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Deal breakers for me

25 REPLIES 25
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Message 1 of 26
Anonymous
671 Views, 25 Replies

Deal breakers for me

This is a great concept and I hope it will be a useful tool for us someday but I couldn't put it into "production" now. The bucket fill tool, block replace feature and update geometry could be an "illustrator killer" IMO if it all worked smoothly.

The problems I have are that on/off freeze/thaw in xrefs doesn't seem to be respected. I have to "save as" and bind all my xrefs to get it to work. Not a preferred workflow.

Tree/shrub blocks that have attributes or are "complex" in any way seem to get exploded. I'm not having any luck with hatches either but I could just turn them off to avoid the explosion. Can't do that with the trees and shrubs obviously.

Bucket fill tool would be the way we work to avoid having to close areas but it's painfully slow and I've seen it throw up memory errors when it's trying to compute fill areas. If I have to close everything anyway, Ill render in Illustrator.

There's too much DWG tweaking on our drawings required for this to be useful right now.

LDT 2005 + CD 2005
Dual Xeon 3.2GHz
4GB RAM
256 MB NVidia GeForce 6800
32 bit XP Pro SP2 with /3G switch
25 REPLIES 25
Message 2 of 26
NikolaiS
in reply to: Anonymous

Hi Derek,

>> on/off freeze/thaw in xrefs doesn't seem to be respected

Are you saying that frozen or off layers are imported when loading an xref? I can't reproduce this. Only layers that are on and thawed are loaded for me. Or do you actually want those layers to come in? Can you upload a file to

http://impression.autodesk.com/gallery/submit/

Please add a note to forward the file to me (Nikolai Sander)

that shows the problem? Which version are you using? Tech Preview, or R1 downloadable from:

www.autodesk.com/impression
under Product Trial

>> Tree/shrub blocks that have attributes or are "complex" in any way seem to get exploded.

Is Remove Hidden Lines enabled on load? Also, please upload a file to the gallery that shows this problem.

Thanks,

Nikolai Sander
Sr. Software Engineer
Autodesk
Message 3 of 26
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

I haven't had this open long, but this seems very similar to m-color. i couldn't stand mcolor because the intense time required to close everything and render closed polylines. Nobody drafts with closed polylines, it's lines and arcs, etc. In the time it takes to close and join all of the lines to use this program, we could render the drawing no less than 2 times, scan it, and reproduce it.

the concept is good, but the reality is time equals money.

I agree with Derek.
Message 4 of 26
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

>> i couldn't stand mcolor because the intense time required to close everything and render closed polylines.

In Impression we have the Area Fill tool which creates those closed plines for you automatically. Start the Area Fill tool, select a fill style in the styles palette and start clicking in the drawing. It will create closed shapes bounding the region you click in, and fill it with the selected style.

-- Scott Morrison
Impression Developer
Message 5 of 26
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

That is a great idea and tool except it takes far to long to fill in every single area to fill in pavement. We do not have simple renderings. Our renderings show text, contour lines, labels, etc. Our tree blocks have attributes and the exclusion list for us is too large. To me this is a glorified version of mcolor that doesn't solve the problem of isolating laters then filling areas, then layer unisolating. that is the ideal.

if the software detected all AEC objects and land dekstop points and contours, that would help. It would also help to have the abilit to isolate layers during the rendering process like i mentioned above.
Message 6 of 26
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

When using the Area Fill tool you can turn off layers that you don't want it to consider. You can turn off all the layers containing text, contour lines, tree blocks and labels, then start the Area Fill tool. It will then ignore all the geometry on layers that are off.

You turn off layers by clicking on the light bulb button in the layers palette on the top-right of the Impression interface.

-- Scott Morrison
Impression Developer.
Message 7 of 26
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

tried that, but it didn't realize that lines were closed and took 30mins to launch the tool, then it filled the whole screen and not the closed area. I can send you the drawing if you want to take a look. It acted like it still recognized the off layers, where as in cad, you freeze the layers and not turn them off and it acts like they don't exists. This software acts like it is dealing with the layers even if they are "off"
Message 8 of 26
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Would it be possible for you to send us the DWG and IRF so we can take a look?

Thanks,
Shana
shana.priwer@autodesk.com
Message 9 of 26
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

hi John -

You might also want to join our beta program to see where we are going with potential new features.

You can find instructions about joining the beta program here:
http://impression.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/5/blogpost/3194/

Lisa

Lisa Crounse
Product Marketing Manager - Autodesk Impression
lisa.crounse@autodesk.com
Message 10 of 26
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Ideally, drawings shouldn't have to be prepped to render. The time we spend "prepping" can be spent rendering. The attached composite plan could be rendered in 1.5 hour each by hand.

