NinjaZX7R

We've recently had exactly the same problem at our office while using VWA/RW 9.5.3 and the latest OS X 10.2.3 - prior to this, we experienced no problems since upgrading to "Jaguar". Strange as it may seem, we do have one station that appears to be operating normally, while my PowerBook and Dual G4 can't print diddly at this time. As Ishmael would quote, the work-around that I have found is to save the image as a *.pdf, then print via Adobe's Acrobat Reader; thing is, the scale is not completely accurate, so adjustments all along the way are necessary, especially for anything that is referenced as such (renderings don't usually need such attention to dimensions). ANYway - obviously being able to render from VWA/RW is one thing, as such Adobe's application is submitted to the plotter (HP 1050c and 1055CM) in likewise PostScript fashion, so the issue seems to stem from VW talking to OS X 10.2.x, in some manner, and not coming to 'terms' accurately. Hope somebody at Apple, NNA and HP get this resolved soon, as this latest OS has our entire office seemingly enticed at this point (been doing my best to 'port them' from Wintel stations to Macs...). They've even stated that running VW/RW on the Macs, is much nicer than the same on our Windows machines. Most of them do note that the dockable pallets on the Windows versions are much nicer than the quirky Mac renditions. Thanks for all the great work - looking forward to being able to cut the check for v.10 in our office. Colorado is slower than a log in the mud right now, thus the delay. Craig in Denver

Okidokee... File has been created using VWA Setup Assistant. No problem there (greatest thing out there in the CAD world seemingly - thanks RA!). Hoowweevveerr... In working with a currenly new file and needing to go back and re-enter some elevation information, as on a 'pop-top' remodel I entered the height of the new roof (18') but am creating the as-built for the owner and needed to go back and enter the existing height (8'9") as the 3D's show the existing floating at the previous 18' height. SOO... I go to the Setup Assistant to adjust the data... I then do do, no problem (so far) and proceed through the rest of the setup pages to the final one and click enter. CRASH... Doesn't matter when I do it or at what point in the project, this happen. HELP! Craig in Denver

We've been pleasantly surprised by OS X 10.1.x (10.1.3 at this moment) and the interactivity of Vectorworks 9.5 and its Architect, Engineer and Renderworks plug-ins. Noting that nothing is perfect - there are some interesting little things that may be taken care of in the future, but for now they are just annoyances, rather than true bugs or glitches. One is that when you utilize OS X's new keystoke "Apple H" to minimalize the Vectorworks window, as it does most other OS X-savvy applications, it only proceeds to close the palette boxes, one-by-one. I would think NNA will address this in their upcoming r10 or even a 9.5 update. Another item is the fact that you can now preview your plots (before wasting paper) but the interface is a little clumsy as it utilizes Acrobat Reader as its preview 'window' - thing is, it does not automatically take you back to the print command, and I've caught myself a few times closing (or quitting) the Acrobat window, which in turn requires you to go back to the print command from the beginning. MAIN THING here is that there finally IS a preview ability AND the entire print process from hitting the 'enter' key to actually having a printer or plotter come on-line and start, has been INCREDIBLY sped up and the time is comparable to those using an AutoCAD platform. Other than these couple things, there is much reason to move over to OS X, not to mention the OS itself doesn't crash (knock on wood). There have been instances when Vectorworks crashes, but they have been few and far between and the fact that only the application has crashed - i.e. no more having to force quit the finder, restart or completely shutdown and restart the system. Talk about nice! ANYway - hope you're enjoying r9.5 as we are - good luck.. Oh yeah - it would be nice if the Mac versions had 'magnetic' docking palettes AND docked with each other along with automatically reoriented themselves to horizontal if you wanted to put them across the top below the menu bar, as the Wintel version allows... Craig in Denver

Been a while since I posted this issue - however, Charles (@ NNA) and I discussed and actually looked at FTP'ing a copy of my entire VW/RW folder back East. However, after a few tries, he was able to reproduce the situation, AND understand what all was going on. Being a Beta-tested for 9.5.x, I will be checking this out when I have the chance, to see if it has been resolved. I will keep my fingers crossed. On a different ntoe, the download for RW seems to have fixed the "out of memory error" that was always rearing-up after changing to VW/RW 9.x.x - thanks gang! ------------------ C M Harada Perspectives Design Group, ink Denver, CO

