Final project moving on a pace

Although the new iMac has yet to arrive (19th May is the big day) I am forging along with what I can do on the now laboring Trusty Laptop.

Hand drawn sections complete and drawn up onto A1 architectural blanks, all to the revised/new ground plan and sketch up fiddled with to reflect most of new design I am starting on the Key Plans and cascade drawings which is the next big chunk of work to knock of the list.

This weeks 2 day photography course is long awaited and in preparation everything is polished, charged and formatted and now packed. Easy to be ready when you're excited about the long days of study (9am-8pm).

From Project 3 - Rural

iMac?

My trusty laptop (TL) has done good service in harsh conditions and has finally met it's match in Renderworks. I have had to admit defeat and resort to checking out the iMac again this evening, online. It does come highly recommended though the question is, which one?

27" screen is a given as part of TL's problem is not enough screen space (a mere 17") for all the palettes and drawings but then which processor and which graphics card. The charming youth in MK Apple store tried to persuade me to go for the iMac quad core i7 (GULP!) which sings and dances and makes tea whilst it renders monster drawings in seconds, it oddly enough has a price tag to make strong men go weak at the knees (and not in a good way I might say!).

So any comments on which iMac I need (as opposed to the aspirational one that is beckoning) would be much appreciated.....

Winding down...apparently

This week has been a lot less tedious than anticipated, mainly because instead of two whole days on professional practice an contract law we had two half days.

Disappointingly there was a no show from the supposed expert in contract law which meant we had a very familiar stand in. It is worrying to discover all this potential litigation lining up against us and almost more worrying because the person talking us through wasn't a lawyer so mostly it was based on experience and educated guesswork.

We all left knowing we will need to get a local solicitor on side to review potential contract issues and the standard T's & C's from the SGD.

Happily I took my cameras along on Thursday so headed out to Waterperry for some spring planting which was good in parts although not as spectacular as their summer borders.

En route home tonight I stopped at the Apple store in MK as my laptop has decided it cannot cope with Vectorworks rendering or site modeling (though it claims to be a gaming PC and has separate graphics card or reasonable spec!) So it looks like business set up costs are going to be earlier and more than expected. Funds are having to be diverted from other projects.

3D Vectorworks

A roller coaster first week back at college, scrambling to finish something resembling the required documents before a Tamsin led whistlestop tour of Vectorworks 3D.

Our two days has been crammed into one day for some reason which I can't quite fathom, something about 3d VW not being relevant which in fact turns out not to be the case as we wend our way through manipulating contours and building sweeping solids. My laptop, a supposedly wizard gaming machine, struggles to render at times....I ponder changing to an iMac and inwardly groan at the cost.

From Desktop

The course is nothing if not a rapid change of schedule and covered topics.

Vectorworks 2010 Training days

2 very intense days of VectorWorks training with Tamsin Slatter of Vectorworks Training. FANTASTIC.

This is the first time I have used a CAD type package, well Sketch Up I suppose but this is really in a different league (as promised by TS!). Learning the whole thing from scratch is always daunting but it was a fascinating tour through the basics and a good level of repetition and trawling through functionality.

I feel fortunate to be in a group with 3 CAD experts, 2 interior designers and a Landscaper all of whom brought clarity to various elements, be it explanations of functions in AutoCAD through to the basics of real life wall building (a 101 for dummies like me!). Being with a group who are much better at something than I am makes me take a step up and try and match them. I love that!

TS sailed us through the exercises and knowledge with aplomb, not in the least phased by the vargaries of hardware, user foibles, OS's or anything else for that matter. She even helped me change my memory cards (from Crucial.com) in record time. I am now loving he double speed action of my new 4gb RAM.

Exhausting all this learning but very satisfying, now for the 30 mins a day to build the real foundations to work from.

And of course saving pennies for that iMac with 27" screen... totally green with envy over that