Tom G.

I run VW 2008 on an 800 mhz G4 with 768 megs of SDRAM (!) OS 10.4.11 quite well, actually, to the point where I'm dragging my feet with plans to install the new 17" MacBook Pro in its place. I design in 3D and render projects in Custom Render without a hitch.

I sometimes find that my fill choice color affects whether or not my object will accept a texture. White fill occasionally will block my texture from taking hold. Try giving your object various other fill colors while checking the object in the Render pane of the Object Info palette, under Mapping, to see if the texture takes. It may be that one object within the group shows this behavior and thus blocks correct rendering of others? I have reported this behavior as a bug. It exists from V. 2008 back through V. 12.0.

Design Layer Viewports need to be optimized for a base set of commands for architectural usage. 1. Most importantly, there needs to be an opacity slider somewhere for each DLVP so that underlaying reference drawings do not compete with my overlay components (framing drawings, etc.). 2. Beyond a single click on the OIP to turn off wall components, I believe we need a single click to turn walls to dashed lines. This would further aid in readability. The current option of dashing wall lines is too complex and most people will not attempt to take their organizing to such a level. If a tool can't be easily employed, it is not really a tool. 3. I can put windows and doors into a "hide" class but when my underlay reference layer shows the newly empty openings, there are no end caps on the wall openings. We need a "Framed Opening" option whereby these openings heal. I want my openings showing an end cap so that I can add in my own header and column symbols, my own shear wall column and strap indicators. Design Layer Viewports are extremely useful but need to be continued in their evolution--something I'm sure NNA is working on. Thank you.

Quote: "I don't understand why one would draw over a section VP on a Sheet Layer. That just doesn't make any sense. It would not be scale line-work." I was responding more for the challenge of limits to Section Viewports than anything else--I don't actually use this method. Yet. But it is scalable in the sense that the Section is in scale. And if you want to add scaled items, do it, as you say yourself, in annotations. Not such a weird a process since there is no good alternative. What, you say?--Use Cut 2D and Cut 3D Section and Convert to Lines? We're much too sophisticated for those old tools! Ok, if you're still reading, try this: draw over your Section Viewport while on the Sheet layer (as I've already described) using just the line weight you prefer for each part and not the one the Section tool has chosen for you. Select all, copy, paste back onto your Details Design Layer. The VP won't come along so don't worry about it. Scale your imported lines up 24 times or 48 times or whatever the multiplier is for the scale of your details layer. If your section changes down the road--and this is the only reason to go through all this trouble--then redraw and repaste and rescale. The above ideas are just thoughts, musings, really. All the suggestions in this thread are valid and quite interesting.

It was said above that this can't be done. Well, actually you can although it might be considered illegal in certain states. To create a Design Layer SECTION Viewport or the EQUIVALENT OF, make your Section Viewport and place it on a new Sheet. Go back to your Navigation palette or the menu bar and create a new class called Hide the Section Viewport. Go back to your sheet, select the viewport (your drawing) and send it via the OIP into this class. It is still visible because you've not yet messed with visibilities. Draw over your section viewport directly onto the sheet and when done, make the Hide class invisible. If the section changes, make it visible, update it and redraw over it. I tell ya, it's CRAZY!!

Are you sure you read that correctly? As a test I created framed walls on one of my projects. I see an input box in which I can place any text (limited to 8 letters) to describe the layer for the framing-- I was not limited in choosing a Mod layer. I always use terms that are relevant to my drawing process--which is constantly changing and growing--so I don't let VW name layers or (as few as possible) classes for me.

Travis said: "If you need to show a building section, with the rafter length dimensioned, you can use tguy's approach. But creating a Section Viewport will get you there quicker and it will be "dynamic" (if the model changes for any reason, so will the Section). Then, in Viewport Annotations, apply whatever dimensions you need." I have to respectfully disagree with Travis that Viewport Sections are quicker. To cut and measure, using the Cut 2D Section or Cut 3D Section tool, takes exactly two actions--cut--measure. Most of my sections are used to develop--figure out--drawings and only later are sections created for purposes of display.

ccw: You say you've got your rafters developed in 3d. Why not simply cut a Cut 2D* section down the centerline of your hip or valley and measure directly? This only takes a few seconds (action creates a new layer), but also provides a clear look at what you've built. *Cut 2D and Cut 3D have, unfortunately, been moved to the Legacy folder within the Workspace Editor and so will require a bit of work to add back to your workspace.

You don't need Excel--you may be referring to another product?? If you are having problems, send them an email. One can also get, for free, Boise's BCI program BC Calc or TJI's program TJ-Beam for design of solid sawn members. Neither of these programs, in my opinion, are optimized for ease of use (speed).

For $150 one can purchase a really nice beam calc. program, BeamChek. http://www.beamchek.com/ with far more features than NNA could possibly provide. This may not satisfy your short term needs, but if you are interested, I highly recommend. I do agree that the NNA simple beam calculator is too limited and therefore, not particularly useful.

Not finding a better place to post this, I thought those of you who were looking for a plain-spoken definition of BIM, free of jargon, might enjoy this man's take. (He is an AutoCad guy but just plug in VW when he talks A'cad and you'll get the same message, I think.) http://modocrmadt.blogspot.com/2005/01/bim-what-is-it-why-do-i-care-and-how.html

As if to answer my questions, today's USA Today (Money, March 17) has a great article on the danger of spam bots. Now back to our regular program.