Aside from the other issues that I shall bite my tongue about, is there anybody else having problems utilizing the key and note manager tools? Most times, after adding a few notes, as few as two or three, when I hit the "period" key on the keyboard (as in the end of a note's sentence), the keynote/note manager window closes and takes me back to my screen image. If I go back and attempt to add (actually re-add) new notes once again, it will not keep these new notes, even after hitting the enter key. In the end, it takes completely exiting VWA, not just closing the file, but actually quitting and relaunching the entire program. Thing is, again, after attempting to add a few notes, the whole scenario repeats itself. I have replicated the problem on my Powerbook and a second machine, so it appears to by application related and not hardware... Kinda bummed.... Hurting in the productivity department. Probably go back to 8.5.2 to do my notes, then 'port' back into VWA9. Thing is, I am having a hard time finding reason to use 9, as most of the functions I need, still work in 8.x. Static hardware is a G4/500 with ATI Rage Pro 128 card, 768mb RAM, Apple Pro keyboard, 21" Dell Trinitron monitor (yeah, you read that right... Threw the PC crap out the door, using for cannibalizing now...), 60gig HD. Portable hardware is a G4/500 Ti/PB with ATI Rage video, 512mb RAM, 30gig HD. Michael at NNA has told me that 9.0.1 is close, but whether or not it will take care of all the bugs, who's to know. Still, keeping my fingers crossed as I personally have invested way too much money in this whole switch (from AutoCRAP) to go back now... ------------------ C M Harada Perspectives Design Group, ink Denver, CO

Sorry Chris, it was in there... Just a lot of cutting and pasting to try and cover all the boards with my info from this past week's meeting with the Vectorworks employees... There will be an update in about a month. Don't hold me to that date, but the Beta we were using on Friday is nearing completion, but Charles and all the rest of the the software development team want to make sure it is about as clean and fixes all the bugs, as possible. Believe me, I have been giving them grief, so much so that they were frantically hunting me down this past week in order to make sure we actually had time to meet one-on-one, and look at some of our files so that we could really tear into some of the real-world issues that you, us and all the rest, have been having to deal with. Hope that helps, as it has taken a ton of crap off my shoulder and makes me confident once again in their abilities back there on the East Coast... ------------------ C M Harada Perspectives Design Group, ink Denver, CO

