Posts made by Glenn at home

Well Tom, two years I worked for a builder/developer and that is exactly how I would do it. The plans and elevations would get developed and finished and then I would build a 3D model for use as marketing material. Sure with SU you can do the model 1st or the other way around. It just depends on which way you want to go. No right or wrong, just find the way that works best for you.

Wow, so simple that I did not see it. I looked and tried everything BUT that
Thanks so much

Glenn

Your card cannot work with the widescreen, you will need a newer card. I had to do the same. I had a FX5200 and had to buy a GF6600 GT to use my 22" widepanel. The amount of ram has nothing to do with it but more will be better. I will assume that you are one an AGP slot like my home unit has since you have a 5700 card. Yes get a newer card. This should solve the problem.

Is there a way to do this? I have a model that I downloaded from the warehouse and I want to edit a texture used in a material but I cannot figure out how to extract the texture from the material. Any one have an idea on this? TIA

Glenn (at home)

I have bought both a GameCube and a GBA for my 7 year old. They are great systems and have a good selection of kid friendly games. I felt the GC had a larger selection than the PS2 (at the time) or the XBox. I am planning on getting the adapter that will allow him to play GBA games on the GC.

@unknownuser said:

Well after much harrasment I've got SU and a few other programs working on Vista. ACAD is a non starter though. I have to say though there are a few useful tools in Vista but not many.

I had to right click the ACAD icon and set it to run in compatibility mode (WinXP) and with Admin. rights to get Acad-07 to run in Vista. It really only took a few minutes on the AutoCAD site to find out how. What version are you running?

@unknownuser said:

I have been reading this thread with interest as my loyal five year old Sony Vaio laptop died running XP died last week. It cannot be upgraded as it is physically impossible to fit any more stuff inside. It has served me well, handling 3d apps, graphics, CAD etc. So I need a new machine.
I have always had PCs but I will probably buy a mac.

Well, you will not be able to upgrade hardly "any" laptops Mac or PC. Kind of a null point to me. There are PC laptops that can be upgraded. Dell precision laptops have upgradable video cards as do a few other high end models from other brands. Still expensive and not as easy as a desktop.

@unknownuser said:

The reasons being;

Mac users never look stressed, PC users often look very ill.

In the eye of the beholder I guess. My PC gives me no trouble so "your milage my vary" I guess

@unknownuser said:

Viruses are virtually unheard of for the mac. PC Virus protection is a license to print money for the likes of Norton, McAfee etc.

Norton and McAfee are virusus in my opinion. There are freeware virus programs that work better and use WAY less resources.

@unknownuser said:

Vista is just pretty, underneath it is still basically the same operating system that gave us Windows 95. Also I have yet to meet anybody who likes it.

Ok 2 things, if you don't like Vista don't use it. You are not forced to use it. XP can still be bought. There is nothing and I mean nothing from Win95 in Vista. Vista is built on technology from XP which was built on Windows 2000 which was built on Windows NT. XP has nothing to do with Dos, Win95, 98 or WinMillieum. They shared a similar look way back when but they are as different as OSX and OS9.

@unknownuser said:

Virtual PC for the Mac will run virtually every windows app including AutoCAD.

Virtural PC is now owned by MS and in fact they give it away free (minus the second OS). BootCamp and Parallels are better solutions if you own an Intel Mac.

@unknownuser said:

Macs are more expensive but the main reason for this is a smaller market share and ethical manufacture. Bill Gates, IBM and the rest do very nicely out of third world low paid labour.

Umm most if not all Macs come off the vary same assembly lines as do other PCs, from 3rd world countries. Dell is the only company I know of with US based assembly lines.

@unknownuser said:

My main reason is Microsoft have too much money and I can't use Linux.

And you think Apple is poor??

@unknownuser said:

That said I may be a hypocrit and still buy a PC if I can't afford a Mac.

Well if you want one get one. The good news is you won't be stuck since you can boot up XP with BootCamp. For me, the cost of the system plus having to buy all new software even with a discount off with having the PC version it is just not worth it to me. Honestly if Jobs would take some medication for his "Megalomaniac" problem and just make a damn consumer tower for $1,000 I would probably get one but I doubt he will.
I also wonder why effects his release of Safari for windows will have on the Macs low/no virus status. I have a theory that the macs security comes from it's obscurity (low market share) but with this more he moves to become more of a mrket share on the web and by also letting people code for Safari will this increase the likelyhood of attacks to this browser? Time will tell.

My point exactly. I needed a newer video card last year so I bought one and switched it. Same to be said with NICs and sound cards. I do not want a machine with hard wired components.

I honeslty believe it is so Apple can try to force hardware updates. Say you need a newer version of X (whatever cat name it is this year) but your video card is not up to snuff. Well just buy a new iMac. No thanks. The $100 a year updates for OSX is bad enough to me. IMHO

I would think that the responce in the hacker community of installing X on non Apple hardware would open their eyes. They could be a software company, really they could. Sell software and iPods. I would bet on a market share jump from under 5% to 15% or so in one year of releasing OSX to the masses. Though they would have to step up to drivers issues and such. That would be a challenge.

