Tuesday
What a success this week has been; we have had perfect snow conditions,
excellent company, stacks of beer and there is a remote possibility we
may have learnt something into the bargain. Writing today, Thursday 22nd
January, we have had the best powder snow I’ve ever experienced,
and this combined with minimal occupancy on the slopes gave us superb
skiing.
I am wrecked and ache everywhere, and was just about to sink an early
pint, when DNC asked if I would write up the previous two days evening
lectures! Well thank you David; a little advance warning would have helped!
I have now had to approach every speaker and remind myself about their
topics, and apologise for falling asleep.
On Tuesday and Wednesday we split into two groups, GDL or ArchiCAD. Being
entirely new to version 8, I chose the latter. Adrian Harms kicked of
with some good ArchiCAD stuff, and with only a couple of beers he had
my full attention.
We looked at Navigator, and the project map, is a real bonus; a vast improvement
on quick views, but a most useful tip emerged. It is important to go to
Options/Preferences/ 2D Redraw Options, and uncheck the little box ‘Save
Navigator Preview Data with project File’. This can dramatically
reduce file size. Ben Frost reported a reduction of 88Mb to 37Mb with
this little tip. None of my files go to 37Mb let alone 88; I hope his
salary is in proportion to his file size. Well, if it was, he wouldn’t
uncheck the box would he?
About his point Steve Marshall decided it was his shout, and more beer
appeared, while Adrian moved into Viewsets and on into Publisher. By Mike
Lucey’s round we were into Reviewer and the Mark Up pallete. I made
a hazy note to try Reviewer as a way of shifting data to and from our
project managers.
David NC, Georg Weber, Charlotte Darre, Herbert Peter, Andor Szolke
We ended up in the Keller Bar with Herbert Peter playing Guitar till after 6am accompanied by Charlotte Darre, 22, student from Aarhus Denmark, with DNC and a motley chorus of the increasingly inebriated. It was noted that DNC himself strummed a number or two with not a GDL script in sight.
Wednesday
The second evening followed a similar pattern with some excellent lectures,
a similar quantity of beer and me trying to extract myself from the hole
I dug the with the previous nights texts to the new girl friend. It wasn’t
so much the suggestion that she met me at Stansted in her nighty. I got
into trouble when she asked which one I preferred. Any sober man knows
to be very careful of the question ‘which dress do you prefer?’
Well unfortunately I must have described a nighty belonging to a previous
model. There are things in life for which you really need a delete key!
Adrian Harms got my attention early with a logical review of Plotmaker;
it is such a massive improvement over 2.1 and long overdue. I especially
like the automatic drawing production and numbering. I have visions of
pressing the button and retiring to the pub for a good lunch and returning
to the office to find all the drawings ready to post. More likely this
will be the moment when the plotter decides to do it’s shredder impression.
By Paul Jozsa’s round we were into Interactive scheduling with Frode
Salkjevik, but I was starting to nod a bit, so a bit of revision needed
here.
Herbert Peter did a piece on the calculate menu including standard lists
and making new lists from scratch and from a template, and then using
a database to connect prices with quantities.
We peeled off about midnight, and I went straight to bed. The skiing and
the beer have taken their toll. But what a great week, and all credit
to DNC and the Austrian contingent for choosing such a great hotel. The
big bonus here is no strangers, we own the mountain. Forgotten are the
10 minute queues for lifts, and the totally wrecked pistes familiar to
most winter holidays. The hotel is a family business and they really try
to produce excellent meals and pamper their guests., I for one will definitely
be coming next year.
Mike Waddingham, Blue Skies Design Jan 2004
Tuesday's Report by 'Archiben' Ben Frost
So here i am at the top of a mountain in a blizzard. Body and mind are getting a thorough workout for sure . . . Yesterday (tuesday) was a poor skiing day for us beginners - (i really don't have any idea how to ski, but i'm getting pretty good at standing back up again now!)
The day was
spent indoors in small groups learning from each other and trying a few
new things out. we're lucky to have a small contingent from graphisoft
with us to talk things through with - i'm personally on a mission to fill
lazslo 'mr-wishlist' neda's notebook with new ideas and his colleague
andor 'mr-tech-support' szoke's notebook with issues surrounding the existing
ideas! so far so good . . . (thanks guys!)
Yesterday evening i had a choice between running over some of the serious
construction documentation stuff in archiCAD and plotmaker, or handing
myself over to DNC and his GDL workshop. i'm pretty much a novice at GDL,
but i figured i'd been throwing myself off of mountains the past few days,
so why not jump head first into the GDL too . . .
I now know just how much i need to learn . . . the small, 'nursery-slope'
routine demonstrations quickly turned into a full-on black run with visual,
editable control panels in the floor plan and solo window casements that
just seemed to recognise and snap to each other making objects more and
more customisable on the fly . . .
An extremely necessary beer followed in the kellerbar. and i've still
got my 'homework' to go: a fully parametric ski lift mechanism with editable
hotspots and a UI . . . anybody got an idea where i start?!!