Oki-day... As Jar-Jar Binks would have said... Seriously though, this past week had the National AIA Convention here in Denver and we had an extensive chance to meet with the crew from Nemetschek North America, at the show, at a user group reception, and at dinner at a local restaurant nearby... Now, if anybody has been following my posts, or more likely, swapping e-mails with me, I am the first to say that there have been dire problems with our upgrading to Vectorworks Architect 9 and Renderworks 9. As to be expected, I think most of us knew that there would be issues, as any update, especially as extensive as 9, there would be bugs... However, not hearing back from the NNA tech support led us to make assumptions and 'fear the worst'... I however have decent and postive news to report from the convention... As we all know, this has been quite the time for the Minicad team, as they have quickly transformed from the old company, to the new, and along the way encompassing a new internal rendering app, Renderworks, that has allowed us to lessen the financial implications that Artlantis, once held us to. In addition to this, a new marketing direction with the name change, sincere development of app plugins that focus on individual trades (Spotlight, Landmark, Architect, etc.), in addition to the 'slight' redirection associated with a merger/buyout, which of course has all its good and bad, along with the uneasiness of all those on the inside, as well as the outside... Then along comes a couple of 'small' issues, namely Apple finalizing development of perhaps the most important operating system update, regardless of hardware and personal preferences, OS X (ten) - the new Unix-platformed operating system designed for the Macintosh fleet of computers. AND OF COURSE, last but not least... Vectorworks 9... After expressing sincere disappointment with many of those at the helm, I had the pleasure of spending many hours with various people (yes, they are people and not just e-mail addresses or voice mailboxes...) from NNA, and have regained my previous trust in the product and those behind its everyday use and productivity... First off, all wanted to apologize for the lack of feedback to our posts at this site. Honest embarassment was highly evident, but at the same time, I completely understand that there are only so many hours in a day, and the rolling priority has been to fix the problems and make sure that all the newest applications from NNA are to the best of our expectations. Apparently this and a couple other reasons are behind their visible absence, as of late... Most prominently due to the buyout, questions abound of job security led to much 'shuffling' and even those at the call centers seeking employment elsewhere... However the biggest item was moving those most knowledgeable in these areas to other department to help shore-up areas in this time of great development and growth, some to actual tech development, engineering, sales, marketing, etc. - All told, the best way I was able to comprehend, was that "cross-training" has become a key asset, of late, and all hands available have been tending to the wheel most recently, unfortunately leaving the boards a bit bare on the 'official' NNA response side... Again, I pass you all their apologies, and want to let you know that their embarrassment and these apologies were of the utmost sincerity, and not just surface level... Ishmael, Charles, Michael, myself and one of my assistants, sat through much time going over issues that we have been digging through. Having strapped my Ti/PB to my Ninja (motorcycle), I made my way to the convention with problems literally, in-hand... We were able to reproduce many of the problems, or at least discuss (i.e. printing) some of the others. Overall, most of the issues are known, some are just user inexperience (as in, our mess...) or new release changes and differences. In fact, there has been an issue regarding realtime panning, rotating, movement, etc., of rendered items in Open GL... In Renderworks 8.x, if you were in Quickdraw 3D and began screen movement, all items went to wireframe, before returning to the rendered element, upon finishing one's pan, rotation, etc. In Open GL, it was to allow one to make these movements, all the while still being able to see the entire rendered object(s) without losing the screen back to wireframe. This apparently has been an issue, and as Michael was working with my file on my Powerbook, he was befuddled by the fact that he was able to move about my drawing, fully rendered in Open GL, something that NNA have been working on... Murphy's law... Ishmael really helped us with explanations on improved automation features of VWA9 and its setup assistant and how it automatically sets up sheets that are specifically for referencing when cutting sections and pulling details from, specifically how the automatic layer linking feature works and how is goes about assisting in further standardizing layouts, especially amongst an office where projects are shared with multiple people. Overall, the NNA Vectorworks team is honestly on top of (more-than-likely) all of our issues, and I promised to get on the boards as a portion of their voice, to let everybody know that help is on its way, VERY soon... I would repeat the date that was uttered during our meetings and discussions, but as long as we know it is coming, let's just leave it at that; it is a date that is very near, and even I can muddle through most of the bugs right now, knowing with assurance (I physically sat in front of both Mac and Windows machines running the latest Beta...) that many of those bugs will be swatted in the first update; Vectorworks 9.1 (or 9.0.1). Feel free to e-mail me with any questions that you may or may not have, as I will do my best (no way in hell that I could ever fully fill-in for the true masters of the craft...) to give highlights of our conversations, issues and the fixesd that I saw or did not see, etc. In addition to trying to help the Vectorworks guys (and gals, Hi Deidre) out, a sincere thanks for a well presented AIA booth, wonderful reception cocktail, and thank you Stuart for your generous hospitality from myself, Brandy, Matt and Bryan, at the Denver Buffalo Company - it was a great evening, one that will be remembered and hopefully returned in gracis, somewhere down the road. Oh, and next time, don't wait so long before using your 'On-Star' button! Hang in there everybody, the calvary is on its way! ------------------ C M Harada Perspectives Design Group, ink Denver, CO

Which plotter are you using? Most plotters will work with one of three drivers out there, Adobe PS, Laserwriter8, or generic. Generally, it comes down to making sure a Postscript SIMM/board in resident on the plotter/printer device. One other thing, with the move to OS X and its Unix backbone, a lot of these issues should go away, as the Unix kernel is more apt to adjust to the hardware, rather than the other way 'round. ------------------ C M Harada Perspectives Design Group, ink Denver, CO

That would probably only make matters worse, as most issues and bugs are software-related, since the core of the app is the same. There are of course issues that are OS/hardware related, but generally involve mostly rendering, and even then are more reliant on the kind of video accelerator that one is using, rather than the Windows vs. Mac, issue. Still, your point is valid, and there should be an extra box similar to those below (Smiles, Signature, Mac/Win) would be a good inclusion for easier communication and clarification of possible hardware related issues. ------------------ C M Harada Perspectives Design Group, ink Denver, CO

E-mail me so that I can send you one of their sales department contacts, he should be able to solve your dilemma. ------------------ C M Harada Perspectives Design Group, ink Denver, CO

