Hi Marcthur,

This is a symptom of video card problem. Try these steps

1 - Check the website of your video card manufacturer and update the drivers
2 - Go to www.microsoft.com/directx, and see what version is current and check if you have this version installed in your computer
3 - Right click on the wallpaper (look for a place without icons)--> Properties--> Settings--> Advanced--> Open GL--> Compatibility Settings--> Force 16 bits--> Apply--> OK
4 - Set your video color depth at 24 or 32 bits ("true color")
5 - Go to the video driver setup on your PC (may be different for different versions of Windows and video card); for most, click on an empty part of the windows desktop, , click on Settings->Advanced->Troubleshoot). Back the accelerations slider all the way to the left, turning off accelerations--> OK

Hope this helps

Patricia

Hi LMCC,

I am not sure what do you mean by "apply a material to a photo".
You can't change the materials of a picture inserted with the Photo view PT, in liveview mode

Please, give us more details and we'll help you

Patricia

Hi LMCC,

That's correct. Punch Platinum doesn't include the Photoview editor power tool, therefore you can't modify a picture after you imported it in Punch Platinum
Unfortunately, as is stated in the post, the manual info is not accurate
You can modify Punch's colors and textures using the Material painter / Modifier

Patricia

Hi LMCC,

Nope, it is not how it works. Lets review some definitions. Notice that not all the elements or Power Tools are present in all the Punch versions. I am just defining them in order to clarify concepts

Texture / color: Located in the Preview bar--> Materials or Preview bar--> Colors, they define the exterior appearance (surface) of a Punch entity (walls, roofs, floors, etc) or a 3D object (table, chair, appliance, cabinet, etc) . They are applied by drag and drop

3D object: object created / imported / modified with the 3D workshop power tool (I am not differentiating here cabinets, fireplaces, etc). A 3D object can be textured with Materials or colored with Colors.

Material Painter / Material Modifier: Power tool intended to modify the characteristics of a Material / Color present in Punch. This means that you can choose a Material in the libraries(say white siding, see picture #1) and modify it to look pink (see picture # 2). You can change also brightness, opacity, etc. (Hence my sentence "You can modify Punch's colors and textures using the Material painter / Modifier")
You can save the modified texture / color to the respective library as PTX

Material Workshop (present only in AS4000 V8 and V10, AS 3000 V10 and IDS: Power Tool that works in the same way that the Material Modifier, however, you can import and process your own textures. You can save the modified texture / color or the ones you imported to the respective libraries as PTX

Photoview: Is a Power Tool intended to insert a picture (bmp, jpg, etc) in the Punch Workspace. This picture can be used as background or to "dress" the image

The board of "Punchhelpers" is a 3D object and the texture of the cabin was imported with the Material Workshop
Notice that, after you import these pictures with Photoview, they are just 2D boards, but you can play with the point of view to get a good effect.
Once the picture is inserted in the Punch workspace, the image cannot be modified--> you can't apply textures or colors, you can't modify the brightness,opacity, etc. You can only change the dims, elevation, rotate it, etc

Photoview Editor: Power Tool intended to modify a picture (bmp, jpg, etc) before you insert the image using the Photoview PT. In the image attached, you can see how I changed the color of the door

So, as you can see each element and Power Tool has a different use

Let us know if you've additional questions

Patricia

Hi Reuben Sterling,

Glad to know that the solution worked :-)

I don't thing that the SP will affect directly the VC performance, however, after you install some XP updates, you should update the VC drivers again--> some updates for some VCs are updated only if the Windows XP is up-to-date (I saw this in one of my computers, some time ago)
So, perform all the process again and let us know about the results

Patricia