whoa mr. rno, you need help with that.

The furnace is fixed, bad motor bearings, burnt armature, weak capacitor. Good to have friends in the HVAC business, comforting and reasonable. I am experiencing heat with a whisper instead of clank, grind and rumble. One down, the hard drives will have to wait for now.

I was looking at shipping container homes, they are amazing. The shipping container is.......imagine a solid truss (8 ft to 9.6 ft high I beam), it has a top and bottom rail and the corrugated panel between them, then use 4 of them to form a box and seal the ends. This is all Corten steel made to withstand harsh sea travel. If you cut holes for windows and doors or remove a side for a clear span opening you have to add steel to reinforce the rails to return the strength. Welders will be back in vogue, we in Lorain had ship building at one time. They use a plasma torch, ooh! that sounds so high tech. The altered box can be finished in high tech or conventional materials. So you can get the industrial look or the California/Florida look or the homespun Ohio look if you want. What you build doesn't have to be square or cubic and with a little finesse, you can leverage a quite interesting living space even on a 50 x 150 foot city lot. Since the major part of the structure is pre-built, you can spend the rest of the cash on finishing. I would not look for cheaper over all cost but for the same cost a higher quality and more aesthetically appealing space. You could put $200,000 design in a $100,000 house.

Most of the so-called modern home designs I've seen on the net are boxes and flat planes jetting out all over the place. Having a city lot with restricted space and views I am going with the traditional box with a twist. I am opting for a flat roof on which I can perch a quonset or a geodesic. The building codes won't allow a dome home but might stretch for a dome roof. Man! that's what I call an attic!

 

It is so simple, we have a cargo container square which we can alter any number of ways and the clear span of the dome sitting on the flat roof which can also be altered any number of ways. It looks simple and is basically a hybrid design. Just add a widow's walk railing and a deck on the side which doubles as a carport and hmmmmmm.......The garage would have a similar treatment only a quonset on the roof for a studio. I know the city architectural review board will try to "Colonial-ize" or "Greek temple-ize" this design.


Getting back to designing in Linux, I was looking for 3d models of shipping containers. There are a few if you look hard, but mostly they are for sale. The price is smaller if you are serious about modeling with these structures, freebies are rare, after all it's just a reinforced box. I thought modelers were a strange lot, some model every bolt and weld seam. That's too much detail or too many vectors to crunch moving around a 3d scene or rendering. I am looking for somewhere between photo-realistic and a cartoon. My needs are simple.

The thing is you don't need pro-ware to visualize a concept and nail it down to where an architect can "get it". I'm am using my trusty Gimp and Inkscape for now and am starting to explore Cycas Cad 3D. I am imagining what kind of art can I put in a space like this.

well mr. rno, there's bad news and good news!

Ah yes, the Linuxville Guide office was caught off guard today. I've been trying to install XP on my second machine. XP can run several graphics programs I want to use for interior design modeling that Linux doesn't have. I kept getting a master boot record error. I tried every tool I had MS and Linux, finally I gave up on XP and proceeded to re-install Linux. The hard drive died along with the fan on the furnace. The two are not related but it made the lost more intense. Oh well, the furnace comes first, I guess. That's the bad news.

The good news is I did discover a gem of a Linux in the process. The Linux I was installing was DreamLinux 3.5. Let me tell you something about Linux distributions, with every new revision usually comes new features and better operation and snappier looks. When I first saw DreamLinux it was cool but clunky compared to what's available now. It uses XFCE desktop just like Xubuntu and it is Debian (Lenny) but not Ubuntu based. Many of the necessary add-ons are included already and the installation methods are tweaked to perfection. DreamLinux will also allow you to re-master a version of itself of your design to a fresh CD or jump drive.

So, the plan is to replace the furnace motor, and get two hard drives for my second PC. One that XP and DreamLinux will share and one for my "home" partition. Did I tell you, DreamLinux asked me during installation if I wanted to designate one drive as my "home" folder, that alone is awesome. This is cool if your operating system or hard drive gets hosed, your personal data is still intact and accessible.

If you are a dreamer like me you have to be careful reality doesn't take you by surprise, you could turn into a DIY person over night. Once you get a project in your head, sleep is hard, eating and dressing is meaningless. Every meal is lunch and a jumpsuit, slippers and bathrobe is business attire. Work on the "project" becomes a seamless reality and when interrupted by practical chores "Mr. Grumpy" emerges. Mr. Grumpy can't discern between a temporary stoppage and a cease and desist order. Mr. Grumpy unless your defusing a bomb, relax.