Oki-day... As Jar-Jar Binks would have said... Seriously though, this past week had the National AIA Convention here in Denver and we had an extensive chance to meet with the crew from Nemetschek North America, at the show, at a user group reception, and at dinner at a local restaurant nearby... Now, if anybody has been following my posts, or more likely, swapping e-mails with me, I am the first to say that there have been dire problems with our upgrading to Vectorworks Architect 9 and Renderworks 9. As to be expected, I think most of us knew that there would be issues, as any update, especially as extensive as 9, there would be bugs... However, not hearing back from the NNA tech support led us to make assumptions and 'fear the worst'... I however have decent and postive news to report from the convention... As we all know, this has been quite the time for the Minicad team, as they have quickly transformed from the old company, to the new, and along the way encompassing a new internal rendering app, Renderworks, that has allowed us to lessen the financial implications that Artlantis, once held us to. In addition to this, a new marketing direction with the name change, sincere development of app plugins that focus on individual trades (Spotlight, Landmark, Architect, etc.), in addition to the 'slight' redirection associated with a merger/buyout, which of course has all its good and bad, along with the uneasiness of all those on the inside, as well as the outside... Then along comes a couple of 'small' issues, namely Apple finalizing development of perhaps the most important operating system update, regardless of hardware and personal preferences, OS X (ten) - the new Unix-platformed operating system designed for the Macintosh fleet of computers. AND OF COURSE, last but not least... Vectorworks 9... After expressing sincere disappointment with many of those at the helm, I had the pleasure of spending many hours with various people (yes, they are people and not just e-mail addresses or voice mailboxes...) from NNA, and have regained my previous trust in the product and those behind its everyday use and productivity... First off, all wanted to apologize for the lack of feedback to our posts at this site. Honest embarassment was highly evident, but at the same time, I completely understand that there are only so many hours in a day, and the rolling priority has been to fix the problems and make sure that all the newest applications from NNA are to the best of our expectations. Apparently this and a couple other reasons are behind their visible absence, as of late... Most prominently due to the buyout, questions abound of job security led to much 'shuffling' and even those at the call centers seeking employment elsewhere... However the biggest item was moving those most knowledgeable in these areas to other department to help shore-up areas in this time of great development and growth, some to actual tech development, engineering, sales, marketing, etc. - All told, the best way I was able to comprehend, was that "cross-training" has become a key asset, of late, and all hands available have been tending to the wheel most recently, unfortunately leaving the boards a bit bare on the 'official' NNA response side... Again, I pass you all their apologies, and want to let you know that their embarrassment and these apologies were of the utmost sincerity, and not just surface level... Ishmael, Charles, Michael, myself and one of my assistants, sat through much time going over issues that we have been digging through. Having strapped my Ti/PB to my Ninja (motorcycle), I made my way to the convention with problems literally, in-hand... We were able to reproduce many of the problems, or at least discuss (i.e. printing) some of the others. Overall, most of the issues are known, some are just user inexperience (as in, our mess...) or new release changes and differences. In fact, there has been an issue regarding realtime panning, rotating, movement, etc., of rendered items in Open GL... In Renderworks 8.x, if you were in Quickdraw 3D and began screen movement, all items went to wireframe, before returning to the rendered element, upon finishing one's pan, rotation, etc. In Open GL, it was to allow one to make these movements, all the while still being able to see the entire rendered object(s) without losing the screen back to wireframe. This apparently has been an issue, and as Michael was working with my file on my Powerbook, he was befuddled by the fact that he was able to move about my drawing, fully rendered in Open GL, something that NNA have been working on... Murphy's law... Ishmael really helped us with explanations on improved automation features of VWA9 and its setup assistant and how it automatically sets up sheets that are specifically for referencing when cutting sections and pulling details from, specifically how the automatic layer linking feature works and how is goes about assisting in further standardizing layouts, especially amongst an office where projects are shared with multiple people. Overall, the NNA Vectorworks team is honestly on top of (more-than-likely) all of our issues, and I promised to get on the boards as a portion of their voice, to let everybody know that help is on its way, VERY soon... I would repeat the date that was uttered during our meetings and discussions, but as long as we know it is coming, let's just leave it at that; it is a date that is very near, and even I can muddle through most of the bugs right now, knowing with assurance (I physically sat in front of both Mac and Windows machines running the latest Beta...) that many of those bugs will be swatted in the first update; Vectorworks 9.1 (or 9.0.1). Feel free to e-mail me with any questions that you may or may not have, as I will do my best (no way in hell that I could ever fully fill-in for the true masters of the craft...) to give highlights of our conversations, issues and the fixesd that I saw or did not see, etc. In addition to trying to help the Vectorworks guys (and gals, Hi Deidre) out, a sincere thanks for a well presented AIA booth, wonderful reception cocktail, and thank you Stuart for your generous hospitality from myself, Brandy, Matt and Bryan, at the Denver Buffalo Company - it was a great evening, one that will be remembered and hopefully returned in gracis, somewhere down the road. Oh, and next time, don't wait so long before using your 'On-Star' button! Hang in there everybody, the calvary is on its way! ------------------ C M Harada Perspectives Design Group, ink Denver, CO