I have 3.3mb .zip file for you but it is too large to upload via this message board apparentliy.
Message 11 of 26
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Email should be ok - shana.priwer@autodesk.com

If it doesnt go through, let me know and we'll set up something else for the file transfer.

thanks,
shana
Message 12 of 26
nvanlaar
in reply to: Anonymous

Ideally if the drawing is setup properly from the beginning, "prep-work" is
a matter of flipping a layer state switch. In order for Impression to be
used more efficiently some workflows or the way things are done need to be
changed or adjusted slightly. Planning ahead makes life easier at the end.
Sure the plan could be rendered by hand in 1.5 hrs., but the second time
(rev. 2) by hand also takes 1.5 hrs. where-as in Impression import the new
revision using the style and block maps from the first and the time for a
re-render is cut dramatically. Pop into the beta and see what's coming
next.

wrote in message news:5728136@discussion.autodesk.com...
Ideally, drawings shouldn't have to be prepped to render. The time we spend
"prepping" can be spent rendering. The attached composite plan could be
rendered in 1.5 hour each by hand.

I have 3.3mb .zip file for you but it is too large to upload via this
message board apparentliy.
Message 13 of 26
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

you don't have to re-render the whole plan when you change it..... you cut and paste and splice, takes far less than 1.5 hours to fix a rendering by hand. Not sure how long it takes in impression, but you would think it would be less regardless.

You can only set the layer state once, so you set the layerstate, import the drawing and now we have millions of lines to fil with solid hatches. Therefore, we spend time turning off layers in impression to hatch large masses, like roads and sidewalks, then turn them back on, etc etc. waste of time. Even if you super click inside of all the areas, it is painful.

flattening capabilities are a logical solution to minimizing layers and maximizing groups of objects with out modifying the cad file, simialr to layer translator. Modifying workflow is not an option.

How many times do you render site plans, we render probably twice per job. Renderings are expensive and our clients do not want to pay for them, i doubt any do unless they are necessary or cheaper.

I have a scan image of one of our renderings that was completed in 2 hours, It's huge, 24"x101" and it's a 16mb as a .jpeg

if this software can do that, I'm a buyer. I'll send you the cad files and you tell me. I really don't think clients should be the test mules for software manufactures uncompensated. Autodesk doesn't get paid to do landscape architecture or civil engineering, why should i pay to do testing for Autodesk, when they make billions of dollars of my clients? what do we the clients get out of this? Nothing, we end up paying Autodesk to use the software we beta tested for them, tell me whats wrong with that.
Message 14 of 26
nvanlaar
in reply to: Anonymous


I see what you are saying, yet I feel as though you
have not explored half of Impression's capabilities and are stuck doing things
"the way it's always been done."  Stuff like fills are simple, simple
things and take seconds when the CAD file is setup correctly.  I would
be willing to wager that a good Impression opperator could pop out a rendering
quicker then the same drawing could be hand rendered.

 

Beta testing does not cost a dime, except for the
time involved.  And if this is something you are intersted in using why not
have a voice in the direction of where the software is going.  Perhaps you
have some insights that someone else has not thought of yet.  Without going
into detail I can tell you that the next release is leaps better then the
current, infant, release of Impression.  Remember this is a brand new
program that is still mapping where it will go.  As the saying goes "Rome
wasn't built in a day."  But man was it magnificent when it was
done...

 

"What do we the clients get...?"  We get
software that speaks to our needs, that does what
we want it to do.  Beta testing is the best way for
clients to get the software they want.  Otherwise you are stuck with the
ideas that the software engineers come up with - good or bad.  When that
happens you have very little right to complain because you did not speak up when
you had the chance.

 

Have you seen any of the work done by other
Impression users?  Browse the galleries
href="http://impression.autodesk.com/gallery/">http://impression.autodesk.com/gallery/

There are some incredible renderings in
there.  And this is only a very small portion of work.

 
Message 15 of 26
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

The work by Joel Roderick was the best product I saw. I'd like to know how long it took him to do that rendering. It is simple but getting closer to a product we produce.

the attached rendering was a 36x110 rendering scanned at 200dpi. I knocked it down in res and size for obvious reasons. We did nothing to the cad file issued in black and white to make this a rendering. We plotted the plot file and started coloring. It took 3 hours

That would be awesome if you're saying we could render this in impression in 2 hours.

I take issue with the phrase "cad file setup currectly". We are not in the business of drafting for rendering, we are in the business of permitting and construction. Who gets paid to do pretty pictures build nothing? We're not going to change our work flow to adapt to software providers. Software providers can adapt to our work flow, especially if we are testing FOR them FOR FREE, and then PAYING THEM for the software.

Pay us to test and charge reasonable prices for software and my opinion will change.
Message 16 of 26
nvanlaar
in reply to: Anonymous

You probably saw that I am taking an un-official poll in Myfeedback, but I
would tentativly say, yes it could be done in 2 hrs or less, but cannot say
for certain without seeing exactly how complex the dwg is when imported to
Impression. From the rendering posted, it does not look too complicated. I
know alot about the program (not everything), but I don't quite have the
artist's touch that Ged or Joel have. They would be the true experts on how
long it would take.

PS.
Glad to see you at the beta.

wrote in message news:5729763@discussion.autodesk.com...
The work by Joel Roderick was the best product I saw. I'd like to know how
long it took him to do that rendering. It is simple but getting closer to a
product we produce.

the attached rendering was a 36x110 rendering scanned at 200dpi. I knocked
it down in res and size for obvious reasons. We did nothing to the cad file
issued in black and white to make this a rendering. We plotted the plot
file and started coloring. It took 3 hours

That would be awesome if you're saying we coul
d render this in impression in 2 hours.