@unknownuser said:

exactly. the high end macs are amazing machines. no wonder most advertising agencies (at least their image processing depts) and video production companies use mostly macs.

my question is: why do not apple allow us who are not such power users to have machines that could be upgradeable? i do not need a super machine like the 8-core mac pro but i do need more than my emacs with a meager video card (32 Mb).

my current machine is an imac intel with a 128 Mb video card. but what if i need more than that in the future?

cheers.

Exactly my point Edson. I have an older Mac and it works fine as does my 2 older PCs as well as my current PC. They all "just work". I can use both just fine but I just prefer the PC (I guess I just prefer AutoCAD). Yes, you are stuck with what Apple wants you to have unless you buy the highend tower, which I don't need. I would imagine that this helps get Apple products selling. Need a better graphics card in your iMac? Well pony up and buy a new model. Only the high-end iMac can upgrade graphics and still imagine that it is expensive. Atleast now with the Intel macs we can buy upgrades to the CPU without having to be restrcited to a hand ful of vendors.

@unknownuser said:

hi glenn, come to think of it, you are damned right.

i have been a mac user for 12 years but only recently it dawned on me that unless you own the top apple model (the cheese graters) you are stuck with what they but inside the box. sometime ago i wanted to get a faster graphic card for one of my emacs but could not as it comes soldered to the motherboard (which cannot be upgraded either, by the way).

so far i have been quite happy with the many macs i have owned but what you mention is indeed a limitation. one wonders why apple does not do the obvious thing. perhaps now that they moved to intel they will start thinking differently.

cheers,

I honestly don't see how mac users have all of these "problems". BSODs and crashes left me the day I left NT 4.0 and went with Windows 2000 and XP has been even better. I simply don't have any issues. In fact to me windows just seems to be in the background, I see my applications and what I am doing.
I do wonder why Apple (Jobs) won't make a consumer tower? Why should non pro users be restricted to minis and all-in-ones? Dell, HP and others can make a Core2Duo box w/ XP for under $700 why can Apple make one for under $1000? (that's including the OSX tax ) They would sell like hot-cakes! I would consider getting one but not a mini or all-in-one that is restricted to upgrades (limited ram slots, non upgradable graphics, built in monitors) no thanks. Come on Steve make a consumer tower.

@daniel said:

Your welcome. Glad I could b helpful. Maybe that should be a request for the next version - a "change insertion point" option.

I think so. As you way be can tell I have an extensive Acad background and I think that having the ability to set the insertion point at time of block/component creation would be a great asset. Thanks again for the assistance

@daniel said:

Load your component into your model, right click and select "change axis". After changing the axis, if you look under the "in model" tab in the component browser, you will see your component with the revised insertion point - it will have the same name as the original component followed by #1 (#2, #3 and so on). You can then right click on it in the browser and select "save as" and save it to your component library.

Thanks Daniel. I must have missed the "change axis". I right clicked on the component and didn't see this. It was late and I am not surprised that I didn't see it
Thanks again

Is there a way to set a component's insertion point? This is pretty easy to do in AutoCAD but I just can't seem to find a way to do this in SU. Does anyone know of a way to set these? TIA

Glenn

That's actually a descent card. It scores better than my Quadro FX3450 here

@archi rag said:

hi, its an Nvidia Geforce 7900 GS 256, not 128 (my mistake)
someone also told me it might just be the processor speed thats slowing it down although modelling more carfully/purging unused, etc. should def keep things running smoothly
thanks for all your comment/help this forum is far eaier to navigate than the google groups one

@archi rag said:

i have posted this on the sketchup pro forums site as well sorry to spam :S
hi i dont really know a much about computers but i want to improve the way my sketchup models run, at the moment i have
intel core 2 duo 2.4
2Gb RAM
& an Nvidea 128mb Gc
im assuming its the GC thats letting it down but wasnt sure which one to get i have mainly used Nvidea ones before and have been happy with the way they perform, any advice?

Well what model is your graphics card? Is it a GeForce or a Quadro? What model GeForce or Quadro? Just getting one with more ram might not always be a good thing if you are not also getting a better GPU on the card. Say you have a 128 mb Quadro FX1400 but swap it out for a 256 mb GF 7300 GS, not a good idea. Look here...

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=376&card2=175

I also agree that nVidia cards seem to be better but just research what you have before you make a purchase
Good luck

I tried the cab one over at the RudyDepot but not what a friend is looking for. I have turned another person on to SU (free version for him) and he is looking for a good imperial cabinet script. Anybody got one? TIA

Wow, that seems very cool!

@stu said:

Thanks Glenn.

I'm trying to cover all options......how about partitioning the hard drive, loading XP and dual booting....with all the Vista problematic apps. on the XP side??

Or how about getting really serious......formating Vista from the very start and loading a legit OEM version of XP Pro....OK, that's spending $200 to get peace of mind

And all you Mac guys had just better keep quiet!

Why did you get Vista to start with? Honestly most of the Vista horror stories are largely "self-inflicted".
Well the Macs went through this when moving from OS9 to OSX. It happens to us all at some point or another.

I have installed Acad 2007 on my boss's Vista Business laptop. Run in XP compatibility mode with administrative rights. It works fine after that. Good luck

Oh I like these too. Thanks for sharing