It would be nice to see one of this sample movies before I consider purchasing AS 3000. Is there one available on the Punch site? As slow as AS 18 is on my Athlon 2 GIG with 256 meg of ram and 3DForce 4 MX440 Twin video card, does AS 3000 respond quicker when requesting LiveView? It takes almost 10 minutes for my full drawing to become visible after it goes through the RenDeRiNG mode. :)

Hello Patricia I've tried on several occasions, day and night, home and work to view the AVI file you gave the link for. No luck. I get a page that keeps saying "Loading" and nothing ever comes up. I am running on high speed. How big is the file I am attempting to view?

Hi David VE5DGD,

I uploaded a smaller AVI movie, so it will load faster.

You can check it at the same address

http://www.punchhelpers.com/avitest

Let me know if you still experience difficulties

Patricia

I am having trouble setting an animation path that continuously changes the viewing elevation from say high to low. I can set different segments to different elevations using design+set working elevation, but thats about it. stringing segments together then becomes kinda choppy. any suggestions. The manual is not clear how to set these elevations, at least that i can find. also, (and i am assuming here that someone from Punch! will read this!), did you guys leave out your phone number in the 3000 user guide on purpose or by accident? i'll bet your tired of my calls, eh? -Barney

In reply to: My favorite is the ability to finally be able to look around (up and down at any angle) in the liveview window. This alone made the upgrade worth it to me. It used to be your eyes were locked at 90 degrees in liveview walkthru mode, making you feel half blind in tight spaces. Strangely you cannot look around at the same time as walking (the way you can in a 3-d video game), so you can either walk around looking at 90 degrees or stop and look around at any angle up/down/left/right from that spot. So not ideal, but it's a major improvement. Try holding down the left mouse button in 3D and using the arrow keys to move around(make sure the Controlled Walk-Through tool is selected). If you hold down the right mouse and use the arrow keys you will change elevations based on where you are looking. Be sure to let up on the keys before letting up on the mouse button or you will nudge anything selected in 2D. If it moves too fast use the speed control in the bottom left of LiveVeiw to slow it down.

I am new user and the 3000 series is my first purchase. In reading some of the other responses it seems like speed is an issue for some operations. I just want to say I have not found any yet. If anything items like live view is too fast and touchy. I have to turn down the speed. All I can say so far is it is a good program. I have a few questions I will pose in other areas. FWIW on a P4 3.0gig with 1gig of memory and a Raid 0 array with an ATI 9600 pro it flies! Jim

I don't know about the .avi facilities but I agree that the right-click facilities seem to have been devastated!! I wonder why they were not kept the same as AS18? (& could also include short-cuts for Move & Rotate!) Certainly the Wall Properties tab should include the Elevation setting as in AS18 Wall Segment Properties. Hopefully there will shortly be an update to fix the missing bits! Neil.

Dave, I am considering buying the AS3000 software. I am wondering how difficult it is to use this software and generate the stuff on the box. I was excited to see your post. I am an electrical engineer, I have a good bit of CAD experience (AutoCAD and Microstation). I have my preliminary plans that were done by an architect. So as you can see, I am where you were in Feb. How are things coming now? Would you recommend the software? How many hours have you spent to get what you want? My dilemma, like everyone else's, is that I can't show my wife any of my visions. Some of my ideas I can't visualize myself. So this software, seems to be what I need. I have a full time job though and I don't have hundreds of hours to spend. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Please e-mail me at [email protected] Thanks, Ash

Hi Don,

As you know, the online load time (for a movie or other file) depends of the connection and the size of the file

Assuming that most of your Customers use a HS connection, your only option is the video edition to reduce the size of the file.

There are many programs to edit and compress the video file,after Punch. I used a program called IGM to add music and edit the file

Hope this helps

Patricia