Oki-day... As Jar-Jar Binks would have said... Seriously though, this past week had the National AIA Convention here in Denver and we had an extensive chance to meet with the crew from Nemetschek North America, at the show, at a user group reception, and at dinner at a local restaurant nearby... Now, if anybody has been following my posts, or more likely, swapping e-mails with me, I am the first to say that there have been dire problems with our upgrading to Vectorworks Architect 9 and Renderworks 9. As to be expected, I think most of us knew that there would be issues, as any update, especially as extensive as 9, there would be bugs... However, not hearing back from the NNA tech support led us to make assumptions and 'fear the worst'... I however have decent and postive news to report from the convention... As we all know, this has been quite the time for the Minicad team, as they have quickly transformed from the old company, to the new, and along the way encompassing a new internal rendering app, Renderworks, that has allowed us to lessen the financial implications that Artlantis, once held us to. In addition to this, a new marketing direction with the name change, sincere development of app plugins that focus on individual trades (Spotlight, Landmark, Architect, etc.), in addition to the 'slight' redirection associated with a merger/buyout, which of course has all its good and bad, along with the uneasiness of all those on the inside, as well as the outside... Then along comes a couple of 'small' issues, namely Apple finalizing development of perhaps the most important operating system update, regardless of hardware and personal preferences, OS X (ten) - the new Unix-platformed operating system designed for the Macintosh fleet of computers. AND OF COURSE, last but not least... Vectorworks 9... After expressing sincere disappointment with many of those at the helm, I had the pleasure of spending many hours with various people (yes, they are people and not just e-mail addresses or voice mailboxes...) from NNA, and have regained my previous trust in the product and those behind its everyday use and productivity... First off, all wanted to apologize for the lack of feedback to our posts at this site. Honest embarassment was highly evident, but at the same time, I completely understand that there are only so many hours in a day, and the rolling priority has been to fix the problems and make sure that all the newest applications from NNA are to the best of our expectations. Apparently this and a couple other reasons are behind their visible absence, as of late... Most prominently due to the buyout, questions abound of job security led to much 'shuffling' and even those at the call centers seeking employment elsewhere... However the biggest item was moving those most knowledgeable in these areas to other department to help shore-up areas in this time of great development and growth, some to actual tech development, engineering, sales, marketing, etc. - All told, the best way I was able to comprehend, was that "cross-training" has become a key asset, of late, and all hands available have been tending to the wheel most recently, unfortunately leaving the boards a bit bare on the 'official' NNA response side... Again, I pass you all their apologies, and want to let you know that their embarrassment and these apologies were of the utmost sincerity, and not just surface level... Ishmael, Charles, Michael, myself and one of my assistants, sat through much time going over issues that we have been digging through. Having strapped my Ti/PB to my Ninja (motorcycle), I made my way to the convention with problems literally, in-hand... We were able to reproduce many of the problems, or at least discuss (i.e. printing) some of the others. Overall, most of the issues are known, some are just user inexperience (as in, our mess...) or new release changes and differences. In fact, there has been an issue regarding realtime panning, rotating, movement, etc., of rendered items in Open GL... In Renderworks 8.x, if you were in Quickdraw 3D and began screen movement, all items went to wireframe, before returning to the rendered element, upon finishing one's pan, rotation, etc. In Open GL, it was to allow one to make these movements, all the while still being able to see the entire rendered object(s) without losing the screen back to wireframe. This apparently has been an issue, and as Michael was working with my file on my Powerbook, he was befuddled by the fact that he was able to move about my drawing, fully rendered in Open GL, something that NNA have been working on... Murphy's law... Ishmael really helped us with explanations on improved automation features of VWA9 and its setup assistant and how it automatically sets up sheets that are specifically for referencing when cutting sections and pulling details from, specifically how the automatic layer linking feature works and how is goes about assisting in further standardizing layouts, especially amongst an office where projects are shared with multiple people. Overall, the NNA Vectorworks team is honestly on top of (more-than-likely) all of our issues, and I promised to get on the boards as a portion of their voice, to let everybody know that help is on its way, VERY soon... I would repeat the date that was uttered during our meetings and discussions, but as long as we know it is coming, let's just leave it at that; it is a date that is very near, and even I can muddle through most of the bugs right now, knowing with assurance (I physically sat in front of both Mac and Windows machines running the latest Beta...) that many of those bugs will be swatted in the first update; Vectorworks 9.1 (or 9.0.1). Feel free to e-mail me with any questions that you may or may not have, as I will do my best (no way in hell that I could ever fully fill-in for the true masters of the craft...) to give highlights of our conversations, issues and the fixesd that I saw or did not see, etc. In addition to trying to help the Vectorworks guys (and gals, Hi Deidre) out, a sincere thanks for a well presented AIA booth, wonderful reception cocktail, and thank you Stuart for your generous hospitality from myself, Brandy, Matt and Bryan, at the Denver Buffalo Company - it was a great evening, one that will be remembered and hopefully returned in gracis, somewhere down the road. Oh, and next time, don't wait so long before using your 'On-Star' button! Hang in there everybody, the calvary is on its way! ------------------ C M Harada Perspectives Design Group, ink Denver, CO

