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    Recent Best Controversial
    • RE: Bonzai 3D First Impressions

      I dislike the Bonzai UI. It's not as bad as FormZ in UI, but it's not particularly intuitive. I haven't had that much time to play with it (between crashes), but there are simply too many tools doing too many very similar things. That breakdown of the selection tool (in every other modern modeler) into three different tools is really annoying. I really do think of Bonzai as a rebranded and repriced version of its ancestor...it's "FormZ Lite."

      I can make Rhino do what Bonzai does already (including the implicit history bit), and Rhino will do dimensions and in fact function as a full-out 2D CAD program as well as a NURBS modeler. Rhino doesn't have a UI any more fluid than Bonzai, but at least I know enough about it to teach it. And Rhino 5 is supposedly around the corner (relatively speaking), with realtime shadows and more parametrics. Who knows? Perhaps I already have my SketchUp killer, and have for the last 8 years.

      posted in Hardware
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Bonzai 3D First Impressions

      @bonzai3d support said:

      We would also like to take this opportunity and express our respect for the SketchUp application. We have no interest in "killing" it. On the contrary, we expect SketchUp and b3d to compliment each other and hopefully this will be made easier when SketchUp evolves to the next level, as many of you have been requesting. Of course, you can also expect b3d to continue evolving as we hear feedback from you, and our other users.

      Mmmm...at the AIA convention earlier this year, the word at your booth was not killing--I'll grant you that. It was replacement. When I casually expressed some skepticism concerning this, I inadvertently provoked an awkward scene that was witnessed by other members of this forum and which is best left undescribed further.

      Now that we have all become a little more pessimistic about the future of SketchUp (it can't coast on Rubies forever), I'll also grant that the time is ripe for a replacement. So I will give your program a few more tries as time permits and try to figure out what I did that crashed it. But I agree with Tim's earlier opinion that there is a lot here that is obviously derived from FormZ. And I once quit a well-paying job with a visualization firm for an intern architect's negligible salary when it became obvious that my destiny was to be the "FormZ guy" for the rest of my time in that visualization firm. I've never regretted that decision, ever. I'm staring right now at the long-unused dongles for about $4k worth of various earlier versions of FormZ that were purchased using my own not-very-great savings. I keep them around to remind me of this so-often-overlooked fact: it's not what a program can do, it's what a person can comfortably do with the program.

      posted in Hardware
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Bonzai 3D First Impressions

      Oh, Geez. LoLspeak in my CAD programs. It's bad enough having twenty-pound black tomcats running around the home and office and making tasty snacks of expensive computer cables. Do they have to write computer programs now too? (That could explain a lot about Banzai, come to think of it.)

      http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/funny-pictures-your-cat-has-a-creepy-laugh.jpg

      posted in Hardware
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Photoshop CS4 Can Render...

      Not easy at all. Each 3D layer contains a separate imported or manufactured set of 3D objects as a Scene. Between layers, you can share cameras ("custom views") and positions, but in other respects they exist in separate but visible spaces. Camera and positioning controls are extremely hard to manipulate, so it makes sense to import camera positions from the modeler (I use 3DS with SketchUp as an camera import mechanism.)

      There are several quite nice features, though. Although there is a "Render for final output" setting that can take time to calculate like any other renderer, most of the time you can simply go with "Best Anti-alias" settings for a 3D scene and at any moment (WYSIWYG) flatten it to a standard Photoshop bitmap file (and thus any bitmap format). Also, 3D layers can be converted to Photoshop Smart Objects or placed as such in another file, where you can apply standard Photoshop filters and adjustments to them. The image in my previous post actually applies several adjustments and smart filters to a smart object containing an imported OBJ file from SketchUp, to give it that odd and fairly unique rendering style. The light sources are also present within that particular 3D layer. But the mountains behind are from a 'shopped photo of the site for the project. The sky is actually a 3D object, too: a "3D Postcard" tilted to create the illusion of recession, also converted to a smart layer with smart filters.

      It is possible, if you import a textured file into PSCS4 XT, to edit the textures themselves as separate placed Photoshop files. Unfortunately, it seems that this is only really useful if you are extremely careful with setting up the UV mapping (texture positioning) before importing the model into PS. In the attached image, the graffiti on the stone was painted on the texture in Photoshop, and of course it appeared in 3D on the 3D layer using the texture. The background is a separate 3D layer of a mesa imported from Google Earth.


      monolith7j-kilroy-20081022.jpg

      posted in Extensions & Applications Discussions
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Bonzai 3D First Impressions

      Pretty unstable...orbit camera control stopped almost immediately. Unintuitive, cumbersome tools. And to make selection with a crossing window requires you to choose another tool, on a flyout toolbar? Ouch.

      Hmmm. Why in the world do they have to spell NURBS Nurbz ? Daft retrograde FormZ terminology!

      Oops, crash.

      Not ready for prime time.

      But, since when did the general public get to see a SketchUp beta release? We have to give them that much credit.

      posted in Hardware
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Bonzai 3D First Impressions

      For software,

      @unknownuser said:

      A big part of my workflow with SU now involves searching for scripts to do what SU, in my opinion, should have come with. This is getting tiresome, and I think beginning to start to push people away from SU to something with some 'out of the box' power, or at least keep looking for that 'sketchup killer'
      .

      that amounts to "jumping the shark."

      posted in Hardware
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Bonzai 3D First Impressions

      Server practically Slashdotted.

      If nothing else demonstrates that SketchUp has "jumped the shark", that does.

      posted in Hardware
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Photoshop CS4 Can Render...

