I've actually been wondering what to do with all the insulated glass samples...I must have two dozen or so in my basement. I can't bring myself to dispose of them (especially the ones fritted with odd patterns), but individually that 1' x 1' square size is a little odd...by itself too big for a single window pane but too small for a window.
poster-Lewis Wadsworth
I think this might have already been noted, but it is a cool post and neat mod nevertheless. I'm actually looking for something like one of the "typewriter with magnifying screen" computers from Terry Gilliam's Brazil (presumably not running "Windows Vista", although that would be in keeping for the totalitarian reactionary state depicted in the movie). I used to have a bookmarked site for someone who abused a Macintosh until it looked like that, but I've lost track of the address.
On a related note, the local frame shop customized their flatscreen monitor by surrounding it with a customized tooled- and gilded-leather frame...kind of a "Baron Harkonnen" look. I'll see if they will let me take a photo.
--Lewis
poster-Lewis Wadsworth
I think I know what is happening.
At my office, the main project network drive is drive "G." Unless deliberately modified by someone with administrative rights, any USB thumbdrive I might plug into my computer will also be recognized as drive "G." Since there cannot be two drives "G", either my computer will not mount the thumbdrive (although I can see it under Devices), or worse...suddenly I will lose access to the network drive.
I'm assuming you're using Windows XP, Stu. If you have administrative rights on your PC that is not recognizing your LaCie, log in as Administrator, plug both the Memory Stick and the LaCie into your computer, and then open up Computer Management (it's under Administrative Tools in the Control Panel folder). Select "Disk Management" under "Storage." In the right panel among the drives and partitions you should see your LaCie or your Memory Stick or possibly (but probably not) both. Right-click on the title of whichever of the conflicting drives is visible and choose "Change Drive Letter and Paths." Another window should pop up...select the drive symbol there and click the "Change" button at the dialog bottom. You should get yet another dialog box, which will give you the option of assigning another letter to the drive, be it the memory stick or the LaCie. So choose a new letter that is not in use by any other drive on your computer (say, Q) or on your network. Close out of all the dialogs and Disk Management.
You may need to restart your computer before both the Memory Stick and the LaCie will mount at the same time.
Or at least that is what is supposed to happen. There's always the possibility of some sort of corruption of the LaCie drive, in which case you will have to re-initialize it. But I would try this technique above first. If you do need to re-initialize the LaCie, do it when the Memory Stick is mounted so that Windows will prevent the LaCie from taking the same drive letter. And if you are having your problem on a Mac or Windows Vista, is is probably some other issue since neither uses drive letters the way Windows XP does.
[Lewis Wadsworth]
And now for Something Completely Different.
Windows Vista vs. Ubuntu Linux Beryl, with a techno soundtrack:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/434675/windows_vista_aero_vs_linux_ubuntu_beryl/
Interesting that they don't bring Mac into the fray.
(If SketchUp ran on Linux, I would be so "outa here" with Windows.
--Lewis
[Lewis Wadsworth]
I vote for Ubuntu 7.04 Linux, which I (and apparently Dell Computer) consider the first Linux distro ready for prime time.
No, I don't have SketchUp on it, and it won't run under WINE properly.
But I do have a thousand other piece of eccentric and equally troublesome software, including (oddly enough) native versions of GE and Picasa.
My most recent find: BRL-CAD. Good enough for the U.S. Army, good enough for my silly architectural projects. Where other programs ask you if you want to "exit" or "quit", you tell BRL-CAD "dismiss." I like to imagine it saluting as it leaves.
Download BRL-CAD for free. Open Source Solid Modeling CAD. BRL-CAD is a powerful cross-platform constructive solid geometry solid modeling system that includes an interactive geometry editor, ray-tracing for rendering & geometric analyses, network distributed framebuffer support, image & signal-processing tools.
