@unknownuser said:

This is not to say that we shouldn't do our utmost to avoid pollution in general and atmospheric pollution in particular; and of course, trite though it may sound, much greater efforts ought to be made to deal with poverty, disease and malnutrition.

That is what I was trying to say, well put Alan.

@unknownuser said:

Rather than slamming CERN, it would make far more difference to feeding the poorer nations if governments took action against the practices of companies like Monsanto in selling what is effectively sterile "Terminator" grain to 3rd world countries...grain that produces a sterile crop that farmers cannot set aside a portion of to use as seed corn for the following year...thus forcing them to keep coming back for more rather than standing on their own two feet.

They are doing this in Iraq too, Farmers are not allowed to store the original grain to plant again. Its all Monsanto from now on.

This has been discussed on this forum many times, unfortunately I can't remember the names of the threads. During the last round I think we pretty much concluded that there isn't an ideal option yet. ViaCAD has been mentioned before, I think by Mike Lucey. I haven't used it myself though. I mainly use Progecad (autocad clone). It isn't ideal but I just use it for laying out 2d plans, sections and elevations that I export as dwg files from SU. I recently discovered Solid Edge 2d drafting which is pretty good too.
You can make your cad process easier by attaching 2d drawings to your 3d components in SU but put the 2d drawings in a layer that you can turn on or off and the same for the 3d. Then you can turn off all the 3d and you are left with a 2d plan that you can export. Sorry if this is obvious but it is useful and if you are using repeat components, the effort of drawing the 2d layers pays for itself quite quickly.

@unknownuser said:

personally i think global warming is the biggest pile of horse crap i have ever heard of, while i agree there had been a difference in climate change, i refuse to believe we are responsible.
global warming is one of the biggest commercial industries on the planet, the more we are scared into thinking we are responsible, the more we spend on "being green".

Whatever you think (I don't agree, but you are entitled to your opinion), it doesn't make doing nothing about it a good idea. There is the counter theory that we are now being told globing warming doesn't exist because it absolves us all and all the multinationals from any responsibility. Also I think you'd find that most business people would not agree with you that "being green" is commercial, it might be marketable, but it is not directly a commercial benefit. The old school attitude of no accountability is still more profitable.

As for the collider I'd laugh if it doesn't work at all.

Ken
I have the same problem, in fact I've had lots of problems with rubies on Vista.

@unknownuser said:

I imagine you'd get even more praise if you demonstrated some humility like the rest of SCF's contributers.

Let him have is 15 minutes of fame Jackson.

Phenomenal! I am astounded.

Richard

Sad to hear that your local council is not skp friendly. I work with 3 local authorities - all of them accept skp files, I think they might even prefer them.

I've been trying to learn Blender for a while, mainly because it is free so it seems worthwhile, very slow progress though.

My former colleague has experimented with using the Crisis Sandbox and importing skp. He was inspired by the digital urban blog demonstration too. I don't know how much time he spent on it but he was underwhelmed with the results. I can't remember many details but I think there are certain on-screen windows and buttons (part of the game) that he could not figure out how to hide.

If you search on Digtal urban for Oblivion (another game) the potential for utilising that looks better.

This looks good Mike, thanks for posting. Hopefully they will get it off the ground soon.

Yes I have the free version of Pepakura and it's not bad, I made a fairly good Gherkin model with it("gherkin" is the nickname of a building in London called St Mary's Axe). But on more complicated geometry it doesn't do as well.

Thanks Guys, scary kids Csaba! Ill have a look at Toonboom. What I need is something that will let me animate some very simple 2d human characters, I've seen the apps that let you create stick-men, I'm looking for something just slightly more sophisticated. It is only a short animation; less than a minute. I was wondering if there is anything out there that allows you to start off with a skeleton like Poser but 2d.

What I need is something that will let me animate some very simple 2d human characters, I've seen the apps that let you create stick-men, I'm looking for something just slightly more sophisticated. It is only a short animation; less than a minute.

I need to produce a very basic 2d character animation for a client,I agreed to do this before thinking it through and taking into account I know nothing about animation. I can use Illustrator though, so I figure if I draw a vector character I can tween it in something, but as animation is not my usual bag I'm looking for the simplest cheapest option, if there is one. Any ideas? The budget for this project is (as usual for me) zero, so freeware suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Very interesting thread!!! I have some physical models I need to build for an exhibition, so this would be very useful but I can't get the unfold script to work on Vista, any ideas?

@unknownuser said:

Blender has the capability you are requesting, KB. Neatest part is where you can actually use painting tools on the unfolded map and then see them applied in the rendered viewport.

I haven't used it in a while, but now that I've been given a little project with a certain degree carte blanche I was planning on testing all kinds of integrations with SU, Blender, and more obscure programs.

Lewis,

Please could you let us know how this goes, I have generally found Blender to work very well with SU imports/exports.

The photo of China could pretty much represent any new development in my town or in just about any other - shiny and new on one side of the fence - derelict and neglected on the other. I think it is a universal double standard.

I kind of agree. I've got my old laptop up and running ubuntu now. It is a lean go anywhere machine(does't matter if I drop it) running free apps that can't do everything but at least give me a useable tool while I'm out about. Trying to get SU installed too, I'll let you know

As for a CS3 clone, I would imagine that Adobe's copyright clauses make it impossible to come anywhere close, but it'll be interesting to see what an open source attempt can create.

Jon

I can't really see how Truespace competes with Sketchup, unless it has had a total overhaul. Is this just an impulse buy by MS? What happened to 3d Via?

There is talk of developing a free CS3 type app for linux, probably a derivative of gimp, inkscape etc.

Really beautiful style Chris