@tig said:

Have you updated your Graphics-card drivers ?
What is you card?
If you disable ALL of the possible Preferences > OpenGL check-boxes, is it 'fixed' [but slow!] ?

Yes. The graphics card driver is the newest one available for Windows 7. It is an Intel 965 Express Chip mounted on the laptop motherboard.

Yes, if I disable ALL of the possible Preference > OpenGL it is fixed but slow. (Too slow)

@alan fraser said:

Very strange behaviour. Dropping down to 16 bit usually results in other undesirable features...like having a box around the cursor.
I'd try disabling fast feedback before hardware acceleration. It might just cure the problem without the loss of performance.

I actually tried disabling fast feedback before I tried backing off to 16-bit. Backing off to 16-bit was a last desperatee attempt to get my selection box back and backing off to 16-bit hasn't resulted in any other undesirable behavior.

Update: Still no idea why it happens, but if I change the "color quality" on the video card from 32-bit to 16-bit, the problem goes away.

Go figure.

Mike

I'm currently running a Dell Latitude 630 with an Intel 965 Express Chipset. When I ran SU8 under Windows XP I enabled OpenGL Hardware Acceleration and everything worked fine. Last week I upgraded to Windows 7 32-bit, re-installed SU8 and my plugins and now I don't have any selection box at all with Hardware Acceleration enabled. If I disable Hardware Acceleration I get the selection boxes but they paint VERY SLOWLY. This is very painful.

I've checked display driver and Update Driver reports it's up-to-date. I've also looked at the OpenGL properties in the Intel Graphic Properties 3D Settings and they are at default values.

Does anyone have any ideas? SU8 on this laptop is my lifeblood and I'm dying....

Thanks,
Mike

@tig said:

You should be able to set custom_attributes to whatever units you want...
Change the attribute name to say 'myLenX' etc and see if that helps...
Post and example and we'll investigate it further...

Hi TIG,

The problem is not being able to set the units after custom attribute definition. The problem is that it defaults to text. There are times I have to add a custom attribute to a number of components and it gets to be a pain to have to go in and change the units each and every time from "default: text" to "inches".

For instance. I have a dynamic cabinet door that initially had a "Rail_and_Stile" custom attribute that was set to "Parent!Rail_and_Stile" to denote the widths of the Rails and Stiles of the door. I came to a point in time when my overall design dictated that I had to have some doors that had 4 different rail and stile dimensions. One each for the top and bottom rail and one each for the right and left stile. Adding the 4 custom attributes to the door definition was no problem. Each variable was then set to "Parent!Right_Stile", "Parent!Top_Rail", etc. Four new definitions and in each case I had to change the units from "default: text" to "inches". All of which was no problem on the door.

The problem came when I had to add those custom attributes to each of the parents: 4 times 15 and in each case the units had to be changed from "default: text" to "inches".

It would have been nice to have the ability to set what I wanted the units to default to.

Cheers,
Mike

@tig said:

I don't fully understand your issue if you define an attribute that is a 'length' it's a 'number' and it always defaults to 'inches' anyway - just as 'angles' are always in 'degrees'.
You can set your units and your displayed units separately too...
Why are you taking 'text' attributes...
See this example

TIG,

The attributes I'm setting are custom attributes and they always default to text which sometime causes a problem when I set a LenX, LenY, or LenZ attribute equal to the Custom Attribute. Consequently, after defining them, I have to go into the screen you're showing and change the units to "inches". I would prefer to have all custom attributes default to inches.

Thanks,
Mike

Is there a way to define a default other than "text" for new custom attributes? I work primarily in "inches" and I'm getting REAL TIRED of having to set the units on every attribute I define.

Thanks,
Mike

@danbig said:

Have you made any headway on getting unique control over the component copies?

Hi Dan,

Yes I have. I've attached the new and improved Drawer Cabinet. Take a look at the Component Options and you'll see a number of things that are programmable. Regarding the drawers, it's programmable with 1 to 4 and each drawer is programmable in size. If you use the Interact tool, you'll see each drawer box is different depending on whether it is a top, bottom, or middle drawer. Specifically the top and bottom clearances change.

As you can guess, the copy command wouldn't have worked due to the programmability of each of the drawers. I did use selective hiding instead.

Cheers,
Mike

EDIT: Replaced the DRAWER CAB.SKP file with an updated one.

