Posted by Rolando on July 09, 2001 at 10:21:34:In Reply to: Re: Which 3D modellers and renderers are an absolute must for any architect???? Can anyone tell me?? posted by Kevin Matthews on July 07, 2001 at 18:25:41:
I want to take exception to the comment Kevin said. Direct manipulation is not as central a factor when you are transferring an established design into 3d for presentation or additional investigation.
Right now, moving an object in DesignWorkshop when you know where you want or need to move the object is a difficult or cumbersome procedure at best. You have to monitor as many as three distance boxes while click-dragging the object and release the mouse when all the axes show the correct displacement. The alternative is to enter a new location for the object and that requires calculating that new location on as many as three axes, depending on the relative change. If a distance at an angle is required, then you also have to get into trig functions.
A "Move" command (ala Pcadd) that lets you enter the relative change in location either with xyz data or distance at horizontal and vertical angles, would greatly simplify this process.
Perhaps the thing is that the philosophy at Artifice IS geared to design in 3d. Maybe that's why this type of functionality has been slow to being incorporated into the program, if at all. There are other things, like drawing a line at a precise angle and distance, which are very difficult to achieve in the DW. Again, a factor of knowing where you want to go as opposed to trying to find where you want to go.
I don't know about the rest of DW users, but the type of design I am involved with can usually be well developed in 2d. I need DW to either investigate the results in 3d, or more often to present in 3d for the client to more easily visualize.
Perhaps I'm looking for too much accuracy, I don't know. The topic of adding 2d functionalities to DW is not new on this message board, but nothing concrete seems to have ever come from it.