Frank Varro

When was the last time you saw a Blue Screen? I can tell you I’ve had a Mac freeze up more recently than either my fiance’s or my laptop, or my desktop have blue screened.

To be fair, you should be getting antivirus for MACS as well. Macs are far from virus proof, its just that in general no one bothers since its still only around 15% of the install base. (http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/security-expert-mac-os-x-more-vulnerable-windows-in-some-ways-286)

It could also be that they realize what many here do not: this is an internet forum and, as of now, is treated by the users like one.  This topic has been on the front page for a little over a day, with a decent number of responses.  Of them, Tanya is the only person to give any actual feedback in terms of what AIA does that makes it seem like a b…[Read more]

As far as I know this is practiced by all ASLA chapters.  And in terms of national, anyone who serves on the ASLA awards advisory committee has their firm ineligible for all awards while they serve, including public agencies.

Echoing others-
Bold idea: Get involved.
 
Either local or national, it doesn’t matter.  Try to get elected to your state ASLA executive committee, or work on one of the local sub-committees if you have some time, but not the name recognition to get elected.  Pick a committee you think will address some of your issues, and… well… address th…[Read more]

You know from the discussion on the 3DS board that I am in!

Asus is a great company, and that looks to be a really nice setup!

Its not that its taken a long time for any company to “certify” the iPhone, its that AT&T had an exclusive contract with apple that only just ran up, and that all companies now know they need a GREAT network to deal with smartphone use.

No, I’m not designing, but I also wasn’t designing when I took Mike Lins Be Loose seminars. Or when I took drawing classes in my undergrad to get my hand graphic skills up. All I’m saying is that these are two sides of the same coin. Sure, hand graphics are faster for most, but one drawing gives you one drawing. With a 3D model, It takes me longer…[Read more]

Bill Belicheck also cheats by taping practices and stealing signals. Sorry, that has NO relevance, I just REALLY hate the Pats! ;-p

“Some people really enjoy making the perfect 3d tree. I might argue that those people are probably not landscape architects, that they are probably digital illustrators. If you want to spend days making a tree that’s fine. You should work for Pixar or some other digital imagery studio but I don’t know of any LA firms that are willing to pay people…[Read more]

One of the advantages of technology is that it is infinitely repeatable. So yes, right now I could draw a few hand perspectives of the work that, as you put it, doesn’t exist for me right now, or I can perfect a model of a 3D tree. then, when it comes time to make a model for a paying client, I am able to give them a 3D universe that they can not…[Read more]

My workflow is basically that I model everything short of plants, benches, cars in sketchup, but I include 1′ diameter planes where a tree should go, with a material named for the tree that goes there (So I have 5 circles painted with “Maple”, 6 with “redbud”). I can then jump into Thea, and merge a maple tree model in. I select the maple tree and…[Read more]

Tree[d] allows the same thing. It exports to a 3ds Obj file, I know it opens correctly (with textures) in Thea, but I’ve heard of people having issues in SketchUp. The big reason I’m not using xFrog is that I don’t really have $400 to throw out for the engine, especially when Tree[d] gets such good results for free.

Rendering time for a single tree isn’t to bad, around 10 mins. I can proxy in Thea, I generally use them for when I have multiple trees, In engine it just shows as giant bounding boxes,then I have to render to get the actual tree to show, but It definitely saves on resources.

I tried some displacement mapping, the only issue is it tender to pull…[Read more]

They aren’t coating the leaves with gold, as at that point the trees would not be able to absorb CO2, and die, and it wouldn’t be any different than putting out gold panels.

They are infusing leaves with a small amount of gold “nanoparticles” (particles of less than 100 nanometers) it behaves differently than gold, and is already used for things…[Read more]

Also, a masters in urban studies does not compare to an MLA. Imagine the paper writing for the masters with the studio work for the BSLA at the same time and you have the fun that is the MLA.

An accredited MLA degree for someone with a non-design background is 3 years, not 2, FYI. In which case it compares equally to a BSLA in design training, as most BSLAs are 4 years, and 1 year of that essentially is gen.eds that MLAs do not take.

I think the base attraction for an MLA is that you have someone with the design training of a BSLA,…[Read more]