Hi there! Well, from the outset, it all depends on what you want to see, and how much you need to see... As you probably know, Artlantis used to be the 'preferred' rendering engine for MiniCAD. However, it was more expensive than the actual architectural package it was supposed to support, not the other way around. With the marketing transition to Vectorworks and it being the premiere architectural package for those of us without hundreds of thousands of dollars to blow on every seat in the house, and each and every release of AutoCRAP... Diehl Graphsoft gifted us with Renderworks. From our experience, Renderworks for VWA8 did everything and more, than we expected, especially at the price point that was attached to the Renderworks application. RW9 has all the same promise, along with a few bugs that will be fixed in a month's time, and more with the foundation being built on Open GL, a super fast realtime rendering engine, along with twice as many Rendering selections, as in the first version. All-in-all, to make things short (ya, right...) try Renderworks first, the price is not that steep (call them right now about the possibility of getting the AIA convention price when bought with VWA9, free!) and see if it works for you, I would think it will... If not, you can step up to Artlantis (which is not a huge steep, at that...), without burning a hole in your pants, so to speek... Good luck and let me know what you choose to do! ------------------ C M Harada Perspectives Design Group, ink Denver, CO

Oki-day... As Jar-Jar Binks would have said... Seriously though, this past week had the National AIA Convention here in Denver and we had an extensive chance to meet with the crew from Nemetschek North America, at the show, at a user group reception, and at dinner at a local restaurant nearby... Now, if anybody has been following my posts, or more likely, swapping e-mails with me, I am the first to say that there have been dire problems with our upgrading to Vectorworks Architect 9 and Renderworks 9. As to be expected, I think most of us knew that there would be issues, as any update, especially as extensive as 9, there would be bugs... However, not hearing back from the NNA tech support led us to make assumptions and 'fear the worst'... I however have decent and postive news to report from the convention... As we all know, this has been quite the time for the Minicad team, as they have quickly transformed from the old company, to the new, and along the way encompassing a new internal rendering app, Renderworks, that has allowed us to lessen the financial implications that Artlantis, once held us to. In addition to this, a new marketing direction with the name change, sincere development of app plugins that focus on individual trades (Spotlight, Landmark, Architect, etc.), in addition to the 'slight' redirection associated with a merger/buyout, which of course has all its good and bad, along with the uneasiness of all those on the inside, as well as the outside... Then along comes a couple of 'small' issues, namely Apple finalizing development of perhaps the most important operating system update, regardless of hardware and personal preferences, OS X (ten) - the new Unix-platformed operating system designed for the Macintosh fleet of computers. AND OF COURSE, last but not least... Vectorworks 9... After expressing sincere disappointment with many of those at the helm, I had the pleasure of spending many hours with various people (yes, they are people and not just e-mail addresses or voice mailboxes...) from NNA, and have regained my previous trust in the product and those behind its everyday use and productivity... First off, all wanted to apologize for the lack of feedback to our posts at this site. Honest embarassment was highly evident, but at the same time, I completely understand that there are only so many hours in a day, and the rolling priority has been to fix the problems and make sure that all the newest applications from NNA are to the best of our expectations. Apparently this and