hi guys,   i remember you experienced CAD gurus said "NOT" to use one of
the graphics cards. the problem is i can't remember which one! Is nVidia
or ATI compatable with CAD? Is an 80 g SSD big enough to use as my sole
hard
drive for Rhino and/or Alibre CAD. if so is it worth the extra money to
keep a laptop cooler and save battery? The renderings with rhino and solid
works looked good.would alibre be a suitable sub for sw? I can't afford
sw!
James Whitehurst

James,  Several user forums have found difficulties with ATI / Radeon
video cards not working on their cad systems. Nvidia cards from the 9500
series and upward are all open GL2 compatable. This is the GE Force series
of Nvidia chips sold under numerous venders. Look for 1 GB video ram like on
a GE Force 9800 as an example. I get these for about $72 on Ebay. There are
also 220 and 250 series with as many as 130 processors on the video card for
real time gaming. These are $635 currently and overkill for CAD. ASUS has
one which is available for around $250 on Ebay.

   The renderings I submit from Rhino have a wonderful render engine
which is standard to Rhino, but does not come with the materials library in
the standard package which did come with my autocad 14 and is included in
solid works. If you want to do photorealistic renderings which look like
photographs you need the materials and surfacing bumpmaps as an add on if
they don't ship with your brand of software.

    I personally have 1.3 Tb of storage in the desktop but 80 Gb would
be plenty. You don't need or want to store everything in one place. All the
drawings for my airframe are 378 Mb and all the drawings for the aluminum
rotary engine are about 138 Mb which could be less except that I save the
drawings with render meshes applied in the perspective viewport. When
designs are finished I put them on a USB stick and make 2 DVD copies of the
files. You really don't want someone to cary off your computer with
everything stored in it. Also I upgrade hard drives with the new operating
system resulting in a used hard drive with software and drawings available
for backup.  If you also want to store a lot of downloaded high def movies
then massive storage is necessary. I don't store movies and use a laptop for
internet so I would be comfortable with 80 Gb on the CAD system.

   I think C. Smith is working with Alibre as well as Jean Prudome. I was
hoping they would do the Rv10/20B cowl contest to see what their render
looks like. Maybe they could post something they are working on. For
instance yesterday afternoon I did a canard airframe using the cross section
curves from my Trex conventional airframe to see how the hardware and
seating arrangement would fit. It looks doable so I will be designing an
actual working airframe with the proper canard airfoil, weight and balance,
and cooling ductwork. The placement of the cooling air outlet somewhere that
the prop will pull air through the radiators on the ground seems to be the
most challanging aspect.

george grimes

Jeff and I went to Westec yesterday and were stunned by the samll size.
It is 1/5th of what it has been in the past. Apparently manufacturing
is disappearing in Southern California.

Jeff also told me something about Solid Works. When you "buy"
Solid Works you don't really get anything. The program
stays on their computer. They just provide you with access to it
through the Internet. You must be connected to the Internet.
All your drawings are stored on their computer. You just buy what
they call a "seat".

No Thanks.

Paul Lamar


Paul

Let me correct that............

the future model of SW is headed in that direction, but currently the
program and files reside in your computer..They propose this will be
better for us because all the info will be stored in a safer
place........sound familiar...........The Obama approach has not
happened yet but incrementally it is sure to happen........exactly the
way we will lost our freedoms..

don't mean to input the political, just couldn't help
it...............still grieving over something fundamentally lost..........

jeff