Happy Birthday Tom. My present to you is a permit to break any laws you see fit for the next 24 hours.

Yes I do have Vista. In your proprietry cd burning software, do you have an option to save files to disc as an "image". You know you have save as data, save as audio cd, is there also an option to save as image? That will create an iso file. Sounds weird but it works. Or you could buy an iso disc from dl, they are are less than 2 dollars.

I haven't given it much time yet but could get used to dl, although I'm not sure yet if it is simple enough for a learner. To navigate around the os seems very similar to osx but there are alot of files and areas that I have come across that I have no idea what they are for - I need to download and study the manual. It has really speeded up my old machine though and it recognised all the hardware, soundcards etc no problem.
I may try Ubuntu too, as its supposed to be easier to learn and I've found loads of tutorials to get SU working on Ubuntu.

Although I haven't look at all of the apps that installed with dl, Gimpshop and Openoffice are a good find. Gimpshop is much more like PS than standard Gimp, and Open office, well put it this way I won't be buying any more Ms Office upgrades.

Wooden bikes anybody?

http://www.bmeres.com/bambooframe.htm
http://www.xylonbikes.com/models.html
http://www.waldmeister-bikes.de/waldmeister_flash_en.html

Beautiful render tinane

Hi Squidge

The software I used is here http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm There is an xp version too. Look at this forum thread. This guy told me how to do it.
http://dream.wikidot.com/forum/t-30182/i-am-a-total-noob-please-help

http://www.earthware.co.uk/blog/

Interesting blog on the subject.

I'm a noob too, I know nothing about linux in much the same way as I know nothing about the inner workings of windows. I'm just interested in taking a look.

Good topic.

When I bought a new pc in the summer I probably should have listened to Edsun and Mike Lucey and got a mac. I think you all know my views on Vista, I'm sticking with it now, but I guess that it might have boosted Mac sales.

A couple of weeks ago I saw my old sony vaio laptop gathering dust in the corner. This laptop had had xp on it but lacks ram and I can't upgrade it anymore. I decided that this would be an excellent opportunity to give a distribution of linux a go. As I understand it, Linux operating systems are quite lean so older machines respond faster than they would with windows that is choc full of stuff. I like the whole open source freeware philosophy (and economy ) of Linux too.

Being realistic however, I know nothing about linux or programming, I'm a strictly front end computer user. I just want to see if linux and open source software could be an easy to use, professional platform for CAD and 3d work. After a bit of digging around on the internet I came across Dreamlinux describing itself as geared towards 3d/design/multimedia and it's free.

I just downloaded the boot file, saved it to disc, stuck it in my old laptop, and a very nice o.s. appeared in about 2 minutes. Fairly easy to understand, it looks similar to mac osx. It had actually automatically loaded loads of software too: Blender, Gimpshop, Open office, Firefox etc. It also has Wine, a windows emulator that I've learnt can, with a bit of monkeying around run SU, I've asked in a few forums for a link to a tut. In general though it looks like SU might be unstable on linux, maybe Google will eventually release a proprietry linux version.

At the moment I am only running Dreamlinux from a disc, I haven't permanently installed it but it's certainly fast on my old machine.
In my spare time, I intend to try a few different linux distributions and linux design freeware. I might set up a blog about it, but I want to be objective and compare it with industry standard software and take into account ease of use and efficiency. I think Ubuntu and Freespire are worth looking at too. Whether linux could be the future o.s. I'm not qualified to say, but it is free.

http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/english/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKcepdfm5C8 youtube vid of SU on linux.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=552050 forum discussion about getting SU working on Wine - seems that somebody has got it working well.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

http://www.freespire.org/

I'd like to see this too, it is so fundamental!

This looks fantastic, will it work on Vista?

Hi Bayer

As modelhead said, the best place to learn is here. The SU for dummies book is pretty good too, as are the Aidan Chopra books.

This is interesting Paul, could it be used as a sort of scale paperspace?

that is a great model!

Gaieus
GML is a great little app. thanks

A few days ago we came across Perspective pilot. It is very useful for knocking the perspective out of building photos so that they are nicely squared up for SU models.

Really simple to use. You just draw some lines over what should be straight vertically and horizontally and it straightens it up. The more lines you draw the more accurate it gets. It seems to do a better job than PS or Gimp's perspective and distort tools as it actually seems to resample the pixels. Oh and its only $20. So although not meeting my usual criteria of "Is it free?", it's near enough.

Correct perspective on photos with Perspective Pilot

Correct perspective on photos with Perspective Pilot. Two main tools will serve you: reference lines and four-points perspective correction.

Two Pilots - Useful software for everyday needs (www.colorpilot.com)

Bonjour Veuillez excuser mon français terrible. Pouvez vous signaler le modèle ainsi je peux le regarder. Il est probablement simple de fixer.

Congratulations Tina

I'm surprised we hadn't heard about this before, they've been set up since March. Looks like a serious competitor / blatant copy. 3Dvia is teamed up with Microsoft's Virtual Earth. Clearly then Microsoft's attempt to build a 3d world themselves using their Photosynch system in aeroplanes isn't going to plan. Does anybody know about the licensing constraints and terms of use for Virtual Earth? If it is more flexible than Google Earth, I think this could see some movement away from GE. I hope not though as we now have GE clients.

I'm not knocking SU, but this looks like the first serious competitor in the same niche.

I take some of that back, I've just downloaded it, it doesn't appear to have half as many functions as SU.

A few more regularly updated pods;

http://debbiemillman.blogspot.com/
A good long list of interviews with designers

http://iconocast.typepad.com/
American design practice's podcasts on design issues

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/hybrid.asp?navcode=2064
British Building Design

Oh I see Edsun, yes I see your point.