a couple other reasons are behind their visible absence, as of late... Most prominently due to the buyout, questions abound of job security led to much 'shuffling' and even those at the call centers seeking employment elsewhere... However the biggest item was moving those most knowledgeable in these areas to other department to help shore-up areas in this time of great development and growth, some to actual tech development, engineering, sales, marketing, etc. - All told, the best way I was able to comprehend, was that "cross-training" has become a key asset, of late, and all hands available have been tending to the wheel most recently, unfortunately leaving the boards a bit bare on the 'official' NNA response side... Again, I pass you all their apologies, and want to let you know that their embarrassment and these apologies were of the utmost sincerity, and not just surface level... Ishmael, Charles, Michael, myself and one of my assistants, sat through much time going over issues that we have been digging through. Having strapped my Ti/PB to my Ninja (motorcycle), I made my way to the convention with problems literally, in-hand... We were able to reproduce many of the problems, or at least discuss (i.e. printing) some of the others. Overall, most of the issues are known, some are just user inexperience (as in, our mess...) or new release changes and differences. In fact, there has been an issue regarding realtime panning, rotating, movement, etc., of rendered items in Open GL... In Renderworks 8.x, if you were in Quickdraw 3D and began screen movement, all items went to wireframe, before returning to the rendered element, upon finishing one's pan, rotation, etc. In Open GL, it was to allow one to make these movements, all the while still being able to see the entire rendered object(s) without losing the screen back to wireframe. This apparently has been an issue, and as Michael was working with my file on my Powerbook, he was befuddled by the fact that he was able to move about my drawing, fully rendered in Open GL, something that NNA have been working on... Murphy's law... Ishmael really helped us with explanations on improved automation features of VWA9 and its setup assistant and how it automatically sets up sheets that are specifically for referencing when cutting sections and pulling details from, specifically how the automatic layer linking feature works and how is goes about assisting in further standardizing layouts, especially amongst an office where projects are shared with multiple people. Overall, the NNA Vectorworks team is honestly on top of (more-than-likely) all of our issues, and I promised to get on the boards as a portion of their voice, to let everybody know that help is on its way, VERY soon... I would repeat the date that was uttered during our meetings and discussions, but as long as we know it is coming, let's just leave it at that; it is a date that is very near, and even I can muddle through most of the bugs right now, knowing with assurance (I physically sat in front of both Mac and Windows machines running the latest Beta...) that many of those bugs will be swatted in the first update; Vectorworks 9.1 (or 9.0.1). Feel free to e-mail me with any questions that you may or may not have, as I will do my best (no way in hell that I could ever fully fill-in for the true masters of the craft...) to give highlights of our conversations, issues and the fixesd that I saw or did not see, etc. In addition to trying to help the Vectorworks guys (and gals, Hi Deidre) out, a sincere thanks for a well presented AIA booth, wonderful reception cocktail, and thank you Stuart for your generous hospitality from myself, Brandy, Matt and Bryan, at the Denver Buffalo Company - it was a great evening, one that will be remembered and hopefully returned in gracis, somewhere down the road. Oh, and next time, don't wait so long before using your 'On-Star' button! Hang in there everybody, the calvary is on its way! ------------------ C M Harada Perspectives Design Group, ink Denver, CO