The tizzy that got me is cargo container homes. As I am a victim of a faulty education system I'm not an architect or a engineer but being who I am, I know great design logic when I see it. Modular construction of Corten steel modules into anything from a bus shelter to a highrise apartment building is really incredible. I am not nuts, I saw videos of Bob Vila explaining the conversion.  What you want to know is what has that got to do with Linux. If you got an idea and you want to nail it down or model it in 3d, you have to have the software to do it. Linux does not have many efficient, easy to learn 3d software packages. Blender is more geared for animation graphics and learning it is a job in itself. You can model in Blender, you just have to be good with Blender. I was looking at architectural cad. Why? Because when a software is targeted for a particular process, the intended audience wants features and work flows that make their job easier. I found two, Octree and Cycas Cad. I think Cycas Cad is more what I want.

Please don't tell me to try MS stuff in Wine, most of the plentiful MS platform software for this type of 3d work is poorly written. They have poor quality graphics, are resource pigs, run way too slow as a virtual machine and are not free. Cycas Cad has a Public version which is free, a Student version and a Professional version, the cost are very reasonable.

But in the wild, AutoCad is the standard and this one and that one that all runs on MS. Most Linux engineering software is top shelf and pricey for an individual. The problem with open source and low cost applications in Linux is that people want to make money with them but don't want to develop them, time is money. If you want to have Linuxware in your budget bracket, you must help by using them. Via the user base is how things get done in Linuxville. GIMP would not be what it is if it didn't have a user base. The user base gives the developers feedback and adds useful stuff like tutorials, models, scripts, documentation, etc.
It is easier for folks to be fanatic about Blender, man if I could do Avatar movie like graphics! The professional architectural and engineering folks usually don't have time to play. Hey, we value our play time highly and digital entertainments overshadows more serious pursuits and for many is a lucrative market.

For any generation who threatens to change the world by viewing it differently, you have to contend with pre-existing conditions. In the built environment I always say what we call a house has to change. Not a problem if you live outside the city, the further out, the freer. In the city, it's block after block of the same box with a pitched roof. People who think differently move out, people who give in move in. Changing the physical world of our practical living takes guts, cash  and often a change in the building codes and zoning laws. Then how many architects are willing to take on a single city-home makeover?

It's all about tools, and digital tools you have access to. And it's about ideas that paid professionals don't get. Chew on this, one time we all lived in the one room shack, cabin, tent. We did everything in the one space or outside. Today we have designated rooms for eating, lounging and personal space. The family lives in a cluster of personal spaces with common spaces. We want to each fight for our personal space vs the common space. The common spaces are filled with family distracting entertainments and the personal spaces are self isolation chambers.
If a family were to buy a tenement building with shared kitchen and bath, it would be the same as any typical home. I guess it is the values we have that drive the physical changes in our environment. So what could you design in a home to enhance the family quality and preserve personal development. Now project these values to the house structure, yard, block, community, city, county, etc; etc.

We, especially in Ohio don't live so well with new design. We like our antiques and retro-styles and are subject to fashion and trend buying than good solid timeless design. Our lives are so hurried, we buy what meets the need at the time. I drive past so many homes where the garages are filled with stuff, we are a messy lot, aren't we? Design and Linux, still a work in progress, we'll just have to keep plugging away at it.

the digital art elephants need their daily walk

Just in time, they're awake and need their exercise.
Art elephants are like sheep the way they nuzzle each other.....wait, elephants do that, I get confused they have the texture thing down, biggest sheep I ever saw.

Let me paint the picture. Microsoft is a huge tech city, hurried, crowded, multi-layered and fingers in every direction. Apple is small to mid-sized town of diverse but laid-back folks. Linuxville is a vast open savanna with enclaves, hamlets, homesteads. The one I live in is small in surface appearance, but deep down there are catacombs (cave of wonder), labs, gardens, etc; all connected by an intricate network of tunnels, at least till I get the physical presents transference machine online.

Yeah I know all about the genetics of art elephants but still you need a good gene mapper (gene = pixel, get it?!). Most folks in Linuxville know of Blender 3D, it has even been used to make movie effects and animations. What troubles me is that folks who went through the curve to learn Blender 3D are stuck on it because now they know it. This is cool but becomes a right of passage under the must have banner. Another trouble is that the assumption that a 3D graphics application has to be game art worthy, animation art worthy to get praise. Excuse me if I don't ride my art elephant off into the sunset.

On the other horizon are 3D applications that need more exploration. K-3D looks good and in need a village of pixel practitioners to get into it. Also Equinox-3D, which looks very promising and attractive to me. Ah, the allure of an interface. When you look at the interface, does it invite you to come and play?

