About the original problem: If you are using a Mac, you could try deleting the SU preferences file (plist file). A corrupt plist file is often the cause of export errors.

Anssi

@pav_3j said:

@perk said:

I've already said it but I'm saying it agian. I HATE working on models that other people have worked on!!!!!!!

I COULD NOT AGREE MORE
pav

And the wall drawn by my coworker was 0.2 mm off square!

Anssi

Hi All,

Chiefwoodworker forgot some of the important steps to printing to scale

1. Select Parallel projection (Camera menu)
2. Select one of the standard views (Camera menu or toolbar button)
3. Set your scale in the print dialog and print

This should get you a correct print within the tolerances of your printer.

To avoid page tiling, the best general idea is, as Chiefwoodworker said, to make your SU window match roughly the proportions of what your printer's print area, and to zoom in SU so that the window contains what you want to print, and what will fit on a single page to the desired scale.

Anssi

Stalker (or anything else by Tarkovski)
Spirited Away (or almost any Miyazaki animation)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Anssi

@unknownuser said:

Frankly, I think you're right. This is a surprisingly ugly design. Mental exercise: picture this house, if you like, next to a Neutra. May put things into perspective.

I think Bruce Goff did this in the 1940s already - using partly recycled materials.

Anssi

@unknownuser said:

I wish there was a more transparent way of having the whole model in VW, especially the colours and solid shapes, because it takes a lot of time to rebuild the drawing in VW.

I don't use Vectorworks, but people say many good things about it. I am just wondering if you have tried exporting your SU model as a 3D DWG file, and if VW could import that (or even 3DS-to preserve even the textures)

Anssi

Select a view that is oriented nearly perpendicular to the green/blue plane. Point with the rotate tool (protractor is for measuring angles) in empty space. The colour should change according to the plane. Hold down Shift, and place your rotation centerpoint.

Anssi

In fact I have to confess that I have never designed a log building except our first assignment at architecture school that was to design a small log sauna in full detail (still sweating after about 35 years). But as most of my work involves old (in the Finnish context)buildings I have to keep up some understanding of traditional building methods. As Gaieus correctly points out, most domestic building here was in logs until the 1940s, and in the earlier days also most public construction too. I am not sure if the Kerimäki church from the mid-1800s is still the largest log building in the world.

The kind of log construction using round logs is traditionally not very common here, except in outhouses and temporary buildings. Permanent buildings were made of hewn logs and boarded over. In modern times the "chalet" style has become more popular, first in summer cottages, later it has been the preferred style of the log house prefabricators.

Anssi

SU does not have oblique views, only isometric. Oblique views used to be quite popular in the hand drafting days, but I don't know of any 3D application that can do them.

Anssi

I don't think there is consistency in this. It's the same with punching holes: Draw a face, pushpull it to some thickness, draw a grid (with Windowizer, for instance) and push-pull one grid face to make a hole. Now start double-clicking on the rest of the squares. Most often than not, some of them do not make a hole, but leave two z-fighting faces instead, or then at some stage the bottom face of the box disappears completely.

Anssi

Sacrilege! Silicone sealant in a log wall
Traditionally the bottom groove of a log is shaped with a tighter radius to allow sealant material (moss or tarred hemp fiber from a used rope)to be placed within. The groove sides are shaped carefully to fit exactly on top of the lower log.

Anssi

This is a common graphics card issue, your card or driver is somewhat non-openGL compliant.

On a Mac you should see that you have the latest version of SU and all the OS updates installed.

On a PC

Upgrade your graphics driver

If that doesn't help, and if you have an ATI graphics card, you could try first turning off Fast Feedback in the Window>Preferences>OpenGL pane. This will not have a big impact on SU performance, but helped on my old ATI card.

If you have a motherboard-integrated Intel graphics chip (common on many laptops and office desktops) there is usually not much to be done, except turning Hardware Acceleration off, and sticking to small models. If your machine has the option, install a real graphics card, preferably Nvidia-based.

Anssi

Very fine model. The funny thing was that I kept guessing at its scale - I thought it was either something of an industrial scale, or something that sits on a laboratory desk. Seeing your last images with the people proved me quite wrong on both my assumptions

Anssi

Basically you should use a vector export format like DWG or PDF. You won't get textures or shadows, though. The basic rules:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9281

For raster exports it is different. Pixels do not have a scale. You can either print the images directly to paper or PDF using a PDF printer (still using a standard view, with Parallel Projection on), or do something in this line:

• Draw an empty rectangle around your model with dimensions you know.
• export the plan view with parallel projection to an image.
• open the image in photoshop
• trim away everything outside your "frame". Photoshop can do this automatically if you have an uniform background.
• now you can resize the image to the dimensions the frame should have, with or without resampling.
• if you need to you can now crop away the frame. Photoshop remembers your DPI setting so the image should remain at the correct scale.
• when printing from any application, remember to turn off all page scaling in the application or your print driver. For instance, Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat default to fitting the page to available printing area, which produces extra margins and a slightly downsized image

Anssi

@mr s said:

Depending how old you are, some of you may remember that in the 1970s the media were telling us how it was a proven scientific fact that that the world was going to end because of "Acid Rain" caused my modern industry. We were told that the scientific community were all agreed on this. I also remember the media campaign about the threat of AIDS. It got so scary that you felt the only way to survive was to become a Monk or Nun!

The threat in the 1970s was in fact very serious. In the Western countries the governments reacted to the increasing public pressure, and thanks to that the spreading of the poisons to the environment here is somewhat in control. For instance in our parts the large lakes were already in great danger from the wastes from the pulp and paper industry, but better waste processing has largely cleaned them up, with more efficient production methods as beneficial side effects.

The large industrial wastelands of the former Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe bear witness to what could have happened here too if things had continued the same for 25 years longer. For instance, the woods around Nikel in the Northwest Russia are quite dead in a large area, and the production of nickel is still going strong there. The same dangers are also still in effect in the third world.

So whether climate change can be stopped or not, I consider environmental protection to be the most important area that requires investment. Besides the need to limit carbon oxide emissions, a large part of the world's population is daily in need of a cleaner environment.

Anssi

Something like this happened to me too before something in my laptop died, most probably the graphics card, as it still works but the screen is garbled, and displays the same if I connect an external monitor.

Anssi

Bex,

I looked your machine type up, and most likely it has an Intel integrated video chip, so it is unlikely you can run it with hardware acceleration. An Nvidia card is an expensive option, but you might remember ordering it.

Your mouse might have the scroll wheel button set up to do something else than act as a middle (or third)button. You should be able to change it in your Mouse control panel. If you have a Logitech mouse, and have the Logitech software installed, you can also try uninstalling that and running your mouse with the standard autodetected Windows mouse driver.

Anssi

Artlantis has a clipping option. It is like a stretchable box, and everything outside it is hidden.

Anssi

@remus said:

Peter, of course it's raining, it's a bank holiday. It's traditional.

What's a bank holiday anyway? Are people forgiven their debts? You seem to be having a holiday too, are you all bankers? (ok, should look it up)

Anssi

Splendid composition with the latest. The split second when everything is silent.

Anssi