Hello Laura. :)

Can I ask you to give a reason for the above statement? Do you not like progress or something? This year's Burning Man theme is "Metropolis". Isn't the creation of the metropolis, very much a symbol of progress? :confused:

Hi Laura,

Philosophical considerations aside, I made the switch to an x86 based Mac for the opportunities in software available because the x86 Macs can run multiple OS's as needed and (with a performance hit) when running other OS's virtually. I use the software tools available regardless of the hardware it runs on, because. I don't feel or notice any difference between my old G5 and my newish MacPro, except that my MacPro is about 10 times faster and can handle a lot more.

As for your questions regarding the renderer in FX, I would not rely on a renderer to determine glare and those sorts of issues. i would research what creates glare (ie angle of light from source of illumination that flash blinds the poor schmuck attempting to navigate to Burning Man , etc.). I would create some surfaces that represent viewing angles from the drivers perspective ( use a simple person prop in side and top views located within your vehicle assembly) and then try and determine what range of sun angle will create glare issues.

This Human Factors information can be found in a very useful book, "The Measure of Man and Woman", by Henry Dreyfuss and Associates. Pages 66 thru 71 will be helpful, but not answer all of your questions.

This same modeling approach, using simple people props in side and top views, will help determine blind spots and if a structure obscures the field of vision.

As for creating part drawings, I think most of the Shark packages are fairly strong in useability and feature set for part drawings.

Feel free to visit this forum for advice, and direction on Shark CAD products as there are many very helpful and experienced users who visit and respond fairly regularly, although work can get in the way of timely responses.

All the best!

tem

It has been mentioned that LT has the improved ModelToSheet technology. The price difference Pro to LT is small enough (especially when shopping around) that it's not worth it for me not to get at least LT.



Is that the free renderer that I saw mentioned someplace?

I'm using SharkFX so I wasn't aware of the model to sheet limitation, which I use for all my drawing.

Cheetah3D is $149.

You probably are referring to blender:
http://www.blender.org/

This is an unbiased renderer like Maxwell Render
http://www.luxrender.net/

there are more; do a search on "renderer open source)

Forgot to add that Maxwell would definitely do what you want, but it would require some scenes that would simulate the environment, and it would be non trivial to do that.

http://maxwellrender.com/

tom

For many years now, the speed of a general purpose program has been determined almost entirely by how fast data can be moved to/from memory. The processor architecture makes little difference. Given the same memory speed, a web browser will render a page just as fast whether it's running on a Core2Duo, PPC G5, i386, 680x0, or whatever.

A larger on-chip cache allows more data to move faster. A smaller chip geometry allows a larger cache. Ergo, the company making processors at 45nm has faster chips than the company still at 65nm. Right now Intel is the leader in chip fab, so that's who everyone wants to be friends with.

The above logic changes for certain computationally intense tasks or programmer friendliness. This is why I don't want to jump on the Intel bandwagon.



Going by my historical pattern, I'll be looking to replace my G5 iMac as my primary computer in the year 2014 or so. I'm certainly OK with getting an Intel Mac to run v7, but that won't be my primary computer. I still have some pre-OSX and/or 680x0 programs I might need to use. The G5 can run those.



I'll want to use the computer - not assemble, configure, tweak, and worry about it.



Excuse me, I have to leave the room...

... OK, I'm back.

My dilemma could be drawn as matrix with four points:

LT5.5@PPC, LT7@Intel
FX5.5@PPC, FX7@Intel

The current "FX w/ free upgrade" offer fills all four points. Getting a SharkLT now and later updating to v7 fills the top row. With current online pricing, for about the same cost as the "free upgrade offer", it is possible get an LT now and an entirely separate FX in the future*. This would fill all but the lower left matrix point. I expect to have PPC machines around for quite a while, so that matrix point is not to be ignored.

* I expect Punch to raise the price of Shark FX with v7.

Thus the question simplifies to whether the v5.5 renderer is useful for me.

:eek:

In the amount of time you just took to tell me this, you could have just modelled the whole thing in cardboard, then drawn it out in pencil, orthographically!! :p




......cardboard.......



....definitely cardboard, .......or maybe foam? :rolleyes:





Haha! that's more like it! BTW, You should try living in England! :eek:





Okay, I have a suggestion, why not get on the Rhino for OS X beta bandwagon? I don't think McNeel will be charging for at least another year. Rhino still works on PPC (just?).

OK then, will you hold eight to ten car windshields in the air for me as I check if they can be arranged to make a facsimile of a sphere? Of course you'll have to keep holding them all day as I shop for just the right windshields.



Expiring downloads requiring repeated downloading. A final seat price that'll effectively leave my data locked up and inaccessible.



My project is probably at least a two year project.


I visited the Cheetah3D web site. It looks like Shark LT + Cheetah3D might meet my needs better than Shark FX.




The structure in front will move. The definition of "front" is also not fixed.



I found a lonely neglected LiTtle Shark out in the Nevada desert at a real good price. It was probably from a defunct computer store. If I end up having to buy a different version, I won't feel bad about paying a second time. The post office says this Shark first visited the San Jose Sharks, and then swam to me. "Swam" is quite literally the word to use as it arrived during an "out of season" deluge of rain.

I think I have it installed, except there's a problem of some sort as I'll detail in a different post.

Considering that there's been only one major release of Shark LT, it can't be an old version. (Although it might not be the most current build.)

BTW, the box says v5. The error message says 5.5.

Incorrect. (see other post)

Eberhard

[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obj"]OBJ[/URL] is a mesh based, i.e. triangulated 3D format for a data exchange mainly with render & raytracing apps., don't use it with 3D CAx apps. if you can use:

Acis SAT or STEP or IGES is for exchanging NURBS based (= exact) data with 3D CAx apps.

DXF/DWG is for transfering 2D data to 2D CAD systems.



same for ACAD, the unit is defined by the user inputting in meters or millimeters, therefore importing the dimensionless DXF/DWG format the used user unit needs to be known.

hth,
Norbert