Kaare Baekgaard

Mapping textures with VW 11 is a nightmare. I have just spent 1/2 hour trying to apply a simple cylinder mapping with the atribute mapping tool as well as with the mapping dialogue, and I did not succeed. The former mapping tools were kinda clumsy, but this beats anything. Please Nemetchek: Fix it. A good suggestion would be an option to orient the map relative to the view in use when the mapping dialogue is invoked. But simply getting the rotate tools to work as they are supposed to would go a long way. Sorry for the ranting tone, but I am fairly pissed.

Top 5 wishes for 3D modelling: 1. Better 2D to 3D compatability: I'd like to be able to convert 3D nurbs curves into 2D splines and back again as I see fit. I'd like to have interactive weighting control by a slider or something like that. (I would wish to have weigting control of 2D splines as well.) 2. Some sort of 'hypernurbs' tool, that allows me to work with several nurbs surfaces at a time, keeping their edges stitched together. 3. I would like the extrude along path tool to become more tolerant of my design wishes. More than 50% of all attempts with this command fails. Also I would like a 'twist' function to be included, so I can twist the profile as it is extruded along the path. 4. The 'fillet edge tool' gives me error messsages all the time. In FormZ this tool is extremely tolerant, and will round almost anything. I'd like to see that in VW as well. 5. I would like to be able to move multible points on Nurbs curves with the '3D reshape tool'. Also I would like to be able to move the points relative to the screen instead og just the XYZ-coordinates. 6. Oops here is another one: Snap to the points and contours of a trimmed surface. Keep up the good work:-)

1. The extrude along path command is not really working too well. I try to avoid using it, because most often it will give me an error message. I would like this tool to become more tolerant of my design wishes. Also I would like a 'twist' function to be included, so I can twist the profile as it is extruded along the path. 2. The 'fillet edge tool' gives me error messsages all the time. In FormZ this tool is extremely tolerant, and will round almost anything. I'dd like to see that in VW as well. 3. I would like to be able to move multible points on Nurbs curves with the '3D reshape tool', and I don't understand why this remains an issue. 4. I'd like to be able to convert 3D nurbs into 2D splines and back. Regards

Got it. Thanks

I am in the process of learning how to deal with viewports. When I print fron a viewport layer, all I get is screen resolution on 'final quality renderworks' viewports. Where do I set the resolution for theese viewports? I can't find anything about it in the manual. Have I misunderstood something?

Nothing wrong with importing high res images, however. I do it all the time and it works fine.

If you have Adobe Illustrator, it can translate the information.

Check your class settings. Perhaps you have set the options other than 'show/snap/modify others'

Has a generic file exchange format that includes textures ever been discussed in the CAD software industry? I read that a couple of new formats have been included in the VW export menu. Is this for geometry only? If NNA is not planning to implement radiosity, perhaps you would consider an 'export all textures' as a submenu item for all 3D export functions, thus making a folder of textures?

Cloud Hidden: Saves you about 1/2 the total time. Thanks for the tip. This is new to me.

>It takes basically two hours to render my image file. I get the same within seconds ? or at most minutes. Are you a very heavy user of shadowcasting lights?

Hi Dave This is so cool. Interior lighting can really be a bitch, if you want your objects to cast shadows. This will certainly improve my renderings more than any other feature. >Dave writes: If you wanted certain walls/floors/ceilings to not cast shadows from the light, then yes I think this would do what you want. You could set all the walls to not cast shadows, but still receive shadows from the other objects in the room.

I usually use 'three point directional lighting' as basis, supplementet with a few point- and spotlights. This is a rather primitive light setup, but you get OK results fast and with little effort. In three point lighting the three major lightsources are all set to cast no shadow. Imagine the major lightsource to come in over your left shoulder. (Azim: -25, Elev: 35) This lightsource should be set to 75%, and the colour is white. The second lightsource points upwards from your right side (Azim: 85, Elev: -30), and should be coloured (very) slightly red and set to 40% intensity. The third lightsource comes from your front (Azim: -165, Elev: 10). It is couloured very slightly cyanblue and set to 50-60% intensity. This light will give a good depth feeling to the scene, but if you change the direction of the viewpoint more than 15-30 degrees, the lights will have to be rotated as well. On pointlights I use 'smooth' distance falloff, and I usually only cast shadows with spotlights. This method is certainly not the most photrealistic, but it is fast and reliable.

1. Textures can be set to Cast or Receive shadows. Hopefully this means I can use global directional lights to cast shadows in multible rooms instead of lighting each room separately?

The preview print button in the print dialogue will create af pdf-file ready to be saved as well. If you include placed renderings, it will tend to be rather large in size. You can use PStill or PDFSchrink afterwards to adjust the resolution.

Is the geometry all in one group?

You use Batch Rendering, I suppose? I usually name my batch rendering jobs with the same names as my sheets - except for an extra space. That way I have a good Idea of what is in the batch rendering dialogue. It is somewhat time consuming to set export options for each batch render job, because it does not remember the export settings - like the Export Image File does. I wish it did. And I wish I could just choose the sheets from within the Batch Render dialogues when creating jobs. Finally I wish I could include animations into a batch render - even animations created with Animationworks.

Dont care if it is inprecise - II want it. Please.

The link seems to take me the wrong place... What is this?

Also - also, it would be nice with a 'select similar' menu item with side menu options like 'same line weight' or 'same object type'. This would provide a fast alternative to the custom selection command for ordinary selection tasks.

No suggestions really, but you may want to try to change mapping stylefrom 'perimeter' to 'plane'?

I dont know if this is a Mac only problem. But if I use VW to create presentation pages and type in a lot of text, it looks quite horrible on the printout. If I use Quark, Illustrator - or even Powerpoint for the same task, the text of the printout looks nice. >I don't understand this. In programs which don't have character spacing adjustment, isn't the character spacing the same in one program as in another? That's the way it looks to me, at least on Windows machines. VectorWorks doesn't seem to have any effect on character spacing.

'The space between the characters themselves is an integral part of the font itself and so cannot (to my knowledge) be adjusted.' It can be adjusted in a number of programs - like Illustrator - but it is not a feature I would look for in a CAD program. I must say, however, that VW does the job rather poorly - with character spacing that is noticeable displeasing to the eye. I do wish, that VW would fix this for the next version.

If you do not have this option in the Model Menu, it may be because you need to include it in the workspace using the workspace editor. You can also use the sweep comand to create helix spirals, swrew thread etc.: Draw the shape of the section, place a locus to define the center of rotation, select the 'Model>sweep' comand and enter for example '7200?' as 'Arc Angle' and enter a value into 'Pitch', that corresponds with the added height of a single revolution of the helix spiral.

The snap tools work very poorly with nurbs surface corners. I wish they didn't