Anyone else have trouble with the lathe tool from within the vertex modeler? Heres what happens. I create a profile of one side of a wine glass. Then I select the profile I just created. Then I hit the lathe button. Just like the manual says. The manual says I can adjust the number of sections using the + or - keys. This part works. But I cant tell what level I am at unless I count each keypress. It defaults to 12 each time. The manual says you can also enter the value manually. But that option doesnt come up until after the lathe operation has been done. And it always defaults to 12. The only way I discovered that I was in fact increasing the sections with the + or - keys was the fact that after the lathing operation was complete it showed in that box how many sections there were. This box will not come up for me until after I do the lathing operation, which is not very helpful. I found a thread about this on the 3D Extract forums with a similar problem. They mentioned problems with the interactive renderer interfering with the view of the axis line. I have tried it using all three rendering modes. For now I can keep track of the number of key presses, but it would be nice to have it show before I do the operation because if its wrong, then I have to start over with the default of 12. Anyone else have this problem. I am running under WinXP home edition. Thanks, Donnie

Hi Donnie- You probably already are, but you didn't say it- are you clicking the axis? I did this little tutorial that shows the steps that worked for me. . I am on XP pro. http://www.des-web.net/html/tutorials.html Markd

Donnie, I think you just have to have the properties tray open while you are hitting the "+/-" signs. When you hit the "+/-" sign the numbers should change in the "lathe" part of the dialogue box. The mini tut Mark posted shows this. Mike

I think the problem is that I dont see the axis that shows in the tutorial. When I get home I will try it again. Thanks, Donnie

Lather tool....is that like a shaving brush?

LOL, yeah I was sleepy last night when I posted that. On a positive note, I was able to confirm a bug or something with OpenGL. When using OpenGl on my system I can not see the axis line. However in software I can. I tried switching between the different rendering modes last night. But I didnt figure it out until today. The reason I didnt catch it last night was because I was in OpenGl when I started the program. Once I go into the Modeler and try the lathe with OpenGl enabled, it wont work again until I exit the program and switch to Software. I was trying to switch it to Software on the fly (which it does ok in the assembly room), it doesnt like to do that in the modeler. In fact I can get it to lock up by doing this from within the modeler, not everytime, but I can reproduce the disappearing axis line. If I set it to Software and exit the program, when I restart the program and I try the lathe tool it works. So I guess I will be leaving it on software. I'm just happy that it does work. Donnie

Addendum: If I have the interactive renderer set to OpenGL and I press the lathe tool, nothing happens. Then with the tool still highlighted, if I change the rendering to software, it locks up. Closing the modeler window sometimes brings it out of it, but then the exit command from the main menu is greyed out.

I remember a couple of emails between me and Eovia support. For my system at least (old Powerbook) the consensus was to set all the interactive renderers to "Eovia Software." I have no complaints with the display now.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat....lol