      No, not useless.


      just-uprights-20090126-copy.jpg

      posted in Extensions & Applications Discussions
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: SU 7, yay or nay?

      Nay. What a shame!

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Google Sketchup Pro 7 is out

      Try it.

      I've always considered spreadsheet algebra (which is what constrains the DCs) to be one of those tasks associated with a part of architecture that I simply do not want to be a part of...the bookkeeping, schedule-writing, soul-sucking part.

      Well, I'm off to learn something else.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Google Sketchup Pro 7 is out

      Remus, even with the advancements Layout is a toy. My architecture students have nearly universally preferred Google Docs' simple "Presentation" application to Layout for any number of perfectly valid reasons besides simple stability, and no firm I have worked with uses anything less than Illustrator or InDesign for formal document preparation or Powerpoint or Flash for presentation.

      The manpower/hours should have been spent on the core application.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Google Sketchup Pro 7 is out

      Ah, the receipt arrived and now I have my license to MOI...

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Google Sketchup Pro 7 is out

      I was actually thinking of applying the upgrade fee to a full license to MOI instead.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Google Sketchup Pro 7 is out

      Plenty of other modelers (I have at least three now...Caligari, 3DS Max, and Groboto, and will have four when Rhino 5 is available) institute multiple-light, real-time shadowing in a way that is not affected by the Shadow bug. Max costs $3500, Caligari is free, and Groboto is $80.

      No excuse.

      No modeling application is "perfect," but I would argue that SketchUp has moved farther away from perfection with this release.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Congratulations Lewis Wadsworth

      I thought it was a bit odd, but they did the same thing the first time they published me last year, with that Pavilion for Oblivion thing. I received the impression that the authors of other projects were actually interviewed in some cases.

      But I'm not complaining...just remarking on the "surprise." After all, if the webcounter can be trusted on Friday approximately 50,000 AIA members at least opened an issue graphically headlined by one of my projects. I wasn't looking for any publicity when I started working on this "fantasy," but I'm happy enough for the recognition.

      posted in Corner Bar
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: Congratulations Lewis Wadsworth

      Thanks, everyone. I'm sorry, I hadn't checked the SCF bulletin board for a while, and didn't see this thread. As Julian noted, I did post a version of this "project", practically identical to the one in the article, in the gallery forum a while back:

      http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=11391

      I didn't find out I was "published" until Friday afternoon, incidentally. The editor of the newsletter explained to me, when I asked her why I wasn't notified, that "They wanted to surprise me."

      posted in Corner Bar
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: SketchUp and Rubies on Linux (yes, it works)

      Thanks, Mozzie. I also could not export to PNG on the old Dell notebook, although JPG worked well. And of course, I lost functionality on other native apps that depended on DRI, like certain screensavers and some of the eyecandy on the Amarok music player.

      In the end, it's not worth doing on this particular aging notebook computer...with a fairly big model (which will run just fine on WINE on a computer with an 8-series GeForce), turning on textures and shadows in SU nearly froze the system. And even once I managed to force SU/WINE to quit, the computer was hopelessly sluggish until I restarted it. Oh well. I'm sure on a more modern system with ATI or integrated graphics this will be of great value. But it seems like the NVidia cards are still the best bet for a system to run SU on Wine on Linux without too much functionality loss, assuming one has the option...at least until the poster you quote tracks down the problem.

      posted in Developers' Forum
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: SketchUp and Rubies on Linux (yes, it works)

      Mozzie, I'll have to try that as well on the Dell notebook...could you provide a link to the relevant WINE forum threads? Thanks.

      EDIT: It worked! ...on a Dell Inspiron XPS P4 3.40 GHz with some nameless ATI Radeon with 256 MB VRam, about four years old. There is a strange white box around the cursor, but otherwise SU looks normal...I won't have a chance to test this with real drawings for a few days, though. (Incidentally, this computer had bad ATI/OpenGL issues running SU on Windows...I've always considered it a piece of junk.)

      The toolbar problem seems to be caused by allowing the Window Manager "to control the window" in the Configure WINE control panel. However, unchecking the option can cause worse issues...on my systems, it seems that toolbars that are not docked or pallet windows (like Materials) that were open prior to the WINE configuration change will vanish until the desktop manager is allowed to manage SU again.

      posted in Developers' Forum
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: SketchUp and Rubies on Linux (yes, it works)

      I have yet to be able to get SU to work on WINE with a Radeon at all...it rarely even works well on Windows, after all, with ATI cards, and the tech support people in Boulder will confirm that. Please let me know if you figure it out.

      posted in Developers' Forum
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      lewiswadsworth
    • RE: SketchUp and Rubies on Linux (yes, it works)

      That's the integrated graphics controller, I'm afraid. Bad or no OpenGL implementation on Linux. Sorry...it's the same result I get on an ATI graphics card on a Dell XPS notebook. But NVidia 7 and 8 series GeForces seem to work pretty well with this and later versions of WINE.

      Sci,

      @unknownuser said:

      So, we just need to try to force the view to refresh. Maybe one or a few of the observer classes can watch for changes, and invalidate the view? As a last resort we could launch a non-modal web dialog thing and have a javascript timeout that invalidates the view... but I think this would mean that we couldn't use another script with web-dialogs... right? (Haven't used one in my scripts yet, and haven't used anyone elses scripts either... but I assume that you can only have one running at a time?)

      Do I understand you...you are proposing a ruby script for forcing a redraw, called every few seconds or automatically at the end of certain commands? I suppose first step would be to know exactly what events are not followed by refreshes, and then find the classes that observe them.

      posted in Developers' Forum
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      lewiswadsworth
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