willofmaine

When I've looked, this is the card that seems to keep popping up: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/6615718/ I'm currently running the 7300 on a MacPro1,1 (five years old in a week or so!) Should I be afraid to look at the new graphics cards knowledge base article?... HTH, Will

I recently started using 2011 too and, wow, you're right! Makes it especially difficult to work on a symbol if it's in a wall that's at an angle. Maybe you could just temporarily place an instance of the symbol off to the side for working on? I think if you do that it should retain its original orientation...

Funny, I was just contemplating posting the question "Why did Piranesi/ePix" export go away in 2011? Sounds like maybe it shouldn't have... I agree with pretty much everything here. How about a missing feature from 12.5?: In 12.5, double-clicking on a 2D-only or a 3D-only symbol would edit the 2D or 3D component, respectively, regardless of whether or not the current view was a 3D view or Top/Plan view. With 2008 and, evidently since, it's easy to enter a non-hybrid symbol and find nothing there...

Hi Peter, Thanks for confirming what I suspected might be the case. Yes, the window sills do work as expected, which I realized after posting and meant to mention. Not a huge deal, especially since it's just the doors; I'll add some patches under the thresholds. I'm only a few days into 2011, but so far liking it a lot!! Thanks again, Will

How do I make the sills of windows and the thresholds of doors opaque so that when things are beneath them in Top/Plan View those things are hidden? Thanks, Will

I though VSS was less than the upgrade cost... am I missing something?...

Mike & Dave, Thank you very much for your responses! Nemetschek's website indicates issues for the 7300 starting with OSX 10.5.6; I was hoping maybe things were improved by OSX 10.6. But Mike your experience seems, unfortunately, to indicate the opposite... I'm actually impressed with how my Mac Pro, now going on five years old, is still quite respectable. I'm running out of hard drive space, but it looks like 1.0 TB can be had for $100 or so. I think its main weakness, clearly, is the graphics card. I thought I found the HD 5770 for $100, but then realized there seem to be several versions of the 5770? The very different looking one labeled "Apple" appears to be $250... Dave, is there a 1GB VRAM card for $100 that you can point me in the general direction of?... Of course a few hundred dollars towards my Mac Pro is a few hundred dollars that can't go towards a super-sonic 3.4 GHz i7 super-threaded "eight" core turbo-thrust iMac... So... if a new project that I'm helping with, that has been started in 2011, goes as expected, I'll hopefully get an iMac. In the meantime... if I could run 2011 on my Mac Pro for some light modeling, that would be great. Thanks again, Will

Is anyone, by any chance, using a GeForce 7300 GT Graphics card with VW 2011 and Mac OS 10.6? I have a 2006 Mac Pro (1,1) with this card and I'm considering upgrading to VW 2011, and I'd be interested in what people may be experiencing with this configuration. Thank you! Will

Yes, the baseboard and wainscot should auto cut at the trim for openings. In the meantime... rather than start and stop them at openings, I create a solid subtraction as follows: 1. Create the path shape (typically the perimeter for the entire room). 2. Extrude a profile along the path. 3. Edit the profile of the resulting EAP: draw your baseboard, wainscot and/or crown, all set at their proper heights (so that, for example, the baseboard's lower left is at (0,0), and the crown's upper left is at the ceiling height).*** 4. Exit the EAP and make it into a group. 5. Enter the group, go to a Top (3D) view, and create rectangular extrusions for all of your openings, coordinated in plan with your opening casings and adjusted height-wise so that they'll remove only the wainscot at windows, and both baseboard and wainscot at doors. 6. Select everything, and create a solid subtraction (since the EAP was drawn first, all the extrudes should be subtracted from it). 7. Voila! Ideally, using a single path, you should have your interior trim interrupted as desired at openings. 8. For updating when openings change, enter the group, select the solid subtraction and un-group it (to revert back to its original EAP and extrudes). Adjust the extrudes as necessary, then select-all (thus the benefit of having the single solid subtraction in a group) and re-create the solid subtraction as above. I'm guessing this system is not likely to work if you're trying to report on the lengths of the mouldings using VW 2010+... ***Consistent with the convention for walls, which ideally are drawn clockwise so that their left sides are on the outside, I make sure my paths for EAPs are similarly clockwise, and then I draw EAP's interior profiles to the right side of X=0, and exterior profiles (such as for roof eaves) to the left side of X=0.

Now, if only the moulding symbols themselves could be extruded along a path... not only would you not have to cut & paste the profile, but if you wanted to change all of, say, the baseboard for a project, you could do it by changing the symbol rather than each and every EAP that you might have... Will

In all cases, it would be nice if when adding, subtracting and intersecting solids the result inherited the attributes (such as, particularly, class and texture) of the first drawn object, the way surfaces do, rather than reverting to the default attributes of the "None" class and "Class Texture."

