Posts made by otb designworks

@unknownuser said:

Hi Chuck:

That price they are quoting is insane. Are they using a plotter or an OCE printer or are they printing it black and white and using crayons? My cost from my local printer (and I live in the sticks) is $8 per sheet on 20lb stock. I also have a large format plotter that I use for in house use only. Otherwise everything gets printed at the shop and charged to the client as a direct cost. The only time I plot in full color is for the building department permit sets, the owner's set and one color set for the contractor. Otherwise everything is printed grayscale which still looks great.

Yeah, that was what I thought. It is a plotter printer they are using.

Guess I need to look around and explore out of town options. Ah the joys of living in a small town:)

How are you guys dealing with printing 24x36 in color?

I use color codings with my shop drawings and the boys really like how it works. I have been putting everything on 8.5x11 sheets so we could print them easily. But, it is a whole lot more work making myriad small sheets instead of a few big ones and I would love to migrate to the larger format.

The local printer priced each 24x36 in color at $40 as opposed to $1.50 for standard laser printed greyscale.

Thoughts?

So of course, for the first time in recorded history, my new files are closing without the save dialogue.

Never, ever seen it do that before!? It is like the darn thing is paying attention or something. Or maybe the screenshot I took of the plugins folder freaked it into behaving:)

Thanks for the undo heads up; I will pay attention to that once the behavior reverts to normal.

@unknownuser said:

@pbacot said:

Also unlike other Mac apps. It always asks to save when closing the new default file--when I have done nothing at all yet.

that's caused by a plugin.. if you give me a list of your plugins (or screenshot of the plugin folder), i'll tell you which one is doing it..
[basically, the plugin does something to the raw document so in effect, you have done something to the file]

I had no idea this was a plugin thing. I would love to make this annoying behavior go away, so here is my list for analysis, too.

Thanks!

---

And I wish that when I open a recent doc from the recent file dropdown, and then save as, it defaults to the location of the last document I opened with the open file dropdown, and not the one that I just opened. Wastes a lot of time navigating file structures to where I need to save as to.

@unknownuser said:

@Chuck

Does the arrow keys not lock an inference on Macs?

I use the arrow keys for my front, sides, and back elevation views; also vestiges of an early SU user, you know?

or how, if you have a doc minimized on the dock and half the time, when you bring it back up to work on, all of the inference points are giant white squares.

And one of my biggest pet peeves is I hate, and I truly, hate, that the move tool can rotate, too. How many times does it try to default to rotate when I never rotate with the move tool, and I have to zoom in to get it to revert, and then zoom back out to see where I am moving it. Time waster and it happens quite often.

Or, when locking the inference direction by holding down the shift key, it is impossible to rotate with the middle mouse button, as it defaults to panning. Why can't the inference lock work like a toggle ( a la making multiple copies with the option key)? So, worflow would be: move object in prefered axis, hit shift once to lock, hold down middle mouse button, rotate to desired view, and because the mouse button is down, holding down shift would still pan without releasing the axis lock, place object from new view. I know I am being juvenile and I could just change my axis lock hotkey, but I really like using shift, and have for 7 years, so please humor me

Love the layer suggestions; hierarchical layer nesting would be fantastic! How sweet would something like that be for organizing and arranging scenes. Of course, outliner sucks on the mac and I never ever even use it, so the new layers window would have to actually function correctly.

And that adding a layer adds that layer, as visible, to all existing scenes is ridiculous and annoying. I know there is the add hidden layer plugin, but that is just as annoying because every time you add that layer to a scene, it defaults to invisible (off) and you have to go through all your layers turning back on the ones that were on, but were hidden layer plugin layers.

I also wish we could toggle off the inference engine; setting up points on a TIN is maddening when the darn lines keep snapping to an axis. So, then you have to zoom way way in, place the point, zoom extents, repeat 100 times. Lame.

And I don't like how SU, on MAC, starts up with a new document and then I have a new document window open until I close it. How about a dialogue like Layout gives us, where I can choose to open a recent doc without having a new one open. And how crazy is it that the windows version can only have one model open at a time?! That must drive you guys batty.

More Layout components/ native hatches, etc would help tons.

Thant's awesome, Dave, thanks! Hopefully, they add that feature.

hijack off

I have noticed that this behavior is much more pronounced when in raster mode than in vector mode.

Looks like you are in vector mode, though, so I don't know what is going on.

As an aside, it annoys me that we can't have the Layout dimension style add a hyphen between the feet and inches.

Ok, back on topic...

Definitely take a look at Cheetah 3D; probably one of the best pieces of mac software out there, imho.

