Delmer

Retrospect Express is the full name, produced by Dantz; http://www.dantz.com/ I see there are a number of price levels. Mine came bundled with the 300 gig external for $230. You can also do a search on www.download.com for backup software.

The classes from the referenced file have to be brought in so that you can control their visibility. If they come from, say a structural engineer, and you can get them to prefix their classes with a "s-" it makes your life easier. A- C- S- are fairly common nomenclature.

Nope, muddling happens.

Its under the Organize pull-down. Browse to select a file to reference, check which layers of that particular file and a layer of that name will be created in your current doc. The layer will be italicized to make it easy to identify.

I have a Maxtor external drive that I use for backups to be taken off-site. It plugs in to either firewire or USB and the accompanying RetroExpress software is ridiculously simple while allowing the setup options you want; manual, accumulative backups, automated, complete, partial. Plus you can of course just access it through a drive letter. Compared to some systems I've used in the past its like moving from ACAD to VW. This would also work for Ramon as you could set your VW folder to be backed up to the external when new or altered files are found and then restore them to the laptop. Though I haven't tried it I am sure this program or other similar ones would do the same thing to a zip disc.

If you're not going to be modifying it in your drawing then bringing it in as a workgroup reference works great. Then if that base plan is again adjusted by someone else you just replace the file you're referencing with the new one and you're good to go.

If your symbols are composed of polygons there is an easy method: Pull off a copy of the modular piece, convert to groups, ungroup, add suface. For 3D symbols use "Convert copy to lines", Hidden Line option, and then Compose. [ 05-25-2005, 05:14 PM: Message edited by: Delmer ]

I guess my approach would be this: Set grid in prefs. Set Magic wand tolerance to 10 or 20, select a white area, select similar, delete. Then, go back and fill in areas that you want opaque with the light grey. Not too strenuous once you get into it.

Click on your foreground color and in the dialogue box that comes up punch those numbers into the RGB spaces. Then you can magic wand or marquee any white areas and use the paint bucket to fill them with the foreground color. If you set your preferences to show a grid it will be easier to see transparent areas. As far as selecting specific pixel ranges, you can eyedropper an item to determine its value in the foreground color box. After you select a certain value range by setting the magic wand tolerance you can go to the Select pulldown and "Select Similar".

Probably not a feasible programming item, but it would be nice if fills of adjacent objects didn't obscure half the lineweight of objects not ontop of the drawing order.

Lynda, its not your +/- Z that needs to be consistent, its your layer Z values. When viewed through the layer link the layer Z value is taken into account. The +/- Z does not set the base elevation, but rather the default height of a layer. For example, on a 3-storey house with basement and 10' floor to floor heights you might have a basement with +/- Z = 10', Z = -9' main floor +/- Z = 10', Z = 1' upper floor +/- Z = 7', Z = 11' When viewed together the floors of this building will coincide, but when linked they will stack with 10' separation according to their Z differences.

Thanks for persisting through with your explanation. I see what you're saying now. Here is one alternative that has its place: An RGB value of 254, 254, 254 is a gray very very close to being indistinguishable from white. If areas that one wants to be opaque are set to this value VW will read them as a solid and they will not become transparent with the true whites when fill is set to none. [ 05-25-2005, 01:27 AM: Message edited by: Delmer ]

Kevin, I haven't updated Acrobat since version 5, but I can't imagine it being gone, perhaps relocated. Anyway, in V5 in the Distiller Properties is an "Adobe PDF Settings" tab -its in there. As always, changes made through Page Setup or Print menus will only apply to those documents. Changes made through the Printers folder (or Mac equivalent) will set defaults for new docs.

Absolutely. Works great.

I thought perhaps it was a windows thing, but with Acrobat having its roots in Mac I had thought surely it would be there in some form, especially since my Win version is 3+ years old. Curious. Serves me for sticking my nose in a Mac thread.

I am having no problems getting the object/object hint between two circles. Did you know you can also snap to the midpoint of a line and come off it perpendicular? Just in case.

Within the callout tool preferences is the option to apply settings to active document only or all new documents. Though the all new docs option doesn't seem to work at present, I would love to see the liberal use of this option in the future, so one can choose if turning a grid on is a document or VW pref., Snap organization, all various attribute defaults, print prefs . . . .

jan15, maybe we're going round in circles, but just to be sure, if the bitmap's fill attribute is set to solid then any white areas will be opaque.

The 3D poly will default snap to the ground plane or other working plane, whichever is active, unless over-ridden by snapping to an object point off that plane.

No, no, he just deletes the white space in pshp with the magic wand. In VW select all and set fill to none if not already. Set as solid if no transparency is desired. -- and oftentimes, depending on what the source of the image is, it is not even necessary to photoshop edit, whites will shut off when fill is set to none. [ 05-24-2005, 12:38 PM: Message edited by: Delmer ]

You're right. If the architect in yur office remembers how let us know.

In order for all sheets to be batch printed without prompting, you just have to make sure that the Adobe PDF settings for each have the "Prompt for the PDF File Name" box deselected. If this is your default before creating the VW file then you are good. If it is not you will have to go to each sheet and edit the Distiller properties through Page Setup -but just the one time, after that you're set. Doesn't change the naming to sheet names though.

Have your preferences set to show other objects while in groups and layer options set to show snap or show snap modify others.

Select areas in Photoshop that need to be clear, delete, save. Import into VW, set attribute fill to none.

put zeros or spaces in fron of your 'one' series'. 01, 02, . . . 001, 002, . . .