Lovely! I should be so lazy!
thanks.

@mike amos said:

"What I found is that programs, such as Doublecad XT are frequently old versions of AutoCAD with some elements removed".

Sorry but that is rubbish. Doublecad is actually produced from the Turbocad engine and nothing to do with autodesk or its products.

Ok, well, I am not a developer. Nonetheless, my investigations did show that the programs I investigated (all the free and cheap autocad substitutes available at the time) had some but not all of the commands of AutoCAD, and also most had UIs indistinguishable from AutoCAD. The important point, from my perspective, was that I am trained in and use AutoCAD every day, so a substitute had to do what I needed doing. And these cheap/free programs frequently had missing some of the most useful commands, (also from my perspective). I looked for my notes just now in order to document my comments here. Alas, I am one of the people who throws things out.....

Donna

@escapeartist said:

Nice find! Downloading...

BTW, don't forget about Doublecad XT, also free: http://www.doublecad.com/Products/DoubleCADXTv3/tabid/1100/Default.aspx

Downloaded that and in the recommended section these showed up:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/arquimedes/?source=recommended for architects, CAD.
http://brlcad.org/ open source solid modeling.

The internet rocks, all these folks creating great stuff.

A couple of years ago I spent a week or two researching all available free and inexpensive CAD programs. What I found is that programs, such as Doublecad XT are frequently old versions of AutoCAD with some elements removed. I assume that enough elements are removed to get around copyright issues, but I do not know for sure. Anyway, what I ended up doing, and what I recommend others do, is make a list of the CAD features you use the most. Especially the commands you use every day. Make sure they are still in the CAD you are considering. You will probably have to download the trials to check. When I did all that, I found there were no substitutes that would work for me, waited for a sale, and bought AutoCAD LT. I, of course, use SU for 3D. On the other hand, I am checking this FreeCAD out asap. thanks.

@alan fraser said:

Hi Donna,
Assuming that you mean different materials..

Well, well, well, Alan. You may just have given me the reason to blow the however many hundred bucks for the Pro version!
Many, many thanks, this is welcome information.
Donna

@tig said:

NO.
But my 2D Tool's Freehand does allow you to set the segment length...
Search the Plugins Forum for it..............

Sure will, Tig, thanks for the info.
Donna

It seems I always need to show materials options, is there any way to toggle materials? I have always thought not, but have not kept up with ruby development lately....
I do know workarounds that involve copying parts of the model to be toggled to different layers, etc.....
Thanks
Donna

Is there a setting to control the node spacing when using the freehand tool?
Thanks
Donna

@alan fraser said:

You could also throw in a few billboard trees to complete the picture. Unfortunately, SU doesn't throw proper shadows from transparent pngs...and it would be too costly to actually cut around the forested areas in order to fake them. So you're left with rather unrealsitically hovering areas of woodland...unless rendered. But you could certainly cover large areas of ground like this.
Here's a quick example. The filesize will get big very quickly, because of the inclusion of multiple 1024x1024 pixel pngs, but it shouldn't affect performance too much.

well, ok, Alan, now we're cooking. I was thinking actually of taking the aerial into AutoCAD, drawing clouds around the the wooded areas, in plan. Then I would import to SU, push/pull each cloud up to the tree height, paint the tops with canopy paint and the sides with elevations of forest edge, and drop to the topography. The extruded clouds would cast shadows, too. I have supposed the weight of painting the sides of the extrusion would be too high, though. your hovering idea is really good. I could make the clouds, intersect with the hovering topo, and paint. I would only have to have the extrusion verticals in places along the area of most interest, in this case the river.

Well, if there is more to say, I welcome it. If not, thank you thank you. I am off to the client meeting right now, and I actually will have something useful to say, I believe.
all best
Donna Lilborn, ASLA
http://www.donnalilborn.com

Hello everyone
OK, maybe I can't model a forest with individual trees. If I need half a million or so. So does anyone know anything about bulk modeling forest areas, like some kind of bubble model painted in tree paint? or whatever? I remember discussions of this sort of thing years ago on the old SketchUp forums (fora?) before Google.......but I don't remember anything specific.

Meantime, Alan, I still want to know how you saw that there were so many edges in my model. Entity info window does not pick that up. Where do I find that out?
Donna

@rickgraham said:

Pardon me for jumping in but I have a question on these trees and shadows in general. Please see my attached picture. The shadow doesn't project correctly unless I'm doing something different.

Rick

Rick, you are right. The shadow casting part of the component is not properly lined up, my bad. If you put file in monochrome mode, you can see and select the shadow casting component, and move it to line up better.
Donna