Maybe PrimoPDF is worth a try. Has worked with most file types for me - it works as a 'virtual printer', and supposedly handles 300+ file types.
There's a free version that has always done everything I needed - download from HERE
Posts made by Trogluddite
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RE: Efficient pdf converting of a web page?
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RE: David Hockney – and what artists did not see
Very interesting.
I always found it hard hard to believe that so many artists of similar historical periods would all have 'savant' type abilities enabling such accuracy. Also, some of the painters mentioned were very prolific, and many of their paintings show little evidence of having to use 'CTRL-Z' - pointing to the use of technical aids rather than a process of gradual 'refinement'.Funny, when I was attending 'Art' evening classes, I was told that my work displayed too much of my engineering drawing training - so it's nice to see some acknowledgment of the 'old masters' debt to technology, to balance the usual emphasis on art's conceptual dimension.
Also, lovely to see that despite his long stay in California, Mr.Hockney has still kept much of his Bradford accent - made me feel right at home when watching the videos!
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RE: Do you smoke?
@utiler said:
I guess someone has to pay for new roads, Bill!!!
Indeed; but do you not think that the disproportionate taxation of life's little pleasures, in what seems to many like a 'punitive' way, encourages a climate of resenting the principle of taxation?
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RE: Do you smoke?
My name is Steve, and I have been a nicotine addict for twenty years - and I'm currently really enjoying my first puff after getting home from work, despite being pretty confident of the evidence that it isn't terribly good for me.
Is that a rational choice? In a medical sense, of course not - but I have a funny feeling that one day, I'm probably going to die anyway, and I like to take whatever little pleasures I can on the journey.
Irrational? Hedonistic? You bet - but the current 'nannying' model of discouraging smoking is based entirely on sociological models of human behaviour ('game theory' et al) that disregard the fact that we all have a little devil on our shoulder that sometimes just wants to enjoy 'right now' without stressing over 'what might happen if...'.
It also disregards the fact that (especially to teenagers!),making a behaviour taboo often alienates the very people at whom the message is targeted. Were this an optimal strategy for eliminating smoking, we would already have eradicated heroin addiction.Supposedly, we live in the age of 'choice'. I heartily agree that those who choose to protect their health should not be forced to be exposed to my carcinogenic 'aura', and never light up without asking first - but this can surely be done without going to such lengths as banning even open air smoking. If you want people to smoke (or do anything) responsibly then this implies that they personally are allowed the responsibility for that choice.
Although smoking can be convincingly linked to certain specific illnesses, there has nevertheless still been a rise in many bronchial illnesses during the time that smoking has been in decline - it is unfair to turn smokers into scapegoats at the same time that there are indications that many rises in health problems can be linked to far more ubiquitous pollutants such as diesel particulates. As always the finger is pointed at 'irresponsible' citizens, rather than the industrial and commercial lobbies who lose no opportunity to chip away at legislation to improve the general environment. If automobile pollution or 'addiction' to sugar, salt and saturated fats were treated the same way as smoking, there would be civil unrest unlike any since the 'civil rights' era.
Still, there is always a silver lining - ever since being made to stand outside pubs/bars/clubs to smoke, I have never been short of someone to talk to - the front porch is so often the friendliest place to be!
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RE: My MA Renders
@tobobo said:
So I took the view that managed woodland would produce the most abundant materials; timber would therefore be the most cost effective material. Also taking the Steam punk movement as a cue, I decided to take an antique desk and put a contemporary spin on it
Quite right, to my mind that shows real 'forward thinking'. What better time to plan for future scarcity of resources than right now? And history contains many examples of returns to 'archaic' forms of aesthetics - even the siting of the 'future' office in the existing building is no different from the many 'hi-tech' companies housed in former Industrial Revolution mills and warehouses.
When the future arrives it is very rarely as 'different' as the 'seers' would have us think.
("Where's the jet-pack I was promised as a kid?"; I always want to ask them). -
RE: Taking the piss outta urinating
But what happens if your bladder capacity is exhausted before you progress to the next level?!
I have an image in my minds eye of dozens of blokes trying to 'down-in-one' ten consecutive pints of lager with their legs very firmly crossed - and then all rushing to the loo en masse! -
RE: Camera advice
I'd second the suggestion of a second hand DSLR.
If he's happy to do without video, then an older <10Megpix model may well be plenty 'powerful' enough.
For my money (and I openly admit my Nikon bias here!), something like an old Nikon D50 or D70 may be just the trick. In my experience the quality is just as good as a compact with twice the pixels (I often printed to A3 size from my old D50 with no noticable issues).The reason that I suggest these old Nikon models, is that they will accept lenses dating right back to the 1960's. Such old lenses will of course be manual focus, but they are ridiculously cheap, and there is a huge choice. (Pentax cameras also have very good 'legacy' support for manual lenses).
This will mean that, should he really 'catch the bug', he will be able to expand his system much more cheaply than with a more up to date model - often it's the accessories that are the 'budget killer' even if you begin with a cheaper camera body.If he's the kind of kid that really enjoys experimenting and learning, the lack of 'bells and whistles' may even be a bonus - there's nothing more satisfying than knowing that a great picture is the result of your own skill, unassisted by automation - and for some styles (e.g. still-life, landscape, macro), auto-focus etc. really are little help anyway.