Blender opening screen and a work session.

Equinox-3D first screen and work session.

K-3D first screen and work session.

As you can guess, I care more for interior design and architecture than game graphics and cartoon animation. Same tools but the focus is different. When doing the more engineering related graphics, you want something a little more streamlined in the process and straightforward in the interface. No matter which application you use, chances are once you get used to using it, you will say it is easier than other applications to use. These 3 graphics programs can accomplish a broad sweep of outcomes but there is another more focused approach. The targeted graphics tool. One is called Sweet Home 3D and it is for interior design. It looks like this:

Sweet Home 3D first screen and work session.

Let me explain pixel science this way. There are the graphics algorithms which are embedded by means of some programing language for better or worse and an interface (tools) so that the user can interact and get output. It does not matter how good the science behind it is if the tools to use them are awkward and the process to get the output is too multi-layered. The 3D approach to drawing is much more complex than 2D vector drawing and much much more than 2D raster.

You listen to the developers and users and viewing screenshots hoping to get all your questions answered. Still you must try them out along with your inquiry to user communities. Realize that the Blender community is older and a bit biased because it is sooooooooooo cool for so long. You might discover an underrated gem, a diamond in the ruff, in the other applications. If you got the time to get into it, you can start your own rock group instead of jumping on the band wagon.
It can be lonely, a user sharpening the cutting edge yourself. Any benefit to you being the software proving ground? Yeah, in the words of Henry Jones Sr. (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) when asked what did he get, "illumination!".

And don't forget the rule, if you live to tell the tale, don't forget the pictures.

does the clothes finally make the man?

While the art elephants are taking a siesta or selah, lets race over to the Linuxville sports center to ask the age old question, do the clothes finally make the dude or dame? You'd think our local p-ball (platform-ball) players would know, as they play in different attire to stir the fans and intimidate the rivals. The fans have mixed reviews, some even think the team plays better in their favorite uniform. We've touched this topic before, but it is always good to hear the locker room reaction.

I have Kubuntu, the Ubuntu with the KDE desktop installed. It comes in the default blue tones and lays claim to being fresh and exciting. Then I also installed Gnome desktop because I like it also. Gnome comes standard on Ubuntu with the orange and brown, no brag, it's just handsome. I've also tried Ubuntu with KDE too. In the wild, they do the one up, taking turns improving, showing, with fans exclaiming a coup over the other. I come up with this, many folks don't like the orange/brown of Ubuntu or the idea of skin tone colored themes. I'm no psych major but the implications are...............

KDE in blue is fresh and exciting for lovers of blue. Looking up in the sky all the time can get boring too, not to mention your eyeballs getting tanned. I will admit that Gnome in orange and brown is not an easy combo to swallow, but being a person of the brown persuasion, I've grown to appreciate the subtleties of brownness. It is earthy but not green like Ubuntu Mint, or Suse Linux. Fedora is blue and so is the Blue Man Group, but they're a rock band not a distro. Mandriva at last look was yellow, Xubuntu is blue outside and gray inside.

In the end game the controversy is about the boot screen you see first and how you have to sit through it, while it announces what is to come and sets the tone for the computing session. "Are you kidding?" What if we put a color selector bar on a pre-boot screen so that Ubuntu will boot in the color of your choice? No wonder folks are trying to demand faster boot times, I thought it was so they can get to work faster, NOT!

Color choice aside, the real diff in KDE and Gnome is the programming libraries used and the goals of the developers. I can't really say which choice, KDE or Gnome is best for you, for me Gnome is just handsome and warm. Gnome is a tad bit more surefooted in operation on my PC and snappier. And to all you fast to critique folks, Gnome in Ubuntu can change color too if orange and brown just won't do. Gee folks, I used Crunchbang in basic black and it didn't get as much flack as Ubuntu in brown. Think about Palomino ponies and rich Corinthian leather and Coco Wheats (ha ha!).

No one in the sports center locker room can agree on the best uniform and the fans too are dead-locked. I guess the team management also gave up on this decision. In a press release they state; "While we reserve the right to demand the best possible play of the game, we have left the ultimate uniform choice up to the fans, if you don't like it, change it!"

There you have it from the Linuxville Sports Center, now let's get back to the Linuxville Guide office before the art elephants awake.

art elephant bagging and tagging.

When approaching an art elephant, you should do so with caution, if by chance it does not relate well to you, you could be cast aside like a bad peanut. How do you relate to an art elephant, you ask? Actually, they don't mind if you are clueless and want to dabble in order to discover your talents, but if you got skills and attempt to force the issue, they can be quite rude.