SourceForge (sourceforge.net)
--Lewis
[Lewis Wadsworth]
Well, thanks for keeping us posted, Cork. I may want to talk with you if I need to get two monitors going on Ubuntu, but I have had much the same experience with every version of SU from 6 to 2 (I think I tossed my SU1 disk). Quite the shame...but, hey, I have Rhino on Linux now, in addition to QCAD, BRL-CAD, Blender, AC3D, and the GIMP. That's almost enough for a small architectural practice, if only I wasn't so addicted to using SU as design tool. And I could wish that Rhino 3 or 4 would work, but apparently the McNeel license manager subprogram finds something indigestible about Linux.
--Lewis
P.S. I thought I should add that, even on Windows, some of these programs will work from a USB drive...I can install Blender, QCAD, and AC3D (Windows versions all) on a flash drive and they seem to run nearly perfectly on whatever Windows computer I plug the drive into. I haven't quite figured out why I want to do this, but it is kind of neat.
[Lewis Wadsworth]
Cork was right, Rhino 2 will run under Wine on Ubuntu Linux! There are a few problems if one turns on OpenGL shading, certain preferences don't seem to hold as they should, checkboxes for some items don't function...and if you turn on one of the Linux 3D window managers the whole thing goes belly up. Buggy, but functional in other words. Now I just have to remember to avoid using the tricks I developed in Rhino 3 and Rhino 4.
I think I still have a SU1 or 2 disk floating around...I should see if those work...
--Lewis
[Lewis Wadsworth)]
@unknownuser said:
Did I mention FAST? I'm not sure if it is: USB vs SATA, Linux vs Windows or Nvidia vs Nvidia or ACad 2000 vs 2002, but unless I am mistaken, this is a very fast O/S.
Generally the USB data transfer speed is much slower than compared to SATA / IDE. I suspect it is the OS that is trimmed nice and lean.
You are quite correct, although on a computer with decent amounts of RAM the slowness in my experience (booting Linux from external hard drives through Firewire or from a CD) is during the process of launching the OS. There are Linux distros designed to run entirely in RAM without resort to a storage medium once they are loaded (and I believe most distros put a big chunk of the OS, which is not that big by Windows standards after all, on the RAM anyway), but I think they tend to be more experimental and less aimed at the graphically-inclined user.
Incidentally, (and returning to the topic of graphic drivers for Linux) there's a new fork or version of Ubuntu called Mint (that sounds oddly sleazy to me!) that claims to have advanatages over plain Ubuntu in terms of hardware recognition. None of this really helps me, however, to get SU 6 or any other version of SU running on Linux, though. I'll have to give Rhino another shot...Cork's Rhino 2 was the first "mature" version of that modeler. Industrial designers and naval architects were all over it in a moment.
--Lewis
[Lewis Wadsworth]
Hmmm...just tried this again with the latest Debian package for Wine, and I ended up with the typical SketchUp-without-icons-or-menus-in-three-minutes-crash problem.
And just to see if Envy would do a better job than the Restricted Manager (which installed a driver--but possibly not the best driver--for my Nvidia 7800 GTX right out of the box), I ran it too...it toasted my xorg.conf file. Windows' blue screen of death has nothing on the monster you get if Ubuntu cannot start X. I had to replace the damaged xorg.conf with a backup using the recovery terminal, delete some log file in /var that mysteriously still seem to throw things off (I think it might have been my imagination), restart gdm, turn the Restricted Manager back on, and then edit the xorg.conf file manually to accommodate my WUXGA monitor. There went two hours.
I'll give Rhino 2 a shot some other night.
[Lewis Wadsworth]
Good for you, Cork. This is of great interest to me...I'm running three different PC's on Ubuntu and Xubuntu, in addition to my two Windows machines.
You know, I have had real failure attempting to run Rhino 4 or SketchUp 6 (I don't give a damn about ACAD) on Ubuntu 7.4 under Wine, although I haven't tried the USB option (I have one page on that linked http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ ). Either SU or Rhino would allow me to dispense with Windows entirely, completing my architect's tool set, so would you mind posting an exact version number for Wine?
