Kaare Baekgaard

It is, Horst. But then again stich and trim never did work too well - and there is no history tree either. It is usually better to do a series of 'section solid' operations on a base object although it is more timeconsuming. Other mostly useless commands include 'create fillet surface', 'create planar caps', 'create drape surface' and create interpolated surface. I may have heard of a person, who heard of someone, who once did something useful with one of theese, but that is the closest, I ever got... And then there is the 'multible extrude' command, unchanged for centuries, which still produces a facetted object - not a nurbs solid. Now that I have been beta-testing VW2011 for a while at my own expense, I really hope NNA will throw in a treat with the release of SP2 or SP3 and give us all a powerpack markII. That being said, VW still is a better modeller, than the unilateral focus on the building industry could let you to believe.

So now I can't convert a solid into nurbs surfaces (for crying out loud). I get a message informing me, that the conversion has failed. I export the object as an IGES file and import it again and - presto - I got my surfaces exactly as I want them. A little hint to the programmers at NNA: How about I get to do that inside Vectorworks?

Impressive renderings, Nicholas. I understand, that there is a prototype, but I am not sure, I get the physics of the chair: What stops it from doing a split? As a male, I might feel a bit cautious in loose clothing...

I too updated from VW2008 to 2011 and found that snapping causes serious lags in VW2011 - even with all the fancy stuff turned off. I have send a bug report to that effect. I hope, it is a bug. If so, at least there is a chance, that it will be fixed in SP2.

I seem to remember, that I did this before in a previous installation, but I forgot how to do it: When I click the export image for a rendering, I have to change all of the settings to my preferences every time. Is there a way to change this, so I get my prefered settings by default?

To Horst: Well you are not going to send the polygon to CNC - it is only meant for inspection. To BCD: The extrution method may not be foolproof. It catches faults due to open polylines, but it does not catch potential faults due to invisible segments in the polyline, as they become visible in the extruded object. The CNC software may not mind invisible segments, but then again it may. So to be sure, go with my method, Bruce.

If it is too complex to inspect visually: Decompose and compose again to make sure all elements are set to visible, then convert a copy to polygon. If the resulting polygon is closed - as can be inspected in the OIP, the polyline will be closed as well. If not, clicking on the center vertex button in the OIP will reveal the location of the hole.

It takes a long time to get HDRI environments just right - especially for interior maps. Often a slight rotation of the map has great impact on the resulting rendering. The interface for working with environtment background is slow and not very intuitive. So I wish for a better environtment mapping tool. Also it would be nice to be able to move the HDRI environment 'sphere' up and down in order to manipulate the vertical location of the horizon.

Selv tak :-) In the 'edit filtered image' tick the 'use object fill'. If the image used is white, the object fill should work as usual.

Unless I am much mistaken, this problem can be easily resolved by making a blank white image file the same pixel size as the hole pattern and import it as filtered image colur. It's a workaround but it should work.

I don't know much about the code behind nurbs surfaces, but it would seem that all nurbs surfaces are inherently defined to have 4 corner points. Higher number of corner points is achieved by sticking together surfaces. Lower number of corner points is achieved by sticking vertices together. When I use VW2008 to do a triangular surface (which is pre-Parasolids), the vertices in the top are not permanently linked and can be separated. In VW20011 they cannot. I have just upgraded from VW2008 and have discovered that with Parasolids, I have to be more careful with surfaces - or they become illegal. In VW 2008 I often used the 'connect/combine' tool or the 'combine' command to stick surfaces together. In VW 2011 the 'combine' command doesn't work but the 'connect/combine' tool does. But if I use it in the 'dual object combine' mode, the resulting surface becomes illegal and can not be made legal again with the 'rebuild surface' command or any other method. Parasolids is supposed to be more stable than the old modelling core - and in many ways it is. But it is counterproductive, that seemingly legal commands can produce illegal results. If you are reading this NNA, perhaps you should consider to disable such commands or redefine how they work. If I cannot combine two or more surfaces into one, it would be nice, if I could instead use the 3D reshape tool on more than one object at a time.

Understood - but I'm not sure that is the problem in itself. I have turned both options off and it makes no difference.

Ray Libby: They are pretty sorry, but that hasn't been a problem before. Macbook 1,1 2GHZ Intel Core Duo 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Thanks for the feedback, Islandmon. I am not sure, that I am any wiser after using the Activity Monitor: I can see huge spikes in processor activity as soon as I turn on 'snap to object', which are not there, when it is off. I have turned off and turned down every potentially demanding setting and it makes little or no difference. Then I exported the geometry and created a similar file in VW 2008. In this version the snap function works like - well like a snap - with no delay whatsoever. I have worked with far more complex files in vW2008 and usually the first hint of 'fatigue' here is a lag in redraw - not in snapping. In VW20011 the complexity of the model does have an effect on the delay time, but on my computer the lag starts already with fairly basic models, in that the objects tend to be left behind, when I do a click-drag-move. So dear NNA: If it is a bug, I hope it will be fixed. If it is not, perhaps you should reconsider the code being used here - or at least reinstate the 'old' code as an option.

