August 2006 Archives

VectorWorks 12 provides a new feature to ask it for resources which are placed in the folder ./Libraries/ of the VectorWorks installation. The brand new resource importer provided by interiorCAD 3 only works if this VectorWorks 12 feature is switched on. Otherwise no resources will appear in the resource importer of interiorCAD.
In the VectorWorks preferences, please ensure the option »Display Default Content« is enabled:

One of the major changes in interiorCAD 3 is the fact that we have finally dropped the external colour sets. Units of previous versions always referred to an external colour set file. If you edited a unit on an installation where the colour set file was missing, interiorCAD complained a lot about the missing file. Thus we finally have dropped this linking to external colour set files. Instead, colours and textures are now assigned in the completely redesigned material dialog. All settings concerning materials, colours, textures and hatches now can be done in one central place. As a side effect, the "material" favourite files now include all material, colour, texture and hatch settings. With interiorCAD 3 it now is easy to exchange units with other interiorCAD users without the need to additionally include the external colour set files.

Older colour sets are incompatible with the new material file format, but adjusting or recreating them is quite simple. Please note that in the material dialog you can filter the parts in the parts list (only show used parts, front parts, carcass parts and the like), and you can do multiple selections using the shift and control keys of your keyboard while selecting/deselecting parts. This way, editing existing and creating new material favourites is very simple and will only consume a fraction of time compared to previous versions of interiorCAD.

For backwards compatibility (e.g. editing units created in previous versions of interiorCAD), interiorCAD 3 still contains a folder called ./Plug-Ins/XG Resources/ColourSets/. If you want to open older drawings, copy your colour set files from the previous installation to the colour sets folder of interiorCAD 3. When opening older units, those colour sets will then get assigned to the unit when editing it. After that step, the unit doesn't need the external file anymore. All colour settings went into the unit. Please use the material dialog to check all settings. interiorCAD 3 features many new parts to allow a more detailed rendering. Check all parts, especially the new ones, to ensure colours and textures are assigned properly. Then save a new favourite if you need the settings for later use.

While the support blog still is available at
www.interiorcad.com/weblog/support/
we have changed the resource locator to the RSS feed. If you use a newsreader to read the support blog instead of navigating to it manually using your web browser, please update it to
http://www.interiorcad.com/weblog/support/atom.xml
instead of
http://www.interiorcad.com/weblog/support/index.rdf

Unlike interiorCAD 2, interiorCAD 3 will default to metrics instead of imperials. Thus we will provide an extra installer which will replace some metric files by imperial files.

Additionally interiorCAD 3 provides a new command »Import Resources...«. The libraries for this cool new feature are rather huge, so we offer an extra installer for them. These libraries are not necessarily needed to run interiorCAD 3, but we highly recommend to install them (except you have a very slow internet connection or less space left on your hard drive).

The recommended installation order is as follows:

• A fresh install of VectorWorks 12. InteriorCAD 3 will not install or run on top of previous versions of VectorWorks. We recommend to keep your previous version of interiorCAD as it is for later reference. It is neither needed to uninstall it nor it is recommended to install interiorCAD 3 over any existing version of interiorCAD
  
• The default interiorCAD installer (which comes with metric defaults)
  
• Optionally the libraries if you intent to use the cool new resource importer
  
• Optionally the imperial resources if you intend to work in imperials
  

For people who need to work in a mixed environment, here is some background what the imperial installer changes in your VectorWorks installation folder:

• A new imperial template file gets added to the templates folder
  
• The folder ./Plug-Ins/XG Resources/, which contains metric default values, will get copied. This ensures you have access to it at a later time and favourites you may have created can easily get restored. The same is valid for ./Plug-Ins/data/xg/ which contains default values for some tools (like adding a fill to a frame)
  
• The installer now will replace some files in ./Plug-Ins/XG Resources/ and ./Plug-Ins/data/xg/
  
• If necessary, the installer will make changes to the libraries if installed
  

Here are some tricks and techniques when working in a mixed environment:

• You will have two interiorCAD template files, the metric and the imperial template. You can start a new drawing with the metric template file, even if you have the imperial defaults installed. Using the metric template file will not cause any troubles, except that the default values in units will read as numbers with some decimals (e.g. unit sides will default to 19.05mm instead of 19mm)
  
• If you want to use both imperial and metric favourites in your units, you can simply copy over the desired favourite files from the metric XG Resources folder that the imperial installer has copied. Using metric favourites in an imperial drawing will not cause any troubles, except that the values in units will not read as nice fractions but as numbers with some decimals
  
