planes, which in fact we don't want at all (well, I don't want that). We want 3D objects on planes through our model, not 2D objects. The advantage of 2D objects is that they can have several kinds of graphics attached to them, but instead of spreading 2D objects through space, it would have been nicer if we got more flexibility in texture handling on 3D objects, and more control over 3D objects. Like 3D rotation of textures (rather than rotating the texture in it self) and assigning different textures to different sides of objects, like we can with walls. The downside of 2D objects floating on other planes in space is that it is very unclear how these are going to be treated by the render engines and how they will export to DWG on one side, C4D in the middle and IFC on the other side of the spectrum. BTW I like the idea of the Push and Pull tool very much, it looks a bit inspired from Sketch Up though. All other things that were inspired by other programs are far better implemented than in the original programs, like References and ViewPorts. In the case of the Push and Pull tool, that is not very clear yet. One point of improvement might be the control over the objects that are drawn on the surface of a 3D object. For instance: a separate tool that draws the rectangle directly on an objects face. It would have an optional first click on a corner of the 3D object, then a 2nd click along a side, VW would still not know which surface it would be, the 3rd click would reveal to VW the surface and finish the rectangle or oval. When you'd look in the OIP you'd see the X and Y values as distance to that first click. This would give control over the object drawn. This is already possible in VW 2011 but it requires the set up of a separate working plane. While the tool could do that immediately the moment it recognizes the 3D objects side clicked on. One last thing: I noticed the default setting of the plane is Layer plane in case of a new file. I would suggest to default to screen plane as it used to be. VWs object handling in screen plane is still much better than its "plane object" handling. Also, when I set the plane to default to Screen Plane, it sometimes, by itself switches back to Layer plane or 3D plane. Very annoying. Editing an extrude, shows me the object in "Extrude Plane". Especially for extrusions, it might be far better to look at it face on. The same goes for Editing symbols. Symbols are created in their easiest orientation and then placed in drawing under strange angles. When I edit the symbol I would like to be in straight orthogonal mode. I do see it might come in handy some times and I do admire the fact that you are able to rotate it in this way. I noticed I can do a few things with the "Plane Mode" buttons next to the views, but once hitting the "Active Layer/Symbol Plane Mode" button should return me to old fashioned Front and Rights (etc) views inside the symbol. Thanks, Gerard
  4. Hi GWS, I'm seeing the same thing with "Extrude" or "Convert to 3D" in any view. How to reproduce this bug: Setting a working plane going to top plan (NOT Top/Plan of course) drawing an object extruding it Change view to Front Object is located on the Z=0 plane 2D objects extruded in any view should start from the plane going through the Working Plane's origin, but they don't anymore. They all start from a plane going through 0,0,0. Nicely caught bug, GWS! Regards, Gerard Jonker
  5. Please never do that, you will introduce all kind of inaccuracies. Use symbols, which have an unrotated "inside". But never rotate your plan back and forth. The Rotated Plan feature of 2008 and up is fantastic and I wish we had it many years earlier. Gerard
  6. Hi Uli, In Reshaper, as well as in the Object Info Palette you find anchor points. By fixing the object through one of those anchors, you work relative from that point. (a very temporary user origin, so to say). Another way to go about it is by using "Floating Datum" (VW prefs, under the Edit tab)or by setting a "Datum" manually, double click the smartpoints constraint in the constraints palette, to see a preferences dialog for that constraint. Regards, Gerard
  7. I think the computer industry needs both platforms. Without Windows Apple would increase their prices. Without Apple you would all be working with DOS. (No, not me, I would still be behind a drawingboard). Gerard
  8. Hi there, I'm afraid we all know who got banned (again?). His offensive language was quite often in the way of the message he tried to convey. Still, after more than a decade seeing him come and go, I have gotten used to that and always tried to read between the lines. I don't mean to say he was brilliant, but he wasn't stupid either and many of my VectorScript Plug-ins carry stuff he inspired the solution for. Frankly, I will miss him. Or as Apple said it in their advertising campaign : "Here?s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They?re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can?t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." I pity the one who lodged a formal complaint against him. Yours truly, Gerard Jonker
  9. Hi M, Have a look here: http://www.vectorlab.info/index.php?title=Round_Walls I might have written something you could use. Gerard
  10. Hi Jeffrey, Thank you for the clarification. Gerard
  11. Hi Paul, Thank you for your post on this subject. I do find, however, the recommendation of 128 MB VRAM a bit on the conservative side. Especially for Windows I believe VW 2009 might actually make good use of 256 MB VRAM. Or am I wrong here? Another thing, that really puzzles me more, is the number of processors used. A few of my Windows clients complained about the speed of VW 2009. They told me VW 2009 only used 1 processor while rendering. So I did a bit of testing on my Mac and I found that VW 2009 uses only one processor when rendering in Radiosity. Final Quality Renderworks uses 4 processors. But that is a speedier process anyway. Can you shed some light on this? Kind regards, Gerard Jonker Mac OS X 10.5 Macintosh Pro 2 x 2.66 Ghz Dual 256MB VRAM 4GB RAM Vectorworks 2009 SP2 (build 99197)
  12. Oh, please no. Hi Dworks, this might be a nice solution for independent 3D models, but as soon as your work is used by others, it might be wise to have a central reference. That reference point may not lie within your "paper". Moving the model to the appropriate position, far away from the Internal Origin, might break your RenderWorks, as I found lately. I don't use rulers myself, they are only useful in 2D, in 3D they don't reflect the proper position anyway, especially not when you are in a non-perpendicular view. More importantly, to give myself a firm grip on what I am doing in 3D (or 2D for that matter) I bought myself a copy of Reshaper (Thank you, Raymond!!) It is an absolute "must have". I started an article about the origin, you can find it here: (please give it a few second to open) Absolute Origin It has already grown into a large piece with many contributions from others. Regards, Gerard
  13. Make sure you have insurance for your dongles, too. Lost and stolen dongles are replaced at full license costs! There have been trial lawsuits about this in Germany, so forget protesting against it. Broken dongles are replaced at +/- 50,- pound UK. excluding shipping, handling, VAT. Avoid breaking dongles with an USB extension cord. See also the Dongle article on the Orange Dust site. Gerard Have fun!