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RE: Model to image
Though I'm new to SU, I have done a lot of photo comp'ing in the past.
The key thing I learned is to analyse your source photo for perspective, lighting, and scale.
In this respect, I would say that gistman's interpretation is the most convincing.There is a very definite horizon line in the photo where the sky and sea meet - the horizontals of the building should all converge to points along this line (extended beyond the picture edge if needs be). In a picture containing other buildings, you can find an imaginary 'horizon' by following the horizontal edges of a few different faces to find the line on which they would meet.
The fact that the horizon is almost perfectly central in the photo, is usually a good sign that the camera is perfectly level - so your verticals ought to be pretty much straight up and down with no convergence.The detail in the grass in the foreground indicates that the camera is not particularly high up (unless it is very tall grass!) - probably about normal eye-height, so we should be able to see a fair amount of the underside of the roof (Assuming it is big enough to walk inside).
For the lighting, the large tree is a very good guide. A significant amount of the right hand side is in shadow, so the light source is forward of the camera and to the left - If you imagine about 10 or 11 on a clock face, you shouldn't be too far out.
Most of the top of the tree is lit, and the tree's shadow is pretty close underneath - so the sun is pretty high up too, maybe 60deg or more. -
RE: SketchyPhysics 3.2 Need bug reports!
Having fun playing with SP - my first go at real physics modelling.
However, I'm having lots of random crashing when the simulation is running.
Sometimes I can run many times over without any crashes at all, other times, almost immediately after pressing the play button.-Seems to affect all of my models, not any one particular file or geometry type.
-My 'noob' models are all pretty simple, mostly using just the default geometry from the SP toolbar.
-Always crashes to 'Runtime ended in an unusual way' or just straight to the desktop, never a 'bugsplat'.
-Tried all the forum recommendations I could find - no shadows, no edges, SP UI screen closed, disabling OpenGL acceleration, etc.
-Apart from the crashes, the models behave just as I would expect.
-SU8 is generally very stable on my machine when not running SP.
-WinXP SP3, Q6700 CPU, 2GB RAM, GeForce 8400 GS, SU8, SP3.2.I did see in earlier posts a request for error report generation. I think that this would be a very good idea, even if it is just a 'crash dump' text log that could be e-mailed manually.
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RE: :Nightclub:
@marked001 said:
i know it doesnt look very wheelchair friendly...
...this is based on the existing siteAh well, no harm in asking - I knnda guessed that maybe your hands were tied that way.
I remember my architect uncle's biggest frustration with his work was that only the senior partners ever got to do the 'blank canvas' projects. Those 'if only that RSJ wasn't there' situations must be incredibly frustrating sometimes! -
RE: Mouse button/wheel don't navigate properly
Similar problems with Logitech drivers here on my WinXP system. To be fair, the support guys there are a helpful bunch, and they did put in a valiant effort, but they were unable to get me fixed up.
I've been a trackball user for a long time now (more room on the desk for half-drunk coffee cups and ashtrays, he he!!). The 'Marble Mouse' I have is beautifully smooth to use and it has the extra buttons and (supposedly) driver support to emulate the middle button and scroller.
Except that I have had nothing but problems getting it to work due to weird clashes with the driver for my (indispensable!) graphics tablet - so I am stuck with having to constantly switch tools, or get used to using a regular mouse again (oh my poor wrists!). -
RE: :Nightclub:
Nice - the rendering really show your design work to good effect; I particularly like the choice of camera positions - they show the way that the spaces are interconnected very effectively.
I have only one criticism, which I realise may have more to do with the existing building shell, or your client's brief, than to your beautiful design concept...
It is something brought home to me just recently, when a friend had a severe stroke. It is likely that he will never fully recover the use of one of his legs - but this hasn't in any way dented his enthusiasm for music and a good night out with friends. (His 'sat down' dancing really shames my own 'hit by lightning' style of flailing!).
Trouble is, there are so few nightspots where it is practical to take him because of of the combination of his mobility problems (currently he is still a wheelchair user) and the trend for 'split level' designs with lots of steps.
So I just wonder how practical it would be replace at least some of the steps with inclines?
It seems to me that 'conceptual' renderings like these can be the perfect way to show that 'disability friendly' spaces can often be simple to implement architecturally. -
RE: Just thinking...
@wozabee said:
it makes my whole Sketchup experience totally fluid (well... except for Bugsplats, GRRR!).
Are you suggesting that your BugSplats are related to using the Space Navigator - or just referring to the random Splats that we all get from time to time?
Just that I was thinking of getting one, but have this little niggling fear that simultaneous zoom/rotate/translate might be a bit too good to be true!Thanks,
The Luddite. -
RE: Uses for SketchUp
I guess you could say I am using it to be more 'environmentally friendly'...
I'm mostly designing electronics housings and parts for our range of school lab equipment - using a laser cutter/engraver to make the parts.
