Kerry Thompson

Cost is around $US19.5K, the box is a Dell 7910 with the on site warranties, twin 4K monitors etc. I will feed back some performance ideas across a range of apps when things settle down. Kerry Thompson at Triptech

I guess we will find out - I have got a dual Xeon E5-2698 v4 (20C), 128Gb RAM with dual M6000 24Gb system coming into the office shortly.

I am looking at a Dell workstation and they list this class of card in their options. The K cards are only marginally less expensive. Not looking to build anything at this stage. In NZ, these type of cards cost ~$US7,500. Kerry Thompson at Triptech

Interesting your comments on the K5000 - Any comments on the M6000 24Gb? as a possibility? Kerry Thompson at Triptech

Thanks datacrasher. I have set the backface culling as you suggested and but it does not address the issue. I have run the Autodesk Generic materials in a very simple model and the back face culling still does not work. I rebuilt the material as a Arch and Design Mental Ray material and set the backface culling on in the Advanced Rendering Properties. This material backfaced culled on the simple model but not on the complex one. Kerry Thompson at Triptech

Thank you for the replies: The render engine is the Mental Ray shipped with Max 2012 and the Camera effect used is the Lens which is set-up to render out the objects for one material only. We have got a workaround using ImageMagick scripts which are able to cut out the mortar joints to give use the effect required but I understood that Max would Backface cull directly. We are using Autodesk generic materials generated from Revit 2012. [ATTACH=CONFIG]46789[/ATTACH] The blue in the image is the added background and shows through at the edge of the render until we see the backfaces of the wall returns. Kerry

We have a work flow where we take Revit generated materials, write them out to .fbx files, link the .fbx files to max and then generate a material library of Autodesk generic materials. The building we are rendering has a brick cladding and we are trying to render out the brick with the mortar joints transparent. This will allow use to overlay the rendered image on different mortar colors. The building model has been built in Revit 2012, written out to an .fbx file and then file linked into Max Design. We can render the brick with the mortar joints transparent using the cut map but the blackface culling is not working - we are still seeing the inside part of the wall through the transparent mortar joints. As I understand it, blackface culling should drop out the inner faces of the wall but I have not got it to work to date. We are using a lens camera effect to isolate the objects that use the material within the render. The normal modifier has been added to rthe walls and unified. Any one have any ideas why the blackface culling is not working. Thanks Kerry Thompson at Triptech

Hi Having used both, I would recommend Revit. It will build on your existing AutoCAD workflow. ADT is an excellent product and most things are achievable but, in my opinion, ADT represents a past generation of technology. The overhead to implement and maintain it is significant. I use Revit extensively for modeling and I find the models are quicker to produce BUT also very easy to change late in the process. I use AutoCAD as the link interface to between Revit and Viz. Cheers Kerry

Hi Raymond A DWL file is automatically created when a file is opened and then deleted when the file is closed. These files are very small and should not be left on the disk. They are used to tell other users on a network that the file is currently being used. The "logfilemode" variable should be set to 0 to stop AutoCAD making log files. Also turned of by the command "logfileoff". Cheers Kerry

Hi Ryan Not sure about the translation mapping but check the precision of the Microstation file before writing out as dwg files. As I understand it, dgn files have a precision limit of 4294967296 (2 to the 32) and when it you write the file to a floating point database such as dwg, (with a higher precision) the faces may be not be flat because of errors in the precision. Just an idea Cheers Kerry

I cannot remember the specifics but I do remember having this type of issue wth 2004, I have not had the same issues with ADT6. Maybe time for an upgrade. Have a look at discussions. Cheers Kerry

Hi In ADT6, I understand you can have project styles which apply across the whole project. I will have a look when I get back to the office. Change a project style and the whole project updates. Cheers Kerry

Hi There are difference between the libraries. The ADT4 library is 146Mb and contains 572 files where as the ADT6 library is 159Mb and 621 files. The best solution is to mount a texture library on a central CAD resource disk drive on your office network and re-path the textures location in your AutoCAD profiles to this drive for both (or all) computers. Cheers Kerry

Hi Lyle You will find that some styles are embedded in the definition of other styles so even though there is nothing drawn, these styles are still required. Similar to trying to purge layers from an empty drawing with block definitions containing those layers. Until the blocks are purged, the layers will remain. Cheers Kerry

Hi I often use Excel to write script files to undertake this type of task. Setup the list of layer names and their properties in the respective columns of the spreadsheet and concatenate the columns into a string stored in a resultant column. Copy the column of results into a file with the extension .scr and drop it into your AutoCAD session. The script will run creating the layer set. This layer script can be called from menus and tool palettes. Kerry