Kaare Baekgaard

That would be quite a feat... Does such a quality exist?

Try converting it to group

Try converting it to group

Use a texture for perforation. It will allow light to pass through the holes.

Will the changes made to plug-in objects, using the plug-in editor survive program updates - or do I have to do them again?

The ability to place image files in VW is very useful to me. Also the other day I found out by chance, that I can convert a viewport rendering to a group and get a bitmap image. Cool! But If I want to touch up that image, there is really no fast reliable method to do this. If I copy-paste it into photoshop, I get different pixel resolution. If I export it or print to a PDF, I get different pixel resolutions. In Acrobat, I can alt-click on an image, and open it in an image editor of my choice. When I save the changes, the imafe is updated in Acrobat. That is very useful. Why not include this feature in Vectorworks? It would be nice, if it worked with textures too, but the main thing are images placed in the workspace.

I am expressing myself poorly: The 'snap to object' in my experience is almost like 2 tools: By double clicking it, I invoke a dialogue, that enables me to snap to 3D objects and 3D centerpoints. For some reason, however, snapping to 3D cornerpoints becomes more tricky, when this option is 'on'. So I find mtself constantly turning this option on and off.

By double-clicking the 'snap to object' tool icon, you can get snap to centerpoints.

"Obviously all curves in CAD are actually made up of small straight line segments" No, this is not so. Nurbs are the 3D equivalet to 2d bezier curves. The surface of the hull may seem to be flat, but if the control points describe curves, they are in fact not flat. Mike 18 control points are a lot - far, far too many if you want a harmonic surface. That is why the resulting plane is broken into 5 distinct entities.

I duplicate the lightsource and disable shadowcasting from one of the lights. If the original light had 75 in intensity, I set it to 50 and disable shadows. the duplicate I then set to 25 and keep shadows on this light. Its quick and it works fine.

I have been drawing boats as a leisure activity, using an old version of Maxssurf Pro and also in Vectorworks. Maxsurf is of course the better choise for creating hulls, as it is dedicated for that purpose only. But with the 3D Powerpack, Vectorworks is in fact surprisingly adept for this - even in the 10.5x. Only you got to train using Nurbs surfaces. The key to this is to create the hull with as few controll pount as possible: 4 rows of control point for the lenghth of the hull and 3-4 sets for the width of a single hullside is enough. In fact more controlpoints will only muddle the process. You start by extruding a bezier curve, convert the extrude into a nurbs surface, add contoll points bu setting the U-degree to 4 and the V degree to 2 or 3. Then you move the points one by one or by the row. The sharp bottom curve of the stem (is that the right word?) is formed by working with the 'weight' of the control points. It is certainly doable, although it can be frustrating later in the process because of unpredictable failures in the program when it comes to solid operations. A lot of work-arounds are usually called for. With the improved iges import function, it would be more rational to create the hull in a dedicated marine design program - or in a program like Solid Thinking, where the nurbs modelling functions are miles ahead of VW - and then import the geometry into VW for creating blueprints and presentations. Good luck

Or get an old version of Adobe Streamline for Classic. Its the best yet conversion programme and writes to DXF as well as EPS.

When I apply an image resource to a floor object - and use the same image in a texture for 3D purposes, the floor object will not render in 3D views, but becomes invisible.

Sometimes I want to select a 2D/3D hybrid object, that is stacked behind others. I do this by restacking several objects, which is time consuming and tedeous. I would like to be able to hold down a modifier key, when I click with the selection tool, and get the option to select between all objects, that are stacked in that location. The ideal dialogue would be similar to the one, that allows me to choose between different surfaces for setting working plane by highlighting them.

I second that.

try add-solid two shapes, use the extract tool to get the wavy path, and use this path to do the extrude along path command.

You can import them directly as image files, but the resolution is quite low. Or you can open them in Photoshop or similar program and export them as you already know. If you've got Acrobat (not the reader), alt-click the image and you will get the option to open it in an image editing program of your choise. Then save them as jpegs. Or you can take a partial screendump (with mac thats alt-shift-4) - the resolution will be dependent of your monitor resolution and the zoom level. I use Snapz Pro for this purpose, because it allows me to put the screendump on the clipboard and paste it directly into VW. Are the PDF's pixelbased? - if not, you can open them in Illustrator and export the paths as DWG-files. That would save you from tracing them by hand.

1. Smooth transitions on polygonbased meshes (with option for setting smoothing angle) 2. Environmental map 3. soft-edged shadows 4. copy/paste or drag'n'drop from within texture dialogues 5. Emission or glow factor as texture parameter instead of just 'constant'. Some of these wishes, I have stated several times over the latest years with no respons from anyone - least of all Nemetschek Is it just me, that would like to see these fairly basic features in the program?

Lynda: No - I have tried the same and not been successful, but there are ways around it: 1. Import the image as a renderworks background. Remember, that the scale of background images are 1:1, when setting the size. With this method, you cannot control the precise location of the 2D image - it will allways center on the page. 2. Use viewports. You van stack them anyway you want. To get the white areas of the 3D rendering transparent, chose the viewport and set the colour to transparent in the atributes palette. 3. Mikes method.

You can import 'textures' as an image ressource, and 'map' them to a 2d shape. Use the ressource palette to create image ressources and the attributes palette to specify and map them. For reasons best left unsaid, you can not use regular textures as image ressources - the two ressource types are totally incompatible although they are used in much the same way... ( #?*% - there - I said it anyway) Good luck

Reminds me of a quite different wish: The ability to replace any kind of object with a symbol of your choise. Strata used to have this feature, which is great with imported files.

I think you will get a much more predictable result by using the sweep comand with a pitch value. You can sweep the entire spiral by setting the sweep value higher than 360?.

There seems to be a limit to how many successive layers of transparent surfaces, the application can handle in final quality renderworks. Try using custom renderworks, and set the 'recursion level' to 5 or 6, while keeping the other settings at the best levels. If this doesn't cure the problem, I have no further ideas.

I agree. Another benefit would be the ability to import bezier shapes from Illustrator or other applications without breaking and redefining the curves. Perhaps it would also make it possible to transform nurbs curves into 2D bezier curves in stead of polylines.

Sometimes I need to touch up a rendering placed in VW. In Acrobat I can contol-click a bitmap image and open it in an image editing program of my choise. When I am done editing, the image is updated in Acrobat. Why not place a similar function in VW? It would be even nicer, if I could also edit textures in this way.