Craftsmanship in Wood

Thank you Chris, your explanation confirms what I was expecting somehow.
I will have to try this on the jack's I am about to make.. There is always room for improvement.

This is the blog and it is one of the few things I follow online these days.
http://samonmiya.exblog.jp

Thank you!

Any idea what CAD system they use?

I don't recall the author mentioning specifics. He did note that the current building is coming together perfectly thanks to CAD...

Yeah, I saw a few sreeenshots, but without seeing the command line/icons it's hard to tell what system they're using - it could be anything, really, including proprietary and/or Japan only.. I'm assuming it's 3D as well, but might be wrong there. I know Dale Brotherton uses Chief Architect, and (at least in his book) Len Brackett said he uses Revit and both of those are 3D. Guys on the MUF are raving about Dietrich for TF structures, but I haven't seen it yet.

Len Bracket might say he's using Revit, but as far as I know he doesn't do any of the actual drawing himself. He always had a CAD guy. And, given his age, I'm not imagining he has started learning CAD in recent years, but I could be wrong. He always liked to talk about Microsoft Project manager, not CAD software.

There are a lot of different CAD software packages out there. I'm still considering a change from SketchUp to Rhino, but it means I've got to get a newer computer as well....

Chris Hall wrote:Len Bracket might say he's using Revit, but as far as I know he doesn't do any of the actual drawing himself. He always had a CAD guy. And, given his age, I'm not imagining he has started learning CAD in recent years, but I could be wrong. He always liked to talk about Microsoft Project manager, not CAD software.

There are a lot of different CAD software packages out there. I'm still considering a change from SketchUp to Rhino, but it means I've got to get a newer computer as well....

Chris,

Why would you need a new computer for this? It looks like it doesn't require any special hardware and it's available for windows and mac.

It because of the operating system. My Mac is on OSX 10.6, but to download the newest SketchUp version 8, or the new Rhino for Mac, I need OSX 10.8 and higher. Sounds simple but....

I've gone so far as to download the 10.8 operating system, but decided against installing it as I read lots of comments on Mac's own forums about people having their computer screwed up as a result of putting the new operating system in place - doing just the same upgrade I was contemplating.

I'm going to have to do something soon - Trimble SketchUp warehouse can now only be accessed if you have the newest version of SketchUp loaded, and due to the operating system issue, I can't install the last 2 or three updates to SU on my computer.

The doors, so to speak, start to close here and there and you are eventually forced to upgrade the hardware if you want to move to newer software. My computer is only 2 or 3 years old. The last time I was forced to upgrade my computer at the time was 5 years old. I imagine that if I buy a new computer tomorrow, I will be forced to upgrade in 2 years, the way things are going. And a lot of the newer Macs are coming with the memory soldered in, so you can't upgrade the memory any longer either.

Chris Hall wrote:It because of the operating system. My Mac is on OSX 10.6, but to download the newest SketchUp version 8, or the new Rhino for Mac, I need OSX 10.8 and higher. Sounds simple but....

I've gone so far as to download the 10.8 operating system, but decided against installing it as I read lots of comments on Mac's own forums about people having their computer screwed up as a result of putting the new operating system in place - doing just the same upgrade I was contemplating.

I'm going to have to do something soon - Trimble SketchUp warehouse can now only be accessed if you have the newest version of SketchUp loaded, and due to the operating system issue, I can't install the last 2 or three updates to SU on my computer.

The doors, so to speak, start to close here and there and you are eventually forced to upgrade the hardware if you want to move to newer software. My computer is only 2 or 3 years old. The last time I was forced to upgrade my computer at the time was 5 years old. I imagine that if I buy a new computer tomorrow, I will be forced to upgrade in 2 years, the way things are going. And a lot of the newer Macs are coming with the memory soldered in, so you can't upgrade the memory any longer either.

Thanks for the info and that makes sense. If you want to avoid buying a new computer, you could always purchase a harddrive sized big enough to cover what you have on your computer and save an image so you can always revert back, then proceed with reckless abandon.

I've used various flavors of mac, windows and linux and I still prefer mac despite their propensity for "unopen architecture". I believe the main reason they are soldering the ram is it allows them to continually shrink the form factor and stay ahead/in line with current market strategies. I hate that as I like to upgrade my machines.

Rhino has fascinated me for a while so I'm glad to see someone else mention it. The software bundles won't work on a mac for rendering/lighting effects but if builder and client are comfortable with the visualization offered, it looks like quality software. It also looks like it may handle curvilinear work better than sketchup.

Anyway, sorry for the digression.

Were you aware that there is a brand new Rhino for Mac that has nearly all the functionality of the Windows version? I just received the heads-up on that about a month back, and downloaded the pre-release version. Of course, I can't actually install it yet...