Sorry to miss the message between the lines. And really sorry if the bots have gotten you on my account. But how does one reconcile the need to sell a plugin with the requirement to keep one's website semi-secret? Having not seen a proviso (in your post or elsewhere) to not publish the addresses of commercial sites, I pass on loads of these all the time. Is this always a bad idea? Thanks

Are you sure it hasn't been placed on a new layer that you've not yet noticed, and that the scale hasn't blown it out where you can't yet see its edges?

http://www.siriussolutions.net/ $50

Make sure Snap to Grid is not enabled. Sometimes crossing two curved lines, then using the trim tool, assures a perfect end-to-end match. While I've never attempted to model such a complex shape, I have had success by drawing a closed polyline (composed of straight lines) over my template, then using the 2D Reshape tool at add curves and thus pull a straight line into an arc to match the template below. If you only have to close two ends to begin with, then so much the better. Try Clip Surface or Subtract Solids to aid in creation of the circles and arcs. If you convert your curve to a NURBS curve (even straight lines can be NURBS curves), there is a command called Rebuild NURBS which will allow you to remove OR add nodes thus making the reshape much easier. (I'm starting to get over my head with this last comment so if someone else can build on it, feel free.)

There is a tool to do just what you want but it doesn't seem to have been originally optimized for a fence, judging by its scale. Make a polyline to represent the path. With it selected, go to Modify>Objects from Polyline. Select Repetitive Unit. Choose your symbol from the OIP. Choose Misc. Choose Site Fence. As you will see, the scale is all wrong. Play with the pitch to get the spacing you want. Ungroup and dbl click on an X to get to an editing pane where you can then set the text size. After having done all this, it may have been faster to build it from scratch. More on this subject here: Convert to Lines #25 (scroll to find) http://converttolines.blogspot.com/

Duplicate the wall; have one with all windows installed for 3D views, one with only first floor windows installed for 2D views. Put each in a class. Hide each as needed.

Why can't placing the windows into an invisible class solve your issue?

Again, if you are replying to my post, you miss the point. I've not said anything about what questions are posted. If you are making some other point, then carry on.

One other observation of benefits to having a well stocked library of how-to's is that the volunteers who give their time to this very important Techboard, are less likely to be burned out by answering the same questions again and again. Their time could be spent on supplying perhaps shorter answers describing variations to a problem's solution rather than laying out its primary steps.

Having used the Create Roof tool and adjusted the parameters as far as you can go, if you need more editing you have to ungroup*. Now you will need to edit (by double-clicking on**) each roof face which will take it to an editing pane where the face returns to its 2D polygon state. Stretch, add or subtract nodes (corners) as needed. Let's say you tipped a roof face but VW created a hip that shrank away from the others and now you want to stretch that hip back to match the higher group. Assuming you've now Ungrouped all, look at the drawing in top plan and draw a line, or measure, from the short face to where the face should end up. Copy the line into memory. Dbl click on the short face and when it appears on the editing pane, paste-in-place the copied line. Stretch the poly to this new point. By repeating and adjusting the pitch, both in side view and top, using copied lines and locus points, you should be able to knit the roof together successfully. Be sure to remove all reference points from your editing pane prior to exiting back to the model. Tricks: I temporarily color faces of my roofs in order to help distinguish one from another. You can also create a new layer called Compare, or some such, where you send the roof segments, doing the adjusting there, which will keep the clutter of the other roofs out of sight. This is especially helpful with large, complex roofs. The old-school 2D and 3D Section tools are especially fast at allowing you to see how to adjust and fit. I found that Ungrouping a roof with the attic box checked did not cause the loss of the attic. You may have inadvertently deleted it? *You can try editing in 3D by using the 3D Edit tool and moving the shape, or adding additional roof faces. This will not cause an ungrouping. Note that even when you ungroup, there are still a few choices left to you on the Object Info palette. **Older versions of VW will require you to use the Modify>Edit or Edit Group command vs a simple double click.

http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=79098&page=1#Post79098

This just came across my desk and it is quite shocking in its simplicity and attractiveness: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=aidanchopra It is Sketchup for Dummies, introduced in the newest Sketchup newsletter.

I've been using it on a project that just went on hold. Here's what I've found: ?Automatic wall dimensioning does not work on a rotated plan. The dimension tool does not rotate with the model. ?If you use old-school Cut 2D Section, that action causes the plan to un-rotate back to zero, forcing you to re-rotate the plan by inputting the correct rotation amount. Using Create Section Viewport does not cause rotation failure. ?Working in rotated mode, pulling straight lines and walls is a little bit harder. I found myself having to be especially on guard. The Shift key doesn't seem to ensure a perfect line. ?If you print a rotated plan, you get a slightly jaggy output. Just prior to my trying to convert my Layer views to Viewports to Sheets, the project went on hold. It is quite likely that making a Viewport would solve this jaggy issue. You could test this easily, of course. To reduce the issue of lines being drawn slightly askew, and the jaggies when printing, you may want to get to Viewports as quickly as possible and then do as much work in Annotations as possible. This seems to be a great tool for the project I was working on which had a residence on an irregular lot. We had VERY tight lot coverage and setback issues. By importing the survey, and rotating the model to fit the surveyor's footprint, I could be very assured that our new work would be in compliance. I'm hoping we get back to this project as I'd love to take it through completion to test the concept fully.