I used to do this using CorelDraw, and a lot of 'rotating' and 'translation' in my head! - you wouldn't believe how fast I used to fill the skip with 'test cuts'.
Now I almost always get perfectly fitting parts first time - the 'conceptual drawing' and 'construction plans' are almost one and the same, and there is so much less wastage.Now I'm just learning 'Sketchy Physics' so that I can model the mechanical linkages to make a series of robot kits for teaching control technology.
I would have had to sub-contract this kind of design work previously, but with Sketchup, I now have the confidence to do the work myself. So we are more self-sufficient, and require less parts to be shipped (or flown) half way across the world. -
RE: Interpolate Curves/Faces
Thanks Ogan,
That looks like just the thing. Lots of other tools in there that look rather useful for making my designs a little more 'voluptuous', too.the Luddite.
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Interpolate Curves/Faces
Hi All,
In order to keep my PC from getting too hot under the collar, I generally keep my curves to the default 'not-very-many' segments settings.However when it comes to exporting my faces to use as data for our laser cutting machine, I sometimes find that the curves aren't coming out smooth enough. I'm sure that with a little more experience, I'll get used to finding a nice compromise (the amount of 'melting' of different materials makes a big difference to the amount of smoothing needed.)
In the meantime, is there a simple way (or plugin) that would enable me to 'interpolate' faces by a given factor so that I can get smoother curves (or coarser, to trim the CNC data) without having to redraw lots of geometry.
Here's a picture of a trivial example of what I mean - can I selectively make the inner and outer arches have more or less segments?
Thanks in advance,
The Luddite. -
RE: Cutlist plugins
Hi Dave, thanks for passing on my suggestions.
It's very heartening to see Steve's commitment to his upgrade program - I wish the makers of my Laser Machine software showed the same concern for their users!
In the meantime, I'm loving the ability to dump an .svg of all my parts in one go (and no more counting the nuts and bolts on a 'blueprint'!!) - this plugins definitely a keeper. (time to get into the boss for a PayPal donation!) -
RE: Cutlist plugins
Hi,
I've been playing around with Cutlist for a few days now, and I am very impressed - many thanks to Steve and Dave for their hard work.In its current form it offers some big improvements to my workflow, however, there are a few tweaks that would make it perfect for my application - laser cutting enclosures from plastic sheet.
Specifically...
-Arbitrary sheet sizes. Our plastics are pre-cut into sheets that fit our machine bed - 600mm by 900mm. The layout feature would save even more time if only I could use our ideal sheet dimensions (and of course, as a European engineer, it's metric all the way!). Arbitrary size would also allow me to better use our bin of offcuts for smaller jobs.
-Adding extra columns to the cutlist output/CSV. I'd really like to add our company's part ID's, stores locations etc., which I have added as Attributes to our component models. Just a couple of extra fields would allow me to import the data directly into our product database to create instant BOMs and pick-lists.I have some programming experience, and we have in-house software engineers (though none of us have used Ruby before) - I am happy to put the work into a customised solution.
Would these modifications be possible/simple to implement - or am I expecting the moon on a stick? Or has someone out there already made a script that sounds more suitable? (the other cutlist plugins I found don't have that beautiful layout feature, that's a 'must have' for me). -
RE: What's your beginners tip?
Learn to think more negatively!
In my first few attempts at making my own objects, I found that I was trying to make lots of little 'construction kit' parts, and then ending up with nasty overlaps and internal faces when I tried to 'build' my object.
But, it is often better to think more like like a sculptor - don't 'build' an object, rather 'carve' it from a solid block to remove the bits you don't want. The push/pull tool is your biggest friend for this.
Using 'intersect faces' (or Solid Tools if you have SU Pro) makes light work of 'carving' even the most complex 'negative shapes'.For example, I needed to make some realistic screws with nice rounded 'mushroom' heads. But constructing the slots for a Phillps screwdriver into a curved surface isn't easy (and concave areas are always a bit awkward, even with X-ray view or wireframe).
Far easier to construct a nice easy convex 'screwdriver' component, and then use that to carve out the slots using subtraction.This is as much about how you see the objects around you, as it is about SU technique (just as in painting or sculpture) - so it's worth training your eye to see the shapes of the 'nothingness' in objects as much as the solid matter.
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RE: Hello from a guy who doesn't want to use the Warehouse!
Thanks for the speedy reply, Gaieus.
Looks like I need to do some more file and folder organising then!
I tried using Windows search but it doesn't seem to find any of the text stored inside a component's file (e.g. description, attributes); I only seem to be able to find things by file name - would be so useful to search by stores location, product code etc.
I was hoping that maybe the SU search had some hidden setting that would allow some user control over searching dynamic component attributes etc.
Oh well, maybe in SU9. It's not a deal breaker; I'm early on in creating our parts library, it's still at a stage where altering the folder structure isn't a big job, and in every other respect SU is perfect for what I need, and easy to use. Just need to get my thinking cap on and work out a storage structure that I'm not going to have to change in a year's time when there are 100's of components!Thanks again,
The Luddite.