I second that.

It would be good if solid additions and subtractions inherited the properties (class, render texture, etc.) of the first-drawn solid (in the case of additions) or the selected solid (in the case of subtractions) rather than always reverting to the "None" class upon creation. An approach not unlike the addition and subtraction of surfaces...

Try clicking on a window and in the Object Info Palette go to Settings > View > Glazing and make sure that "Clear" (instead of "Opaque" or "Use Class" that uses a class with a non-transparent texture) is selected. You can also check View > Rendering > Open GL Options and make sure that "Use Textures" is selected. (This is all based on VW 2008; it maybe be different in 2011, if that's what you're using. Consider adding your hardware & software info to your signature...) HTH, Will

For anything but something very simple, to draw the 2d shape that Peter describes you can select your extrude (or extrude along path, or solid, etc.), go to Top/Plan view, then convert it to a line drawing (Modify > Convert > Convert to Lines > Hidden Line Rendering). The resulting line drawing will be a group that you can enter to set the dashed lines as desired. This can then be incorporated into the hybrid symbol. (Either just before making the symbol, or when editing the symbol later, it may be best to un-group the lines).

As others have suggested, I always create my sheets at their final, full sizes. But I print them as PDFs, and then have the printer (in my case typically a printing service) reduce them by 50% when half-size sets are desired. This has the added advantage that everything, including line weights, is proportionally reduced without having to adjust the line weight scale, etc., in the viewports.

Can't be done, right? If you try to copy a viewport in one file and paste it into another, you get a warning confirming that this is the case. But... I just copied a Group containing a Viewport from one file to another, and, it actually worked! So I experimented with both a regular VP and a section VP, and both could be copied if part of a group. The section VP needed to have a design layer re-assigned to it, but then it had no trouble generating a section of the model in the second file. Am I completely missing something?... It would be great if this works like it seems to... (VW 2008)

I think you'd need to add a light (View > Lighting > Set Sun Position...) and an object (such as a Floor or an Extrude) in the plane of the floor to receive the shadows, and then render it using Final Quality RenderWorks. You could use double viewports to combine the shadows with displaying the walls themselves.

If I'm understanding Kevin's "origin point" correctly, it's the 0,0 point at the intersection of dashed lines clearly visible when editing a profile in VW 2008. Has this really been abandoned subsequent to 2008?!? If so, bring it back!! "- the ability to click on the profile object and define the origin during the process of creation." - Definitely!! "- the created extrude should be created on the current working plane not the ground plane." _Definitely!! And definitely to Grant's idea of EAP's that acknowledge objects in walls (though how this would be done and its interface could be a bit tricky...) And a couple more I'd like to add: 1.) The ability to extrude profile symbols (change a crown molding's symbol, and all the EAP's using that symbol automatically update...) 2.) Profiles that retain their relationship with the ground plane when extruded along a 3D path, rather than randomly rotating about the path's axis. This would be especially hand for things like stone walls and handrails. (Oops, I think this was maybe actually addressed in 2011?...) In any case, I support all the other suggestions here!

Are you placing 2D-only objects or symbols? If so, it will automatically go to Top/Plan view. Placing hybrid or 3D-only objects and symbols should not change the view. HTH

It would be helpful if callout leader lines could be adjusted without the callouts themselves moving. In other words, the position of callouts should be fixed by the leading edge of their text, and not by the leader line's middle vertex. It's a bit tiresome having to constantly re-align the text while adjusting the leader lines...

Whoever sent it to you should be able to save it as a 2008 version and send that to you...

It sets it to the absolute origin. I don't think it's possible to dislocate the absolute origin. The 0,0 of the rulers can easily be changed, by dragging out of the intersection of the rulers at the upper left, and clicking to establish your desired 0,0. If you double-click on the same intersection, you'll get the Tools > Set Origin dialogue, where you can reset the rulers' 0,0 to match the absolute 0,0. Note that if you change the Y value of the ruler's 0, it will also be changed when you go to a 3D side view... HTH

Thanks, Bill. The iMac being well disguised as a monitor lead me to assume that, like a Mac Mini, the RAM would be difficult to replace. Thanks for pointing out that it's easy. I should have questioned it further 'cause I know buying RAM from Apple is pretty much the most expensive way to do it. When I got RAM for my Mac Pro I got it from OWC, which worked out very well. Thanks again!

Thanks everyone for the excellent feedback; much appreciated. I'm pretty much thinking an i7 iMac with 8 GB RAM is the way to go. The RAM can be increased down the road if necessary, and when it's time for more storage or a new graphics card, the processor most likely will be outdated (clearly, we're all in the wrong business!...). Thanks again, Will