My law of thumbs is like this, if you have a traditional painting or drawing background, then digital raster type painting and drawing will be a pleasant encounter. Folks who do desktop publishing, line illustration, perhaps Cad (like me!) will find friends with vector drawing. I think a mix of talents is good, game artist and cartoonist do 2D, 3D modeling, surface textures and background painting. And as we all know there are a glut of photo buffs. It is OK not to be able to do everything, learn what you need to know.

Approach straight on, an open mind, be fearless. Don't come in from the side like you know this beast, many are surprised by how agile the art elephant is to turn and trample, "I didn't know they could now do that!!". Yes, there are big game hunters (graphics pros) who don't always have good things to say about Open Source Graphics Apps. I think they are too fond of their zoo animals behind bars. I have met several who hide their wounds behind flack jackets or wear their pit helmets indoors. The Open Source Jungle is safer for learners than for ones who presume to know. They say "that elephant" is still under development, it doesn't do this, and it can't do that. Then they walk away assuming the elephant won't change, won't improve, won't evolve and can't possibly compete with the caged animal they are use to.

Unbeknown to the mainstream, though whispers might be heard, in a clearing in the Open Source Jungle, a billboard touting the virtues of art elephants in the wild with bold letters, "WE CAN DO IT ALL! (though mileage may vary)". Just because there are no big established company names behind Open Source Graphics, don't think it is a static, hopeless and futile situation.

Mostly it is about spending enough time with an application to where you learn what it can do and what you can do with it. What artist does not devise his own tools? I find it is production artist who insist a tool be there and criticize if it is not. This is a good thing as the pros often initiate the further development of good software. The very cool stuff we use today was very wimpy yesterday and will be the killer app tomorrow. You can almost apply Darwin's theory to software, if it sustains long enough, it will evolve, even persist, maybe even dominate.

Most artist aspire to have the most developed, advanced and "in use" graphics software they can get, even if they are beginners, even if they only use it occasionally. They want the industry standard at all cost and will pirate if necessary. I want to emphasize that it is the tools themselves and the file formats that matter. If you can get the tools and produce the file formats for less money, you are ahead of the game. If you are locked into the professional track with must have software, I can't help you. If you have options, choices and wiggle room, by all means give Open Source Graphics Applications a shot. You don't need the whole bakery shop in order to have a loaf of bread.

I know art elephants are a temperamental lot and I don't want you to use Linux just because I say so. I think it's a better choice, but we can compromise with Open Source Apps which run on Linux or Windows. And I say this because some graphics hardware, pen tablets in particular, may or may not work under Linux. Wacom tablets are supported under the Linux Wacom project. Wacoms are normally Windows compatible as are any other graphics tablets. So, Windows platform PCs can use any tablet that does the job, where as Linux platform PCs should stick with Wacom tablets. The good thing is that many tablet users upgrade and resell their older tablets. If it does the job at a small price, you win again.

Now that you have become symbiont to several art elephants in the herd, you will want to connect with others in the same situation. The Linux Graphics Users is a good place to start, the forum is wonderful. Also the Wacom Community page is cool. If you need some encouragement in digital art,  http://www.karencarr.com/how-you-can-paint-using-digital-tools-and-software.php
Now as your Linux guide and art elephant herder, I say, "Get out there and dabble!!!"

No one man can tame a herd of art elephants.

After a vigorous workout at the gene-splicing table, we move on to cloning. My assistant eGor (all assistants have that name!), got accidentally locked in the cloning booth, there was a boom, a gawd awful smell and; "eGor, what's that clone you're wearing?" (Sorry, Mel Brooks meets the Muppets!)

Actually, I need a clone or two, plus a symbionic mind link to multiply my ability to explore all the Linux graphics applications. Today I have installed "FreeCad". It is an 3d Cad program the likes of SolidEdge. Now I have used AutoCad for years to do schematics and other 2D drawings. FreeCad and Blender both do 3D, what is the diff? FreeCad is precision optimized (engineering) and Blender is more fuzzy (scenes, games, animation). I hear there are scripts being developed to give Blender the precision for cad work. I think the math engines in the programming are diff so they can do what they each do best. I will have to read through the docs and learn the work flow before I'll be able to do anything useful with FreeCad and practice like crazy.

Wow, GIMP, Inkscape, Blender 3D, Krita, Synfig, My Paint, Xara Xtreme, KD3, FreeCAD,..............egads eGor!
In all, you can see my problem, too many drawing applications doing too many differing kinds of drawing, not enough time and too few of me. If I spent all my time exploring I'd never get good at anything.