Drawer Cab.skp

@dedmin said:

As with normal component - make unique.

Hmmmm.... when I do that, the "Make Unique" option is greyed out. Each instance of a dynamic component is already unique, hence the "#n" suffix. (Where n is an integer)

OK. Well, the response to that was deafening...

Perhaps this question will get more responses: How do I define a Dynamic Component and then make a unique copy of it so I don't get the aforementioned interactions??

@chris fullmer said:

I could also see the possibility to make everythng black, and leave the background white and then export all the frames again that way and use those frames as an alpha channel to add to your movie. I have never tried that, but it seems like it should work? I guess one would need a movie editor that could take the 2 video streams and treat the black and white one as an alpha for the full color one.

Now THAT'S an interesting idea....

Thanks to all for the suggestions. I was hoping to avoid the "frame-by-frame, port to another app" workflow. My fervent hope was someone would recommend a codec that did it for me.

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to design dynamic component for my design business that allows sizing in all three dimensions as well as allowing the selection of key parameters such as:

Kickheight
Kickdepth
Side thickness
Drawer Gap
Back recess and thickness

and size of drawers

All was going well until I tried replicating the drawers. Each Drawer consists of a Drawer Box and a Drawer Face. I designed the top drawer and then replicated it twice. I renamed each of them Drawer 1, Drawer 2, and Drawer 3 and made the appropriate changes to each in terms of position (z-height) and visibility based on user selectable parameters.

I then changed the references for the Drawer Box and Drawer Face for each of them to reference the appropriate parent instance.

Now the mystery for me. The size attributes of the Drawer Faces in each of the Drawer instantiations are interconnected (change in any affects all instantiations) but not so with the drawer boxes.

i.e. If I change the Drawer Face attribute LenX in Drawer 1 to "Drawer 1!Lenx" the LenX attribute in the Drawer Boxes for Drawer 2 and Drawer 3 change as well to "Drawer 1!LenX" and I get an error because "Drawer 1!LenX" is outside of the scope of either the Drawer 2 or Drawer 3 object.

I would think the same behaviour would occur in both the Drawer Boxes and the Drawer Faces but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I tried setting LenX, LenY, and LenZ in the Drawer Box definition to Width, Depth, and Height custom variables and then use those variables to reference the parent size but with no luck.

I've attached the model in question. It's unfinished and a little rough with no error checking yet (no checks on the cumulative height of the drawers not being greater than the carcase height for instance).

I know could solve this with Make Unique for the second and third drawers but I'd like to understand this behaviour.

Thoughts anyone?

Thanks,
Mike

Drawer Unit.skp

Does anyone know how to export an animation with an alpha channel. I'm trying to do a rotating logo overlay for a video production.

Thanks,
Mike

@thomthom said:

@mikeewilly said:

Any ideas or plugins out there?

Chris to the rescue: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=19168

Thanks for the pointer. That's what I was looking for.

Cheers,
Mike

On a related note: I would like to have the standard views be oriented to the axes. As I design additions to existing structures, sometimes the orientation of the addition isn't the same as the existing structure. So when I change the axes to orient to the new structure, the standard views remain where they were when the drawing was initiated, which is VERY unhandy when trying to make construction drawings of the addition.

Any ideas or plugins out there?

Thanks,
Mike

@whaat said:

Hi Mike,
All i can really suggest is to use a long descriptive name for the profile name and make use of the 'favourites' library. Obviously, this will make it much easier to find the profile you are looking for. (Sorry if this isn't the kind of answer you were hoping for...)

Well thanks for the suggestion, I'll do that. What about any tips for libraries I've downloaded? (Specifically the "Mouldings" library)

Thanks again for a nice tool.
Mike

Profile Libraries

I know this may be a touchy subject and I'm not asking for a Library Viewer, but is there a recommended way of documenting what each profile looks like in a library to make it easy for me to find one pseudo-quickly. This is most important when I sitting with a customer trying to quickly sketch out their vision.

Thanks for the help,
Mike

@bigstick said:

Quite extraordinary! Stunning work!

I have a suggestion for your next jaw-dropping model here:- http://thefutureofthings.com/upload/items_icons/ATLAS-cern_large.jpg

That's got my vote. You could start "small" with just the instruments at the collision point (see referenced picture) and then add the 17 mile loop with all the cooling and control, then lastly animate the counter-rotating beams of protons. Sigh...