John - excellent work, as always. Brings back fond memeories of trips to Eddie Rigg's corner shop in Nab Lane, Mirfield. Tasked to run there and back by Mum in time for tea with some essential ingredient. The reward was my choice of whatever I wanted from the Penny Tray. Sadly converted to a house now.

Hope that you don't mind, but I had a go at your rendering with FotoSketcher - the vintage photo option seemed like it would be very effective on this scene!

Just the half-woman leaving the scene to the left strikes an awkward note.

Hugin may do the job - http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

...but it is also designed for panoramas.

Architects fees are usually based on a percentage of the construction cost - not always easy to define with some clients. Using a rate per square foot would seem to be a sound alternative to arrive at a base figure where the construction cost is indeterminate. True, not as accurate as a proper costing exercise, but good enough for a ball park figure.

Using a percentage figure is archaic these days and the RIBA no longer issue percentage fee scales. This makes sense in a time of volatile construction costs and serious competition - especially when clients faced with tenders that are too high expect the architect to do MORE work to REDUCE construction costs (and REDUCE their fee.) Much better to give proper consideration to the amount of work that will be required to complete the architectural design and to offer a lump sum fee.

Years ago, a major practice that I worked for did just this - we sat down and scheduled our work load for the project, including all of the staffing resources at the appropriate wage rates; totted up the cost, added a profit margin and contingency, and expressed this as a percentage figure in the fee bid rather than just giving the RIBA percentage scale figure.

@bupaje said:

Wow, amazing.

Maybe in the future we will have live tracking of ships via GPS so we can watch your ship models moving on Google Earth.

Not Google Earth, but....

http://www.shipais.com/currentmap.php?map=uk

You really have to admire the effort that some people put into 01/04 (alright - 04/01 for the Americans)....

This is an April Fool thing, right?

The alternative would be too incredible...

I managed 15 seconds...

I had problems with All-In-One myself and don't use it. I use custom settings now and it would be worth experimenting with these.

Try setting the capture mode to Window and make sure that you select the Sketchup window before beginning the capture. The whole process of selecting the capture region in the latest version of Snagit is a pain and I did find that it would work OK for the first capture, then would only work again if I closed Snagit and re-started it.

For live screen capture you should check out Camtasia Studio rather than Snagit - it has many more features.

However - I've just run my own tests and managed to get cursor capture working every time when recording Sketchup orbit.

I suspect that the problem is likely to be wrapped up in the profile that you are using during capture. It took me more than a while of playing with profiles to get Snagit capturing just what I wanted.

When you are ready to capture your video, take a look at the Snagit Capture>Input menu. The Include Cursor option is on both the top level menu and in the sub-menu - do you have it checked in both?

That featured on an episode of Grand Designs. For me, the finished building is an architectural tour-de-force, but does not appeal as a home.

The kind of gift that you would give as a hint ...

Have a look at Google Warehouse - there will probably be something suitable there. Use search terms such as "industrial" or "warehouse" or "pallet rack".

There are a number of services that give you a new SIM, but still use your own phone numbers at cheaper rates when travelling.

This is one of them - http://www.ulyssemobile.com/US/

I've not used this one, but you should find plenty of options with a quick search on Google.

@mitcorb said:

Thanks, TIG:
I am completely lost on what the vertical fixture is next to the door, attached to the horizontal cable(?).

That would be the incoming electricity supply. Not done that way these days of course!!

@tig said:

@mitcorb said:

Perhaps the floral items are a bit edgy. Can they be softened? How would one do that?

Thanks, Oli:
What I mean is, wouldn't it be nice to have a projecting awning or other porch structure while you are hauling groceries and fumbling for keys in a downpour?

These cottages are [originally] for 'poor' people.
Better quality dwellings in the UK usually have porches or even lobbies on the front door to protect you from the rain and cold air...

I knew it! I'm poor.

This is a WIP from a model of my own 106 year old Yorkshire terrace house. I MUST put up a rain canopy.

Bonnie Roskes at http://www.3dvinci.net/ has lots of resources for teaching kids that you should take a look at.

Excellent tutorial - really useful, thank you.

Hi - just ran your image through FotoSketcher using the Vintage Photo filter. Quite like the result!

The Japanese company (IFX) always owned the IP for Piranesi (and MicroGDS) but only distributed within Japan itself.

They withdrew the rights from the UK based Informatix Software International Ltd (ISIL) in October. ISIL were developing, supporting, and distributing the products world wide under licence. With no revenue stream from these products, ISIL is now in liquidation. The situation is very messy, and for a time Piranesi activation was unavailable (it is back on-line now.)

The new web sites are http://piranesi.co.uk/ and http://microgds.co.uk/ and you should find the downloads and other information there.

I'd recommend that you join and keep an eye on the forums at http://www.informatixsoftware.com/forums/

I'd also recommend that you join LinkedIn and keep an eye on the Piranesi User Group and MicroGDS User Group there (where the matter has several live discussions.)

The user database does not seem to be available to IFX, so the forums and LinkedIn user groups are the main channel of communication for the time being.

...at least it made me laugh on an otherwise dismal day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI
[flash=480,390:1gc2mq4w]http://www.youtube.com/v/kAG39jKi0lI&rel=0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3[/flash:1gc2mq4w]