• If you intend to use both imperial as well as metric boards in your units, you can concatenate both files. The files simply are text files called Boards.txt. When concatenating both files, please ensure the header only exists once and reads as the first line of the file only
  
• If you don't want to mess imperial and metric resources, you can switch back and forth between both simply by renaming both XG Resources folders. interiorCAD will always use the values found in the folder XG Resources. So if you have two folders called
  XG Resources and XG Resources Metric
  you can switch to metrics simply by renaming them like
  XG Resources Imperial and XG Resources
  Doing this will not cause any trouble, except that using an imperial template file with metric resources will make units displaying some decimal values instead of nice fractions
  
• What you never should do is switching back and forth the units in a drawing which already contains a unit. If you start with a metric template file, you place a unit and you do some front design, the front design can get damaged or lost if you switch units in the drawing. When editing a unit under such circumstances, the unit will complain and tell you that the front design will be deleted. If you press cancel and leave the unit, nothing will change so you have the chance to switch back the units of the drawing
  

For VectorWorks 12, we recommend to respect the following general recommendations:

• At least 128MB of RAM (the more, the better) on the card
• Install the latest driver - highly recommended!
• For OpenGL-Rendering both the hardware as well as the driver need to support it. Ensure both also support Anti-Aliasing
• Onboard-Cards are enough for office applications, but not for rendering threedimensional scenes

The following table provides an overview:

	Series	Windows	Macintosh
NVIDIA	Quadro FX 540, 1000, 1400, 3400/4400	Often have shown good performance and render results	Not available
NVIDIA	NVIDIA Geforce 6 und 7	Often have shown good performance	Often have shown good performance
NVIDIA	Other cards of the Geforce series (e.g. Geforce FX)	Not recommended	Not recommended
ATI	FireGL V3100	Not recommended	Not available
ATI	Radeon series	Not recommended	Often have shown good performance

The ATI cards have shown shortcomings with anti-aliasing. On Macintosh-computers, it was OK when rendering a full scene on the screen, but not when printing, exporting (images or video) or rendering parts of the scene only. The cards of ATI don't seem to be targeted to design and CAD oriented markets, while the NVIDIA Quadro FX series seem to be.

As interiorCAD is able to drive NC machines (VectorWOP - sold separately) and a lot of customers are interested in how it works from a VectorWorks perspective, here is a general overview how it works.

If you do a part layout of a unit, new layers will be created containing all parts of the unit as workpieces. If you select one, you will notice that each workpiece simply is a group. The group contains a rectangular or polygonal Board and the machinings like borings etc.

To create your own workpieces, select the dedicated tools from the palette CAM. Draw a board, add the machinings and group them together. This group now can be output for using it on the machine just like any other workpiece created by the automated part layout.

If you want to create parts with arbitrary shapes, the steps are the same. Draw a part and use the tool Polyline XG to create the desired shape. Enter the name of the moulder to use via the palette Object Info, where you will find a field Tool Info. The actual name to enter here depends on your machine configuration. Ask the guy who configured your NC output for the name. Add further machinings and group it all. The workpiece now is ready to be exported.

Most often, it is difficult to create arbitrary shapes using the tool Polyline XG. Instead, you may wish to use common VectorWorks techniques to create your polyline and convert it to a Polyline XG afterwards. Unsurprisingly, interiorCAD 3 offers exactly this feature. Use VectorWorks tools to create your shape. While it is selected, click on the menu Shop and choose the command Create NC-Polyline. Your shape will be converted and can now be added to an existing workpiece group or grouped together with a part as mentioned above.

Some important notes about converting arbitrary shapes to a Polyline XG:

• NC machines only can work on polylines which consist of lines and circular arcs. NC machines are even not able to create true ellipses but a approximation based on circular arcs. That is a commonly known limitation of the machines.
  
• Thus it is obvious what Create NC-Polyline is for: It analyses your shape and will then try to convert it to a polyline which the machine will accept.
  
• This means that any elements like beziers or elliptic shapes will be transformed to circular arcs.
  
• This can lead to shapes that slightly differ from your originally drawn shape. To avoid this, it is strongly recommended that you use lines and circular arcs to create your shape whenever possible. This way you can reduce the probability that your shape will change its form. A slightly changed form is not a problem if it is something like a table or counter top, but as soon as you have a matching counterpiece it can cause trouble.
  

Equipped with the above knowledge, interiorCAD makes it very easy to create arbitrary shaped workpieces. It can save you a lot of time: Instead of programming the shape step-by-step in the WOP software, use VectorWorks to create the shape, convert it to a Polyline XG, group it with a part and export it to your WOP software.