Posts made by Paul Russam

More about getting the composition right, trust me I need all the help I can get.

I dawned on me that I could use styles to help with picking a view.

What I've done here is to create a PNG that is A3 in size/proportion with a 20mm boarder. I've divided it vertically and horizontally into 3rds (rule of 3rds) and popped in a couple of diagonal lines.

The style is the default SU settings with the image as a watermark over the model space.

My intention is to use it to pick/setup the view then switch to another style before saving the view.

I've attached both A3 landscape and A3 portrait.

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A3L-20b.style

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A3P-20b.style

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has made all of its 1800 courses available online to eveybody!

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

I tried it ages ago and although it worked OK'ish I felt a complete idiot sitting at my desk spasmodically saying "LINE", "PULL", "ARC", "UNDO", "UNDO", "UNDO" etc.

Thanks Gai,
That truly amazing, we have a project that it could be ideal for and the details are bring passed to the client as I type.

What OS are you running XP or Vista?
Check that you completely up to date with Windows Update and that your ATI catalyst drivers are also up to date.

In the catalyst control panel you can fix the settings (AA, Quality,gamma etc.) per application, make sure that you have no settings for SketchUp or its set to 'Let application decide'

Looks like it wont be long before its available to us mortals.
What do you think, 3 years?

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Paul Russam

SchreiberBike - Exactly right.

Here's a quick file using the houses example above.

Copy/Mirror/Scale one or more of the footprints then switch on the House-Body layer.

Layer Grouping Example

DoorMaker uses this method:
D-Leaf00 - Doorleaf @ 0 degrees (Shut)
D-Leaf30 - Doorleaf @ 30 degrees
D-Leaf60 - Doorleaf @ 60 degrees
D-Leaf90 - Doorleaf @ 90 degrees
D-Swing - Arc on floor (For plan views)
D-Door - Master layer containing the super group of the above.

This way you can have all the doors open at 90 with the swing arc visible for plan views and open at 60 for 3d views.
If you create a scene with 0 then one with 30 another with 60 then a final one with 90 you can have an animation of doors opening/closing.

But the best thing is that copying the super group will copy all the groups within it whether they are visible or not.

I nest groups/layers on a regular basis, try this:

Create 3 layers - Layer 1,Layer 2 & Layer 3

Ensure that your current layer is the default (Layer 0)

Draw 5 Boxes

Select and group 3 of the boxes

Select the 2 remaining boxes and group them

Pick one of the groups and change its layer to 'Layer 1'
Pick the other group and change its layer to 'Layer 2'

Select both groups and Group them together

Select this super group (sorry couldn't resist) and change its layer to 'Layer 3'

Make a few copies of the super group

Try turning the layers on and off and see what happens.
Try turning Layer 1 off, copying one of the super groups and then turning the layer back on.

Here's a practical example:
I recently did a housing scheme consisting of around 200 houses, as you can imagine the model would get a bit slow with 200+ detailed houses visible.
I had the following:
The house grouped on Layer 'House-Type1-Body'
A footprint (Grouped) of the house on Layer 'House-Type1-Footprint'
And a super group of the two on the layer "House-Type1-All'

I was able to have the house's (House-Type1-Body) switched off, whilst still being able to copy/rotate/mirror them in to position and only when I needed to see them did I switch on the houses and off the footprints.

http://www.comnetslash.com/2007/11/26/a-nex-gen-paint-brush/

Watch the video

I've just added DoorMaker to the repository.
I wrote it last year and to be honest It was the first and only script I've written and I forgotten everything I learnt!!
It works fine but could work better.

Is there anyone who wants to have a go at making it better?

For example, at the moment it create 4 leaves I'd love it to only create 1, component it and copy/rotate it for the other 3.

It usually happens when you switch between perspective and orthogonal views, Its called the clipping plain.

It you zoom extents, that the magnifing glass with the 4 arrows pointing outward, it will fix it for you (until next time).

Its been a long standing annoyance in SU but I've seen it in 3D studio too.

Nice anim, sound helps so much with one of these.
A while ago I took an old anim and threw out 4 versions, each with a different track added, a classical, a rock etc. just to show the boss the differing effect but he wouldn't but it.

What did you mean by "I got to hating the SU output on this project (only because of the model)"?
When I finish a model I usually hate it because all I can see are the faults and the things I'd do differently next time.
If other people you trust think its good then trust them, it is.

I've registered but no email yet, don't worry if I'm in a queue, just thought you should know.

Small posting on Vista SP1 and XP SP2.
Linky

Looks like XP with SP3 will be the way to go.

Coen,
That looks good, I'd be happy with it.

I must come here about 5 times a day, its an integral part of my life to the point that my wife, instead of asking "what happened at work today" asks "what happened on the forum today"

My first port of call is always 'new posts' and I almost never browse the forum by going in to each section individually, when I have, its been to find something specific, a ruby, a rendered image etc.

I like the fact that a quantity of the posts are non SU/Support/Technical ones. We're a community not a technical support desk and as such we 'chat' about many things, for example, in this post about a Concorde model I remembered that I'd found a photo of a Concorde being made in my dad's stuff and posted it just as an aside. It was only when Bruno contacted me did I realise the significance of the photo and its value (not monetary) to the Concorde community.
If we were purely a support desk then there's a good chance the thread/post would have been removed for being irrelevant or off topic.

I'm truly amazed at how quickly this community became established after the implosion of the old one and I'm truly proud not only to be a member but of all of us for making it work.

So To Coen, thanks for setting this up and making it work. To Gaieus, thank you for assuming Coen's mantle and keeping it going. To the moderators, thanks for making it work and keeping us in check. To Krisidious and Tom for proving that there's always another way. To eveyone for being here.

This is a link to a site called Dabs.com, I know you probably cant buy from them as their in the UK but they have a good search system.
This is a list of PCI cards with DVI connectors: Linky

It may list one(s) you haven't seen.

I've got Vista on 2 laptops and a desktop at home and whilst its OK there's no way I'm installing it or buying a machine with it on at work. I've actually got 2 copied of Vista Business here at work that came with 2 Dell's ready to install but they'll be staying in their shrink wrap for some time yet.

We too have AutoCAD 2002 and could/can see no reason to upgrade. Autodesk do not intend (as far as I know) to produce any fix for versions prior to 2007 for Vista. AutoCAD/Vista Info

Sketchup is having some problems with Vista, at home on one laptop its fine, on the other it will only start if you double-click on an existing .skp file and then start a new one, if you simply start SU it will lockup and you have to kill it. On both machines its very slow, this is partly due to MS concentrating on DirectX as the 3D engine with OpenGL being somewhat left in the cold. Want to guess which engine SU uses?

I've heard that Vista is giving problems on mixed XP/Vista/Server2003 networks, I don't know the nature of the problems but I'll be dammed if I'm going to start screwing with our stable server just to get 1 Vista station working.

If you can order your new machine with XP do so, you an always upgrade to Vista later.

Just my 2 pence/cents worth.
As usual with my ramblings I more than happy to be corrected.