Oki-day... As Jar-Jar Binks would have said... Seriously though, this past week had the National AIA Convention here in Denver and we had an extensive chance to meet with the crew from Nemetschek North America, at the show, at a user group reception, and at dinner at a local restaurant nearby... Now, if anybody has been following my posts, or more likely, swapping e-mails with me, I am the first to say that there have been dire problems with our upgrading to Vectorworks Architect 9 and Renderworks 9. As to be expected, I think most of us knew that there would be issues, as any update, especially as extensive as 9, there would be bugs... However, not hearing back from the NNA tech support led us to make assumptions and 'fear the worst'... I however have decent and postive news to report from the convention... As we all know, this has been quite the time for the Minicad team, as they have quickly transformed from the old company, to the new, and along the way encompassing a new internal rendering app, Renderworks, that has allowed us to lessen the financial implications that Artlantis, once held us to. In addition to this, a new marketing direction with the name change, sincere development of app plugins that focus on individual trades (Spotlight, Landmark, Architect, etc.), in addition to the 'slight' redirection associated with a merger/buyout, which of course has all its good and bad, along with the uneasiness of all those on the inside, as well as the outside... Then along comes a couple of 'small' issues, namely Apple finalizing development of perhaps the most important operating system update, regardless of hardware and personal preferences, OS X (ten) - the new Unix-platformed operating system designed for the Macintosh fleet of computers. AND OF COURSE, last but not least... Vectorworks 9... After expressing sincere disappointment with many of those at the helm, I had the pleasure of spending many hours with various people (yes, they are people and not just e-mail addresses or voice mailboxes...) from NNA, and have regained my previous trust in the product and those behind its everyday use and productivity... First off, all wanted to apologize for the lack of feedback to our posts at this site. Honest embarassment was highly evident, but at the same time, I completely understand that there are only so many hours in a day, and the rolling priority has been to fix the problems and make sure that all the newest applications from NNA are to the best of our expectations. Apparently this and a couple other reasons are behind their visible absence, as of late... Most prominently due to the buyout, questions abound of job security led to much 'shuffling' and even those at the call centers seeking employment elsewhere... However the biggest item was moving those most knowledgeable in these areas to other department to help shore-up areas in this time of great development and growth, some to actual tech development, engineering, sales, marketing, etc. - All told, the best way I was able to comprehend, was that "cross-training" has become a key asset, of late, and all hands available have been tending to the wheel most recently, unfortunately leaving the boards a bit bare on the 'official' NNA response side... Again, I pass you all their apologies, and want to let you know that their embarrassment and these apologies were of the utmost sincerity, and not just surface level... Ishmael, Charles, Michael, myself and one of my assistants, sat through much time going over issues that we have been digging through. Having strapped my Ti/PB to my Ninja (motorcycle), I made my way to the convention with problems literally, in-hand... We were able to reproduce many of the problems, or at least discuss (i.e. printing) some of the others. Overall, most of the issues are known, some are just user inexperience (as in, our mess...) or new release changes and differences. In fact, there has been an issue regarding realtime panning, rotating, movement, etc., of rendered items in Open GL... In Renderworks 8.x, if you were in Quickdraw 3D and began screen movement, all items went to wireframe, before returning to the rendered element, upon finishing one's pan, rotation, etc. In Open GL, it was to allow one to make these movements, all the while still being able to see the entire rendered object(s) without losing the screen back to wireframe. This apparently has been an issue, and as Michael was working with my file on my Powerbook, he was befuddled by the fact that he was able to move about my drawing, fully rendered in Open GL, something that NNA have been working on... Murphy's law... Ishmael really helped us with explanations on improved automation features of VWA9 and its setup assistant and how it automatically sets up sheets that are specifically for referencing when cutting sections and pulling details from, specifically how the automatic layer linking feature works and how is goes about assisting in further standardizing layouts, especially amongst an office where projects are shared with multiple people. Overall, the NNA Vectorworks team is honestly on top of (more-than-likely) all of our issues, and I promised to get on the boards as a portion of their voice, to let everybody know that help is on its way, VERY soon... I would repeat the date that was uttered during our meetings and discussions, but as long as we know it is coming, let's just leave it at that; it is a date that is very near, and even I can muddle through most of the bugs right now, knowing with assurance (I physically sat in front of both Mac and Windows machines running the latest Beta...) that many of those bugs will be swatted in the first update; Vectorworks 9.1 (or 9.0.1). Feel free to e-mail me with any questions that you may or may not have, as I will do my best (no way in hell that I could ever fully fill-in for the true masters of the craft...) to give highlights of our conversations, issues and the fixesd that I saw or did not see, etc. In addition to trying to help the Vectorworks guys (and gals, Hi Deidre) out, a sincere thanks for a well presented AIA booth, wonderful reception cocktail, and thank you Stuart for your generous hospitality from myself, Brandy, Matt and Bryan, at the Denver Buffalo Company - it was a great evening, one that will be remembered and hopefully returned in gracis, somewhere down the road. Oh, and next time, don't wait so long before using your 'On-Star' button! Hang in there everybody, the calvary is on its way! ------------------ C M Harada Perspectives Design Group, ink Denver, CO