Well, Modelhead, good for you!

Unfortunatly the SU ArcVis community that that once formed the core user base wont be so happy and will be looking elsewhere. So be it.

Gee,
Its a bit sad reading through these posts...I don't even feel like saying I told you so.
The overwhelming concensus is that SU is heading down the gurgler.

I would love to think that SU7 [there is such a thing?] will prove us all wrong but I doubt it....my guess is that it will converge with the free version [almost has anyway] and be heavily biased to Gooogle Earth. And then that's it!

I have always had the theory that Brad sold out after SU hit a developmental brick wall....nothing much more can be done without a complete re-write.

Stu

Hi Dan

A couple of things that might improve your images.
Those paving slabs would look better just about level with the grass....they seem a bit high at the moment
I would stick to one style of planting......with a model like this standard SU 3D components should be OK.
And maybe some shadows?
Cheers,

stu

Fred,
I use it mostly as a work photo viewer these days [it has a good scrolling facility] but I think it is being overtaken by FastStone as a free image viewer/simple editor. But it certainly can save as a ico file and a lot of other formats as well.

7Zip is very neat, effective and free
http://www.7-zip.org/

Andrew's plants put to good use.

Jpegs and clipmaps.....[render time in Podium...settings on full bore.....about 8 minutes! ]

This is not going to improve the level of humour here but...oh well...

A Polish man moved to the USA and married an American girl.

Although his English was far from perfect, they got along very well until one day he rushed into a lawyer's office and asked him if he could arrange a divorce for him.

The lawyer said that getting a divorce would depend on the circumstances, and asked him the following questions:

Have you any grounds?
Yes, an acre and half and nice little home.
No, I mean what is the foundation of this case?
It made of concrete.
I don't think you understand. Does either of you have a real grudge?
No, we have carport, and not need one.
I mean. What are your relations like?
All my relations still in Poland.
Is there any infidelity in your marriage?
We have hi-fidelity stereo and good DVD player.
Does your wife beat you up?
No, I always up before her.
Is your wife a nagger?
No, she white.
Why do you want this divorce?
She going to kill me.
What makes you think that?
I got proof.
What kind of proof?
She going to poison me. She buy a bottle at drugstore and put on shelf in bathroom.
I can read, and it say: "Polish Remover".

Anssi,

These are my shots .....just back from a China trip.
Lots of Engrish signs over there...this one scrapes in a distant third

And we had a nice stay in Suzhou as well.

We took note of the warning posted on the shower door but fortunatly, while keeping an eye out for falling rocks, had four days of uneventful showers.

If anybody is looking for a clean, budget priced hotel in Beijing I can recommend the Dong Fang He Ping Hotel. If you ignore the entrance, via a laneway lined with pre-WW2 bicycles for hire, you will find a pleasant place to stay [eat out for breakfast] metres from cosmopolitan Wangfujing St with its western style emporiums and humungeous shopping plazas and a pleasant 20 min. stroll to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.

I must hasten to add that I didn't take advantage of everything that seemed to be offered by the hotel.

And before anybody asks....yes, the pollution in Beijing is pretty crook!

Dylan,
Its actually very smooth [floating on air] and you only really get a feel of the speed by watching the scenery flash by.

There is some debate about the usefullness of it... its a very short run and its difficult enough just getting to the station, so you can get to the airport and it's $ billion + cost.

But it sure beats spending more time on the road at the mercy of crazy taxi drivers who regularly fly into openings in the traffic that exist in their imagination only and which depend on at least two other drivers taking evasive action.

On a recent trip to China we took the Maglev train the 30k from Shanghai to Pudong airport.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train

It went literally like a bullet, and reached its normal top speed of 431kph. It was a lot of fun....banking on turns and passing another Maglev train going the other way was just a whuump!...but was over in about eight minutes.

All very hight tech. until we found the airport departure area was up about 50 steps from the train platform...just couldn't see a lift or an escallator!....and we had done a lot of shopping

Anybody else gone faster in a train?

Stu

Andrew,
there is PDF Creator.
Im finding it good for capturing ACAD drawings for emailing to Clients.
And you can specify Jpegs, Pngs etc if you want to.And its cute being able to make PDFs without Acrobat.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator
Stu

Sure Andrew, but those 4 CD only took up 1/3 of the memory so thats, say, 12 CDs and there are 2 Gig cards around.
The camera is really useful for taking quick photos of a job but the results aren't album quality.

Andrew,
What about a mobile phone?
I've got a Sony Ericsson K810 [Optus Plan]. Its got a handy 3.1 Mp CyberShot camera which is very useful for work shots.
I'm planning to get a 1 Gig memory card for it to load up four CDs of 'Learn Mandarin'......320Mb approx of Mp3s. So that leaves plenty of space for lots of music....or approx. one thousand Jpegs.
Stu

Well done Mark!
The first class I ever took started with my knees knocking and my voice coming out in a faint quaver. It never got a whole lot better than that..... and it did convince me that I had better stick to my day job.

Thanks Susan,
I did check out Composer quite a while ago but didn't feel it would be a whole lot of use, and RPC stuff is pretty expensive and limited in variety compared to ImageCels, for example.
I find it relatively easy to import tiff. entourage into PhotoImpact and scaling them.... and by extracting sections as layers its possible to get that 'behind the wall' effect [see attached...sorry Coen it's only a little one ]. But no way as easy as in Piranesi.
Stu

Thanks Susan,
Thats pretty much the answer I was hoping for.
The only renderer I have really used is Kerkythea but I have found it painful trying to render 2D entourage. Similarly, adding the entourage in PS is clunky. From the Piranesi demo, I remember how easy it was to import 2D PR 'cutouts'. These however clashed with the less than PR SU output.
I can understand your Archicad guy and it might just be the path I'm headed down!
Thanks again,
Stu

Susan,
Seeing this thread has morphed into just about anything, I'd like to ask you a question that has been bugging me for ages.
As I understand it, Artlantis and a few other PR renderers have epix. export to Piranesi?
So....does this mean that say, a PR render from Artantis, exported into Piranesi still maintains it's 3D ness?
In other words, could I open that epix. file in Piranesi and then import an ImageCels tiff. tree, for example and place it behind a building or anything else in 3D space?
This would be great for filling a rendered PR hard landscape with PR entourage.
Stu