I take issue with the phrase "cad file setup currectly". We are not in the
business of drafting for rendering, we are in the business of permitting and
construction. Who gets paid to do pretty pictures build nothing? We're not
going to change our work flow to adapt to software providers. Software
providers can adapt to our work flow, especially if we are testing FOR them
FOR FREE, and then PAYING THEM for the software.

Pay us to test and
charge reasonable prices for software and my opinion will change.
Message 17 of 26
becca12306
in reply to: Anonymous

I have to agree with the time issue on this. We will render 2 or 3 times per job and this program is slow. I'd have to add considerable time to the budget for this especially on large sites.
However I am also a new user so I'm sure I'd be much faster if I knew what the heck I was doing. I'm just having a hard time convincing the boss that this is a worth while investment. Message was edited by: becca12306
Message 18 of 26
nvanlaar
in reply to: Anonymous

You will get faster the more you use it (just like autocad). How fast were
you the first few times using ACAD or even photoshop? I would bet slower
then even Impression. Also once you kind of get your personal style nailed
down and have created all of the blocks/fill/line styles you like using,
things go much quicker because instead of spending time tweaking things it
becomes mostly drag and drop.

wrote in message news:5730961@discussion.autodesk.com...
I have to agree with the time issue on this. We will render 2 or 3 times
per job and this program is slow. I'd have to add considerable time to the
budget for this especially on large sites.
However I am also a new user so I'm sure I'd be much faster if I knew what
the heck I was doing. I'm just having a hard time convincing the boss that
this is a worth while investment.

Message was edited by: becca12306
Message 19 of 26
dbd63
in reply to: Anonymous

There are two threads in two forums about this particular image, and there's lots of talk about getting this done in a couple hours. I'm just getting into this program, and every step in a rendering takes much, much longer than it will when I've learned the software, but I can't imagine ever being able to generate an image this large and complex in two hours. This thing is 22,000 pixels wide when output as a raster image! As a CAD file, it has more than enough vectors to choke Impression, from what I've seen. The tree areas are defined by thousands of arcs- will that give Impression pause? How well will the gap tolerance feature work (I haven't tested it)? If it doesn't work as well as it should, won't that require additional CAD prep to better define fill areas? Graphically, how would you handle the park area east of the pond? The subtleties of that area were probably rendered in by hand, and were not part of the CAD file. How much of the details of the image were added during hand rendering, and would therefore require being added to the vector info before they could be rendered in Impression?

And all these issues aside, the two hour estimate obviously is based on having a full library of styles and blocks developed and tweaked before starting this. Add to the estimate the time needed to build the libraries, since the program doesn't ship with them.

I'd love to watch someone produce this image, as a print-ready raster image, 24" x 101" at 200 dpi, in two hours. You're dreaming!

Dan
Message 20 of 26
nvanlaar
in reply to: Anonymous

You are thinking too much along the lines of AutoCAD. Impression's fill
tools are MUCH better then ACAD's hatch command and the trees are just trees
as long as they were inserted into the CAD file as blocks. A person would
have a pre-made tree block(s) that they would substitute for the originals
and all of the trees would be colored and exchanged in seconds. Freehand
fills are quite possible, useful, and quick in Impression. Yes, there is
time invested in creating the fills and blocks, that only needs to be done
once. The initial investment of time becomes quite cheap when the things
created get used over and over again. Why does vector info have to be added
before importing? Impression does draw lines. And lastly, yes this would
take a much more substantial computer then my current P4 dog, but so does
practically everything else at this point. I think you are completely
underestimating Impression. I am not sure you would be happy unless it did
have the magic "Make it look good" button.

wrote in message news:5732280@discussion.autodesk.com...
There are two threads in two forums about this particular image, and there's
lots of talk about getting this done in a couple hours. I'm just getting
into this program, and every step in a rendering takes much, much longer
than it will when I've learned the software, but I can't imagine ever being
able to generate an image this large and complex in two hours. This thing
is 22,000 pixels wide when output as a raster image! As a CAD file, it has
more than enough vectors to choke Impression, from what I've seen. The tree
areas are defined by thousands of arcs- will that give Impression pause?
How well will the gap tolerance feature work (I haven't tested it)? If it
doesn't work as well as it should, won't that require additional CAD prep to
better define fill areas? Graphically, how would you handle the park area
east of the pond? The subtleties of that area were probably rendered in by
hand, and were not part of the CAD file. How much of the details of the
image were added during hand rendering, and would therefore require being
added to the vector info before they could be rendered in Impression?

And all these issues aside, the two hour estimate obviously is based on
having a full library of styles and blocks developed and tweaked before
starting this. Add to the estimate the time needed to build the libraries,
since the program doesn't ship with them.

I'd love to watch someone produce this image, as a print-ready raster image,
24" x 101" at 200 dpi, in two hours. You're dreaming!

Dan

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