Don Berinati

I know AutoCAD / AutoCAD Architecture / Revit are the King Kongs here for the residential industry but I think it is quite possible VW actually has a better product I think this goes to the heart of many of our problems, in that the cream doesn't always get to the top. People who praise capitalism often state that it is the most efficient economic system, yet time and again we see fallacies in that proposition (one might ask, efficient to what end? but that is a whole other can of beans). I've been using Apple OS' since 1986 and had to use Windows for a year on a job and could not believe the difference. I asked the same question - if the world were rational, how could such a piece of crap possibly dominate the computing world? And what does this say about our future? Apologies for the digression...

I think modelling rebar will become a priority because, at least in my work, I see a client interest and shift toward ICF walls vs stick. For now, I'd think the extrusion method of modelling would suffice. And in a general defense of VW, I think it's pretty cost-effective for what it does, and is fine for me, a one-guy office who does residential design-build.

Steve - I'm in the same boat as far as frequency of use. What I've done is force myself every 3 months or so to go back and draw changes to existing plans or even create some imaginary plans in order to keep the program fresh in my head (it's amazing how fast it leaves when you're doing something else...). I also check the forums once/week or so for relevant postings to problems or questions I come up with, then subscribe them to my profile for checking later. I found this easier than doing a search every 2-3 months. Best -

Thanks both!

In Top views, why don't they display as solids? I created frieze blocks as an extrusion then rotated them to be perpendicular to the roof plane, and they are classed with a solid fill and render correctly, but won't behave properly as above, and objects in the layer below show through them. Is this a VW bug or me? Or do I need a different tool? Thanks!

You might try the Kohler website; I downloaded several from there, and they include 3d versions for modelling. They'd also be more current. Best - DonB

I'll take a crack at this because no one else has. I had similar problems with framing members, notably the fact that only 'joist' displayed correctly in VP's and the attributes edited in same. Any other framing member I used refused to display correctly and could not be edited; in fact, I noted in a previous post on a related thread that if I tried to edit a framing member not specified as a joist, VW2008 went back and altered every similar object so that it displayed incorrectly on the source design layer (ie, lost any texture I had specified and turned them all a shade of grey, which I assume is some default thingie). In other words, a bug. Admittedly, I've not revisited this since SP3 so don't know whether it's been fixed. My crude workaround was to make everything a joist that could be made a joist; rafters cannot. Hope this helps -

Right on. D

Forget architects/designers - send them to the field with a general to see how buildings go together, what kind of information is critical, and when. The dis-integration of the building process is making the work harder, not easier.

Good thing it's all we have to worry about in this day and age...

Same here. One of the many grand mysteries of VW and more proof that we should not trust our future to technology,

I've also noticed that OpenGL doesn't render honestly in 3d, especially textures, and have switched to using Fast RenderWorks.

What's the trick to this? I was following a thread in which older .mcd hatches at VectorDepot were mentioned, downloaded them, placed them in the Hatches folder in 2008, even gave them the .vwx suffix, but they do not appear in Resources. I quit, reopened, shut down, restarted - no effect. Looked in VW Help but nada. Thanks for any help on this...

As a builder or framer (myself), I'd appreciate the info but wouldn't necessarily use it in the field. And I'd feel a little like you were stepping into my 'territory'. I draw pretty complete roof framing plans, but don't call out specific lengths, etc; odds are, those numbers won't work in the real world, anyway. I'd concentrate on making your framing plans clear and legible and include 3d iso's to help in visualization. DonB

Pete - Thanks! As usual, you have the answer. DonB