Incredibly powerful for the price, rendering is just part of what it brings to the table. Great for animating models, character animation, particle engine, the list goes on. Also great for exporting your model out in various formats.

I export from sketchup as a fbx, though 3ds works fine, too, as long as you are under 56,000 polygons (approximately)

Here is the main frame, with both the Bedroom and Kitchen wings complete. Now that we have finished the valley setup in the shop, we can integrate it into the main frame, which, in my opinion, is the crux move of the entire build.

[flash=853,505:rmqi314a]http://www.youtube.com/v/Ntj7XMPPyW0&fs=1[/flash:rmqi314a]

These look great, Richard! How did you manage to make a two sided page in Layout?

I,too, am using layout for more and more and Adobe for less and less and I am really happy with the progress Layout has made, though it definitely has some growing to do, too!

Thanks for sharing.

Oh yeah, this is one sturdy structure, no doubt about it! And yes, it has been an awful amount of work, especially since I and one other guy have done about 65% of the entire frame by ourselves. And I mean the design, the 3D modeling, the renderings, the blueprinting, the shop drawings, the wood procurement, the milling, the layout, the fabrication, the assembly, the crane work, the budgeting, the scheduling, etc, etc...

I have to think that this will end up being a once in a lifetime opportunity, especially since it will be awhile before I design something so complex and intricate, unless there is a whole lot of cash available. When you realize that the entire frame has one ridge/peak height and there are 4 ridges, 3 common valleys, and 2 bastard valleys all zeroing out at one post center, it becomes obvious that there was exactly no let up in the perfection needed in the fabrication. With no roof breaks and everything in the same planes, the tolerances were miniscule, even in the normally tight and exact world of timber frames. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

Here is the complete common valley system, just before we took it down and started to cut it into the main frame, which is outside the shop.

[flash=853,505:2hpihipj]http://www.youtube.com/v/Sa8CE7L4zhE&fs=1[/flash:2hpihipj]

We now have the Garage and Entry jack rafters cut into their final locations. As we have 5 bastard jack rafters on each side, outside, we need to cut the common jack rafters into the valleys, in the shop, to match up with the ones outside.

As this is a complex and precision exercise, we had to fabricate fake ridges, in the shop, to support the jack rafters at the correct pitch, for scribing. This video shows all 10 of them, sitting above the valleys, ready for the scribing procedure.

[flash=853,505:2qq9tted]http://www.youtube.com/v/Zk2eBlMFRos&fs=1[/flash:2qq9tted]

I create dxf contour lines by drawing over a topo image in Illustrator with the pen tool.

You can then modify each path and reduce the number of vertices until you get the poly count as low as you desire. Export from Illustrator as a dxf, import into SU, pull each path to the correct elevation, and use the sandbox to create a TIN from the contours, and you are off and running.

I have used SU for 6 years and have never used the freehand tool, fwiw.

For a solution that is all SU, you can import the topo image and use the bezier curve plugin from Fredo to trace over the lines. His plugin has options for controlling the number of vertices, too. I just find that Illustrator works better and quicker.

Once the valleys had been cut together and we verified correct placement in space, we could bring the ridges up, from underneath, the valleys and position them for scribing. Once we ensured that our elevations would match perfectly with the ridges we already have sitting on Old Glory, outside, we could scribe and then cut the housings in the ridges to allow the valleys to sit on the ridges. This video shows the ridges and valleys in their final configuration, ready for us to start placing jack rafters on them.

[flash=853,505:3cs3us4b]http://www.youtube.com/v/mMVh1W3sgBw&fs=1[/flash:3cs3us4b]

We are now working on the triple common valley set up, in the shop, that will be joined together with the rest of the frame, outside, once we get as much done inside as is possible.

This video shows all three of the common valleys, already scribed and cut together, sitting on their cribbing, waiting for the next step, whcih will be scribing and cutting in the ridges that will eventually hold all of the valleys up. We use the SU model extensively for these highly complex setups, as the ability to generate reference numbers and cross check information wherever desired is instrumental to efficient progress.

[flash=853,505:n3s7ysb5]http://www.youtube.com/v/dN2X-SWo1lg&fs=1[/flash:n3s7ysb5]

Here we have all of the kitchen side rafters cut into their final positions and installed.

[flash=853,505:23emaebf]http://www.youtube.com/v/Yp1iF06-v1o&fs=1[/flash:23emaebf]

Thanks Stuart, I appreciate the words of encouragement!

This video shows all of the common rafters in the kitchen and bedroom set in space and prepped for scribing down into their final positions.

[flash=853,505:1twfo0n2]http://www.youtube.com/v/gPTbPqg80po&fs=1[/flash:1twfo0n2]