And did you compile it yourself from the tarball, or did you pull it off the Ubuntu repositories? Also, were you able to get hardware acceleration to work in SU6 at all before it quit?
--Lewis
Note to other Moderators: I think, because this thread is referring to another operating system primarily, that I will leave it on the main Pro User Forum as opposed to placing it in Hardware.
[Lewis Wadsworth]
A few years back I worked for a visualization firm, supposedly one of the top in the nation, and they had licenses to this. After I finished my graduate degree, I went back to work for them for ten weeks while looking for a job in architecture firm. By this time, Combustion was out the door in favor of After Effects and Final Cut Pro. They just made faces when I asked what happened to Combustion.
I was just a Max Monkey at the place and didn't deal with any video composition, but I do find it telling that a firm so involved in high-end animation (these days they are putting green-screen-filmed fashion models into their completely digital architectural environments) should dump a product aimed at their market.
poster-Lewis Wadsworth
Did you see the mouse?
Full write-up at: jakeofalltrades.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/img_0616-2/
Flickr (www.flickr.com)
poster-Lewis Wadsworth
That keyboard would go really well with one of the cases that this fellow makes:
poster-Lewis Wadsworth
Good point. For the cost of that titanium shell on the LaCie alone, you could buy a terabyte of high-speed Hitachi internal drives, pop them into one of those inexpensive external cases they cell at NewEgg.Com
and still come out ahead. I've done this ever since my 400 GB LaCie debacle.
--Lewis
poster-Lewis Wadsworth
I have had a reliable LaCIE 200GB for a couple of years; it even survived a digital video course.
However, on the strength of its performance I bought a larger LaCie, 400 GB dual USB/Firewire. It has proved completely unreliable, if used with Firewire...which is of course how I want to use it for video. Three times the whole disk, both partitions, has become spontaneously corrupted during file transfers. I no longer depend on it at all; it's an expensive paperweight now, because I don't dare use it for anything (even restricting myself to USB).
poster-Lewis Wadsworth
I've done some quick websearches and noticed that there are a great many of these things available at not much more than the price of a good high-end standard QWERTY. Anyone have any recommendations?
I am not looking for anything like the Optimus keyboard discussed earlier (I still think it is vaporware). Rather, I often work in a darkened room and would like to be able to find those odd keys in without having turn on the desk lamp. And otherwise this needs to be a standard USB keyboard, without peculiar drivers, because much of the time I will be using it on Linux.
Thanks in advance for your time.
--Lewis
poster-Lewis Wadsworth
EDIT: Oh well, never mind. I went ahead and ordered two "KB SAITEK|ECLIPSE KEYBOARD PZ30AU" because they seemed to get good feedback from customers at NewEgg. I just hope none of these customers were plants from the manufacturer.
Really well done, Cheffey. May I ask what renderer you are using? (I'm sorry if you have mentioned that somewhere else and I didn't notice.)
Lewis
poster-Lewis Wadsworth
I like the flat, screen-printed-graphic style and limited pallet of colors. Quite classic. If I have to quibble (I'm an instructor at an architecture school who teaches architectural illustration; of course I'm going to quibble!), I find the flat black of the curtain walls to be a little vague...there is always the possibility that you are illustrating surface patterning and not transparent openings into the interior of the structure. I would add some understated shading to indicate that there is an interior to these prisms. It wouldn't require much.
[Lewis Wadsworth]
Glad to help. I also have an axis-only scene built into my default SU template...it resets the axis to its start/default location, which is usually quicker than right-clicking on the axis and choosing "Reset" from the options.
P: Lewis Wadsworth
You can save your axis settings with Scenes...if you only want to save an axis, in the scene manager for that Scene leave only that option checked.
P: Lewis Wadsworth