JonathanJanacek

1 1/4" Spindles, and we typically do a 3.5" Spacing.

I would love it if you could draw one. I've been searching CA Video's and haven't been able to find a "How to" yet. The handrail is 36" to the top of the rail. The 42" spindles lap over the rim joist and attach to it.

I've drawn it exactly how we typically build it. The 4x4 posts are mounted inside of the rim joist. And just a small correction, our spindles we buy are precut to 42". Thanks for your help. I wish there was a little more default control of the support beam. Seems we can control just about everything else....

Ok, so I've got two questions. 1. The attached pics are how we do a lot of decks here in NW Arkansas. However, I've been struggling to get CA to do something like this without having to manually draw everything. Any ideas out there? The pic "Handrail (cutaway).jjpg" is here so you can see the component pieces of this system. 2. How can I either move that beam to the end of the deck, or make the end rim joist double to act like a beam?? Is there a DBX I'm missing that allows you to change the distance the beam is from the end of the deck? Thanks in advance! Jonathan

I'm glad I'm not the only one still looking for a solution to this 2 years later.

Joe, I haven't been able to find a DBX that allows me to change the x-Origin....where is that setting at? Thanks

Also, what exactly am I gaining by going 500 passes? Or increasing the DPI? When you zoom in on the image, there is still a lot of pixelated areas.

So I just finished running Raytrace on an exterior of a house. I normally only run 10-15 passes for most of my pictures and notice the file size is never that big. So, just to see how "clear" the image could get, I set it to run for 500 passes. (yes, I let it run all weekend). I increased the size to 5000x2378 pixels and increased the DPI to 150. The file ended up at 1.31 mb. I'm not complaining that it's too big, but rather I expected it to be much larger. Is that a typical size for a "high resolution" Raytrace? Or am I missing something? I'd like to be able to raytrace an image that will look great when blown up to a 30"x24" picture. Thanks, Jonathan J.

Just to follow up to my original question, after much internal debating, I decided to go with the ASUS. These are the specs on the machine. ASUS ROG G750JS-DS71 17.3-inch Gaming Laptop 3.4 GHz Core i7-4700HQ 16 GB DDR3 GeForce GTX 870M Graphics 3GB RAM 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD Windows 8.1 CJSPUD, I think I got the machine you were referring to. Results: I've been VERY pleased with this machine. Cranks out Ray Trace Renders at a 3x speed over my old machine. Now, it's no big deal to put RayTrace renders in my Layouts that I send my clients. As always, lighting slows things down a lot, so unless I'm trying to give the big WOW effect, I just turn the lights off. Even with the lights on, it's super fast. This picture made 300 passes in under 20 minutes. (I forgot to limit my passes).

I'm looking into getting a new laptop, and "common sense" would tell me that a gaming laptop would handle CA best b/c they typically have strong processors and larger video cards. I know that RayTrace is heavy on the processor, but how about Perspective Full Overview or Full Camera Views? Do they need an 8GB video card, or is that just overkill b/c CA won't really need more than 2? Most of my work (on a laptop) is done at the office, but when I'm sitting in front of a client making my changes, I need quick responses from the software. Should I spend the money on a beefy video card or is 2GB more than enough? I've been running a 1GB for years and it's starting to show its age. Thanks, Jonathan

In my efforts to look for a new laptop, It got me to thinking, does anyone still do benchmarking for CA? That only stuff I found was in regards to X1.

I've got a client that wants to do lights in the steps....has anyone done this? Thanks,