Jon, Interestingly enough (and I'm hardly a big fan of XP), the leaned-down version of the OS (made with nLite) takes up about half a gig lesson the Eee than the bespoke Xubuntu version. I suspect that I could do something about that if I was willing to kill off the Linux swap partition (there is page after page on the Eee forums about tweaking this sort of thing). But the Xubuntu is snappier in most respects, even if it won't recognize the USB camera. I do have AvoCADo bookmarked...I'll check it out again. You are correct about SU on Linux...I spoke with people in Boulder about it and they said they didn't have the manpower. I would actually like to see a Google Docs online CAD/modeler one day, though! I already use the other Docs applications regularly. Getting back to the Eee, though, I am finding that it is a nice little platform for coding...Java, in my case. using the Processing extension. I can sit at any table and just hack away, with wireless and the open-source media player VLC supplying the streaming industrial rock...and caffeine the inspiration. Perhaps the Java coding stuff will lead to something. Art of Illusion is entirely written in Java and has some nice capabilities.

Hi, I'm currently searching and evaluating SU/renderer combination. That's why i registered here. Here is a link to a site I found, with impressive cheetah renders Edit: after I made this post, I noticed that Tim Danaher, author of these renders, is a regular poster here.

I have succumb; not happy with this NVS card.... Anssi, I will look at the cards you mention.

I've been running SU on a laptop with Vista for five or six months now without any noticable performance issues. 2.2 Core Duo, 256Mb 8600 nVidia card.

I've read some posts elsewhere saying that the quad core is ideal for PS because of how it draws from memory, but I'm a strictly 2D CAD user and my SU modeling isn't THAT intense. So that's cool... I just wanted to be fairly confident that I wasn't going to be shooting myself in the foot with this system. Thanks, remus!

Problem solved by changing video card from the HD2600 to Nvidia 8600GTS. Thanks for all of the replies. Greets from Spain

I'm in agreement that it certainly isnt runing on multiple processors, i just thought it was a bit of a curiosity

64-bit Windows by default can access up to 128 Gb Ram. I have 8Gb Ram on my system running XP-64 and bios and windows regognise all. Laptops are another story. Regards, George

@kwistenbiebel said: In some cases it could be a benefit that export would be done in phases, in 'chunks', so the RAM can be cleared somewhere in between. The generated mesh .xml files could automatically be merged into one geometry file. I don't know if what I describe is possible..... What we would do is write the geometry to a file - this is what exporters like KT do - and then read the file with a separate process. So the RAM usage during export would be minimal. However, we want to make sure that the two processes are communicating. For instance if we change brightness settings in the render window, we want to remember those settings in SketchUp so we can reuse them. Or, If you change the view or some other setting - like sun brightness - in SketchUp you would like to modify the rendering without saving and reloading the geometry. We are researching the best way to have two separate processes be aware of each other and communicate, and then we will run some tests - such as exporting a large model to a file - to see if it will be of value to separate the processes. (But this thread is not just about rendering - we have similar problems in our export to 3D PDF application, in our Component Reporting application, etc.)

Seems there is something you have not in toshop! With Piranesi you can paint in "3D" above your SU model! And add directly in "perspective" models, personnages etc in 3D with automatic shadows That can be useful Hum hum I was not up to date You can also in Toshop cs3 extend But maybe not so much integrated with the SU Models!! (no skp or dwg formats ; And I am not sure that shadows castings to another volume exist but you can see the video of each programs

Yes, the problem is that you would use it with your left hand, with the mouse still being used in the right (or vice versa). The problem for most of us is that our left hand is already permanently parked over the Shift/Ctrl keys, so it just tends to get in the way. Some people have reported that they prefer it...or at least its big brother which actually has keys built-in...but I've just found it less intuitive. It works a charm in other stuff like Google Earth or even navigating large images.

Have a look at the famous Julie Dillon tutorials with photoshop: http://www.howtodrawmanga.com/tutorial.html

Hi Edson, I think its a matter of saving the possible 'downloaded' file or whatever in Mac US and then the little image shows up in the file! Mike

I'm becoming very impressed with this whole Google Docs package system, including this spreadsheet application. If only I could be one of the few who could currently work on my "Docs" off-line. http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=92781&topic=13769 When it does work, that means I will have a decent office package through my browser...available on any computer I use, even my subnotebook Eee where storage space is so precious. One of my students a few semesters ago was a Google employee, and she did all of her presentation work for her final project through the Google Docs presentation application...it was at least as effective as what the other students did with Powerpoint or Layout, without the inevitable problems of either... Wouldn't it be really nice if there was a CAD-type program (a web-based version of SketchUp, perhaps) that worked like this?

@unknownuser said: http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&thread.id=116332&view=by_date_ascending&page=1This just proves you don't really care about what your customers and what people think about you. anyway i'm not creative user anymore.

Yep Bob, Canvas 11 is the current version of Canvas. The company that owns the software have decided in their wisdom not to upgrade the Mac version of Canvas But since I've moved to Mac I tend not to use it as much as I did when on Windows and I have found a number of small compact programs that do the bits and pieces that Canvas did for me AND they open in a second Canvas is what I'd call 'a jack of all trades' piece of software. I'd be interested in hearing how you get on with it. Mike

Obviusly didnt try hard enough with windows movie maker then, i just made a bit of a mess really. I'll have to have a play around with both of them. Thanks guys.

thank you it is interesting.

You have a point their Dylan, I guess you have to look at it in the grand scale of thing now and the unforeseen future. It's just mind blowing how fast technology moves now a days. You get the latest gear and two months later it's obsolete already.

While you are collecting them I prefer Directory Opus. I you can view folders and their contents in the same window - but it's not technically a folder tree as you can't selectively close folders. On the other hand the view and find capabilities are exceptional and you may not need to do that. Bob