Shelling usually works, but your loft has somehow become illegal and it can't be fixed by rebuilding the surface. If you trim the top off the surface, the rest can be shelled, which doesn't really help to know... I have tried to replicate the loft using a 3D locus for the top - and it too became illegal when I changed the U degree to 2 and moved a vertex. Triangular surfaces seems to be tricky that way. But if you create a standard rectangular nurbs surface and make it triangular by moving a point onto another, the surface remains legal and can be shelled.

There are a few programs dedicated to making advanced 3D pdf manuals with interactive parts list and animated assembly and maintenance procedures. It would be nice to have some of these features in VW, but a basic export with layer and camera control is probably inevitable at some point. Meanwhile: Simlab (www.simlab-soft.com) has a not-too-expensive 3D PDF program for Windows/Mac. Also they have 3D pdf export plugins for a number of CAD applications including Sketchup. I have tried out the Sketchup exporter. Its pretty basic, but looks decent enough - with support of model tree and multible cameras. Could NNA be talked into striking a deal with these guys for a dedicated VW plug-in?

Here is a link to a movie. Nothing much goes on in the movie, which is, alas, a reflection of reality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU4K1qRoFRQ Let me explain: I want to move an object - in this case a viewport, but any other object gives the same result. With all snaps set to on - except the 'snap to object', I get instantaneous feedback, and have no problem moving the viewport. Then I turn on the 'snap to object' and try to move the viewport again - and get a 25 seconds lag!!!! Right here the movie gets very boring. it takes another 10 seconds just to turn off the snap, after which I can move the viewport again with no problem. All settings in the smartcursor dialogue for 'snap to object' are set to off but I get the same delay, if they are set in any other combination. How does that work on your setup?

Thanks for the reply bcd. I believe I got my terms confused regarding the different plane types, but your description reflects my observation. It is a bug then. I suppose I should report it.

If Gaudi was alive today he would have to do most of his detailing in a subdivision modeller and import the meshes into Vectorworks. In that sense Vectorworks is still not a full package even for architects. I believe Cinema4D has subdivision capabilities. Why not get the benefits of that in Vectorworks with the next update? The push/pull tool seems to be almost up to the job with the latest release, it just needs to be tweaked, so that it doesn't change meshes into solids. The split tool would have to be enhanced, so that it can split one or more surfaces in a mesh without effecting the rest. There is nothing wrong with using meshes, so why not provide the tools? Take a look at Silo2. It's a bloody mess UI-wise, but it's cheap and does nice stuff.

ChiYellow: Glass is the hardest thing to do of all. If you want nice reflections but to save rendering time, chose a HDRI map and then chose 'none' in the 'environmental lighting' box of the 'lighting options' menu item. That way you get the reflections of the HDRI map, but you can set your own lighting (or go with the default). When you are testing out different texture settings with different environmental maps and finetuning the rotation of them, it is a huge timesaver and often the result is even good enough for presentation.

I get a whole array of inconsistencies when drawing in 2D in screen plane mode. For instance the length and angle information on 2D lines change when I switch view - and are only correct in Top/Plan view. I would expect the screen plane mode to work pretty much like drawing in 2D in older versions of the program - it looks the same. Have I missed a vital point here or is it just beta-version rudiments, that have not yet been resolved? Also: When I change the status of a 2D object from 'layer plane' to 'screen plane' in the Object Info palette, it jumps position relative to the screen, if it was originally drawn in a different view. What if I don't want it to? I belive, I aught to have an option to get a WYSIWYG conversion by ticking some box in the palette. I originally liked the idea of drawing 2D objects in 3D planes, but I find it confusing a lot of the time. It seems wierd, that 2D objects cannot be brought to interact with each other, unless they are in the same plane. So I want to be able to turn off the option and get a classic, consistent 2D environment. My logic tells me, that this would be the screen mode, but then I get all these inconsistencies... Please fix this, NNA.

I am not sure, I get the yearly release schedule. By the time the present version is reasonably bugfree and running well, a new version is released with a whole new set of issues. I am as much a sucker for new features as the next guy, but I think, I prefer to wait longer and get more stable releases or get more new features per update.

VW2011: When I snap a nurbs curve to 3 points in 3D space, I get a curve connecting these points as expected. But when I snap a nurbs arc to the same 3 points, the resulting arc jumps to the working plane or screen plane dependent on the setting. I cannot make the arc stick to the points, except by creating a working plane based on them. Seems like a bug. Does anyone else get this?

Thanks for the feedback mmyoung. Can't get my head around Rhino, but it does provide the snaps. Just got feedback from tech, that this issue will be fixed in SP2.