  14. Hi Ion, Always set this to true for your pio if your PIO contains text. The user can then change the pio's text font, size and style as (s)he would for normal text. (but only from the menus, not through the OIP). It is not perfect, I believe alignment won't work. You can overrule Enabling Font Style by adding for instance the text font in your code. Text size and style are determined by the user, but your code sets the font, if you add this line before the text creation code: TextFont(GetFontID('Times')); Have fun, Gerard
  15. Ozcad has such a tool in his Essentials. Ozcad home page Gerard
  16. Instead of a long search, I'd opt for removing Quicktime and VectorWorks, (also the prefs, search other posts how to do that on this forum) and reinstall. Hop that helps. Gerard
  17. Hi Ion, No, you would need a mirror or flip function that acts on a handle. I think it is not there. You can un-mirror the content of the pio like in the code below. Wouldn't that do? procedure P_PIO; var ghParm,gParmRecordHand, gWallHand :handle; gPIOName : string; gflag : boolean; begin {main} gFlag := GetCustomObjectInfo(gPIOName, ghParm, gParmRecordHand, gWallHand); setobjectvariableboolean(ghparm,800,true); textorigin(0,0); begintext; 'bla bla bla' endtext; if IsObjectFlipped(ghParm) then begin Fliphor; {textflip(1);}{i can't get the text flip working right} message('flipped'); end else begin message('not flipped'); end; moveto (0,0); lineto (-100mm,0); end; {main} run(P_PIO); Regards, Gerard
  18. Did you delete the Home/Library/Application Support/VectorWorks/2008 folder, too? My installer didn't install the "attach bulbflat handrail". Could the installer have missed other files in your case? Have you tried placing the file "XML Library.vwlibrary" manually into the plug-ins folder, maybe copying from another computer? Or, if the file is there, do you have read/write access? In VW 11 and VW 12 we often had to give all users full read write access to the VW app folder to get VW to run properly: Select the VW app folder, Get info, set full read write access in the permissions. Don't forget to "apply to enclosed items" under the cogwheel. Have fun, Gerard
  19. Hi VectorBob, I second that For one project I exported the file back to VW 12, that alone took about 10 minutes. (60 MB of 3D polygons). I had never heard of this FFT but I like the sound of it. Gerard
  20. Hi Pete B, Classes are labels to an object, where Layers are containers the objects are placed into. Removing a layer would also remove the objects. Removing the class would in principle not remove the object (although VW 2008 has that possibility build in nowadays). When there are more complex objects selected, like groups, symbols or plugins. You can have the situation where the Class (labels) on the outside of the object differ from the Classes attached to the rectangles and lines inside of the object. It looks like this is what is happening to you at the moment. The problem you are seeing is the result of the fact that the Class 'None' is actually a class. Very annoying is the new "feature" that grouping objects always assigns the active class to the group. I'd rather have 'None' as the groups class, as the group may contain many differently classed objects.(See the P.S.) IMHO Having 'None' always visible and using 'Show/Snap/Modify Others' is not bad. For the rest try to ignore 'None' as much as you can. Don't use the Class colours for 'None' (by all means, do use them for the other classes.) Regards, Gerard P.S. Download this None Group command from my site and place it in your workspace. Assign it the key combination "Apple G" or "CTRL G": http://www.orangedust.co.uk/NoneGroup.zip
  21. Open the file in acrobat and do a Save As there may help. Usually the file gets optimized that way. Maybe the newer versions have a separate command for that, I'm still running Acrobat versions 4 and 6. Gerard
  22. In the VectorScript Function Reference: RectangleN Objects - 2D Declaration: PROCEDURE RectangleN ( orginX :REAL; orginY :REAL; directionX :REAL; directionY :REAL; width :REAL; height :REAL ) ; Description: Creates and returns a handle to a new rectangle object with the specified bounds. It doesn't return a handle. Unfortunately, I would have appreciated that. Gerard
  23. Hi Matt, I saw this, too. But only in VW 11.5 and 12.5.2 on Leopard. When I Updated to 12.5.3 the problem was gone. Also VW 2008 doesn't show this. Or is your Tech. Spec. signature outdated? Gerard
  24. Hi Robert, Please allow me to quote from my own work: http://www.vectorlab.info/index.php?title=Absolute_Origin#Plug-In_Objects PROCEDURE HereAmI; VAR hParm, hParmRecord, hWall : HANDLE; PIOName, txtStr: STRING; x, y : REAL; BEGIN IF GetCustomObjectInfo(PIOName, hParm, hParmRecord, hWall) THEN BEGIN GetSymLoc(hParm, x, y); txtStr:= Concat(x, ' / ', y); Locus(0, 0); TextOrigin(0, 0); BeginText; txtStr EndText; END; END; Run (HereAmI); Thanks, Gerard
  25. Hi ASL, Link down. Think of a diagram, with the Grid file in the top. Below that are the drawing files. A horizontal row of files, all pulling information from the top file. Then, below that, a print file, that references the top file first and then all drafting files. This way you get a diamond shaped diagram, with all information flowing down. The print file contains all data, but is never drawn in. Gerard
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