Boris Madsen

Our practice - 15 people, 70% Mac, 30% PC - has been working with VW since MC5. We focus both on urban as well as building design. As the need of exchanging files with consultants, etc, increased on the last 2 years, and as absolutely each and every single consultant - be it structural, HVAC, lighting designers - uses AutoCAD, we've got to a crossroad. To my regret, we're seriously considering moving from VW to AutoCAD. I would like to hear from other people what their experiences regarding the usage of Mac/VW among a 'non-friendly' environmnt have been like. VW seems quite good for me, but people at our practice that are more intensively involved with final drafting and exporting/importing procedures, such as jr architects and draftspeople, mention that there's a great deal of time lost in it. Please do let me know your views on the subject!

Sorry, not used to the expression 'screen layers'. Anyay, I'm afraid you can't assign pen weights to layers. you can however do that to classes, whch are equivalent to AutoCad layers. from the classes pop-up menu choose 'classes', select the class you wish to modify, double-click and then check the option 'use at creation' after seting the shown attributes as desired. This enables you to assign the same atributes to all objects created in the same class. I hope it helps.

Epson drivers usually need to be updated, according to the OS you use - at leat when it comes to Macs. I guess with PC's it might be the same. Have you already tryed and checked it out?

Our practice has been using VW and MC since MC5. As there's nothing like AIA Layer Guidelines in Brazil we have set up our own drawing standars. In addition to that, the standard in CAD software in Brazil is AutoCad. 95% of CAD users do use Autodesk's application, from engineering and architectural practices to public authorities. As a result dxf/dwg file conversion is always taking place. There are some issues here that remain unsolved, like exporting symbols with attached records, exporting worksheets, etc; my biggest concern, however, is in terms of exporting sheets that have drawings in different scales (the sheet itself is usually drawn in 1:1 scale) AND retainig its garphic organzation (ie, keeping the marigins where they should be, preserving the original arrangement of the drawings, etc). Has anyone devised a solution for that other than simply creating exporting files with drawings only in the same scale?

We've been using a 488CA at our practice for the past 4 months or so. It'been working quite well for direct VW printing a well as for HP-GL2 printing (via Microspot' driver). But be sure to buy some extra RAM to your plotter - the default factory settings my prevent you from printing files larger than 5MB or so. ------------------