BONZAI 3D RELEASED
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moi looks sweet.. but, i'm on macs and i've asked m.gibson about the future of moi and other platforms...
@unknownuser said:
I wish I could do it, but it is just not going to be feasible to get it done
anytime soon.i have wenatchee which is the mac rhino beta and i just can't get into it.. i'll try for a day or two but then give up realizing the major commitment required to get to know the program.. i sometimes think that once it's out of beta i will take a few classes and learn it properly.. if you're saying rhino and sketchup work more_or_less seamlessly together then you've just made my commitment that much stronger.. with my version of rhino though, i can't import a .skp file or export to it.
with bonzai, all their videos were made on macs so that makes me feel a little better about the app.. i'm not too concerned with how popular the product is because if it does what i want it too then that's fine..
[edit] or maybe we're talking about something different when it comes to supporting each other's files.. i'm not talking about guaranteeing i can open a bnz file 10 years from now.. i'm talking about opening a bnz file in SU today
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Jeff, its not very feasible to open SU files in rhino/moi/bonzai as they are all NURBS modellers whereas sketchup works in polygons. Basically this means the models youd get from converting a sketchup file to a rhino/moi/bonzai file are very hard to manipulate using the toolsets of a NURBS modeller.
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i'm pretty sure you can work with meshes in all those programs too.. well, bonzai you can and i think rhino too.
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fwiw, it's mainly SUs lack of nurbs that has me looking elsewhere.. what i'd like to do is something like:
do all my blocky stuff in SU the take key parts of that into a nurbs modeler to build the weird surfaces. then back into SU as a mesh.and who knows, maybe after i learn a different app i'll ditch SU alltogether but i don't really see that happening... it's just too quick and plenty accurate for a lot of the stuff i need to draw..
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@unknownuser said:
i'm pretty sure you can work with meshes in all those programs too.. well, bonzai you can and i think rhino too.
Fair enough, i havent got any experience with rhino and bonzai, so i was just going form what ive seen in MoI and solidworks.
If your looking for quick and easy NURBS id seriously consider MoI, its pretty light weight and fast and has very good Su export, so could fit nicely in to an MoI->SU work flow with a bit of playing around.
edit: doh, forgot you where in a mac.
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Remus, for that Jeff needs to switch to... gasp... Microsoft Windows. Don't worry, Jeff, Windows is not that bad nowadays. You can always use dual boot. (or vmware? Oli uses it for windows apps)
Jeff, I tried to do what you are describing (Main app > secondary app > main app) with ArchiCAD and other modelers years ago, but it's just too tiring having to export > import > cleanup all the time. I guess I've just grown lazy. Back in my ArchiCAD days I used an external renderer with it, but now I prefer integrated ones in SU.
But if Bonzai fits the bill and you don't see yourself "bootcamping" or "vmwaring" anytime soon, then go for it and tell us how it turns out.
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@ecuadorian said:
Remus, for that Jeff needs to switch to... gasp... Microsoft Windows. Don't worry, Jeff, Windows is not that bad nowadays. You can always use dual boot. (or vmware? Oli uses it for windows apps)
ha, learning a new OS sounds way worse than a new app
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i just missed the whole windows thing somehow.. i grew up with macs and most of my friends/associates use apple computers as well.. nyc is fairly mac-centric so maybe that has something to do with iti do think if i could automatically know any application, i would pick rhino but with what i need software for, i don't think the amount going into mastering it is worth it.. or, maybe i'm misunderstanding it and it's not so hard to learn afterall ?? i mean, if it's only twice as hard as sketchup to learn then that's fine..
bonzai however seems like a familiar app to me.. it doesn't seem like a daunting undertaking to get into it and produce some drawings i can actually use for something..
i just wish someone else from this forum would guinea pig it instead of me
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so, bonzai will import .skp just fine (well, as long as it's version SU6.. they say something is wrong with GSU7 files for them to be able to incorporate them ?)
fwiw, this is exactly the type of stuff that i'd like to draw in another app besides SU because even with some of the rubies out there, this still requires a lot of work to do cleanly and accurately..
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Jeff, I apologise for the shameless plug, but have you had a look at Punch software's ViaCAD? Worth mentioning because of the terrible lack of good CAD on OS X. ViaCAD (or VC as we users know it as), has very powerful surfacing tools, some of which, are derived from CATIA technology. VC has translators for SketchUp (as well as AutoCAD and Inventor and many others), costs $99 and works on a Mac too (I use both OS's, but know what I prefer!
). VC actually looks like a mature Mac app (not Cocoa, but near enough with floating tool bars and drop down menus from the top of the screen), unlike Bonzai, which to me, looks like a bad PC-to-Mac port.ViaCAD also has a big brother called Shark FX, which costs a bit more, but has far more advanced parametric, surfacing and CAM tools. You'll also be forgiven for thinking that they both look like Ashlar Vellum or TurboCAD, because VC originally started out being licensed to these companies. I think that VC makes an excellent partner for SketchUp (so does QCad, but that is a different story!)
regards,
Tom
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hey tom,
yeah, i remember hearing about punch a few ago but never really looked into it..
$1700 is pretty much outside of my price range (sharkFX) but the $250 viacad pro is doable.. especially if this 'tangent covers' tool does what i'm thinking it will!
http://www.punchcad.com/products/viacadprov6_features.htmthanks for the reminder. i'll definitely get the demo and try it out.
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