The main problem in taming the herd of art elephants is us users. Who among us, born in the industrial revolution, has not been indoctrinated, trained, programmed, brain imprinted with the posture of the typewriter cult. It is an iconic image that endures without fanfare, persons hunched over a keyboard (I saw it in Egypt! (pyramid shaped office building, Pharoah Street, nth floor)). OK, you got the proper posture down......hmmmmmm! (ergo-nomics, egor-nomics, extremes of the same thing!?). You go to the office, sit at your machine, a voice in your head tells you to "assume the position" before you type. At the keyboard I always have flashbacks of high school typing class. I could never get it right. I guess I am more eGor than ergo. I see there are more typing/mousing casualties than there are football injuries. Bouncing fingers up and down on keys was bad enough, now figgiety mouse moving from side to side and back and forth.........

I got a Wacom Graphire 2 pen tablet years ago. I am back to playing with it. What a relaxing relief for my hand, wrist and forearm. And I can't believe how programmed I am. It is traumatic learning to use it, my body wants to say, "hey, I remember pencils but it's so not a mouse." So, if you do a lot of graphics and do not have a pen tablet, you will devolve from Ergo to........... eGor.

I am working on a hardware project which may require one of those tiny keyboards. How tiny can a keyboard get before it dawns on you that you can't "assume the position"? When will typewriter entrenched hardware critics stop judging tiny qwerty keyboards by the "touch typing" standard? "It's a qwerty but it's too small to actually touch type on it!". Double duh! Our logic defies logic at times. It is OK to hunt and peck on a small device. If you are typing a term paper, a business report or translating War and Peace using a tiny keyboard, perhaps your fingers are not the real problem. Please send $25,000 and I will send you my book "Typewriter Cult Deprogramming Guide" and tickets to attend my seminar "End Pain by Using A More Appropriate Computer Input Device". As a followup, if you act fast, I will send you a CD titled "When Body Language Cusses You Out, Know the Signs". Actually, I am trying to wake you up, you keep doing this to yourself!

So, to sum it all up, if you are suffering the casualties of making do on the computer input devices you got, it may be time to consider alternative means. The pen (digital pen) is mightier than the mouse, especially in drawing. That picture of the elephant in panic over a mouse under foot, guess who gets trampled?

gene splicing 101

As promised I am going to splice the genes of an elephant with that of a chameleon. First you must have two species with the same nature. In this case the most obvious is the elephant with his ability to hide in a room. Then the chameleon who really doesn't hide but whispers so convincingly (Jedi mind trick!) that you just don't believe he is there. He says " you don't see me, do you?", the answer is always no. "Man, don't force me to use my color skills on you."

Then realize I am using metaphors. The elephant is the computer and the chameleon a particular kind of user (a digital artist, of course!). Unless the artist messes with traditional media, you can't tell his studio from any other filled with computer junk. But I think digital artist in particular have this knack for transforming things, making things out of stuff (even digital stuff) and doing it without a big mess. See If my wife came in the room and smelled paint, saw paint on the brushes, on me, she would say, "sorry hon, your busy". But on the computer I am spotless so she says, "are you busy, when you got a minute..........". I think I'm going to sell vinyl stick-on paint splatter and oil paint scented air spray for digital artist.

There are many kinds of digital artist and we all don't need a fortress of solitude to do our digital deeds. For me though my desk is the place where I can think artistic thoughts. Other places are so distracting. My stuff is so typical, not dedicated and certified. Unless you are a pro, the need for top of the line equipment is not part of the trade. A powerful PC, Wacom tablet, etc, etc, etc.

I want to see what I can do with simple tools of modest means. Yeah, I am a typical starving artist whose life is "more important" and whose art is a hobby in everybody else's mind. This is why the chameleon, folks don't realize how serious I am about my art efforts, "I am doing serious work, you do see that don't you?", the answer is always no.

The wizard in the OZ story tried to fake the chameleon persona. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!", he bellowed with electronic thunder and pyrotechnics. You see, the elephant in the room is quiet, so the chameleon is quiet also. The wizard called attention to himself and had to account for himself. I hate explaining on a regular bases, it's hard enough for me to explain it to myself, to keep people informed and in the loop is not the artist's way. We work in semi-seclusion (sometimes total) and reveal it all when the work's done. And yet there are a few performance artist who do speed painting, in public!!

So, with digital art it is recommended you have two displays, one for work and one for tools, docs, tutorials, etc; a graphics tablet because drawing with a mouse is like a 2.5" wide laddie pencil, and you got to have a scanner and a printer or two. Then I also recommend a camera of some sort. These are the basic tools, they don't have to be top of the line but quality is a must. If it's cheap, it better be a sale price.

My ideal is to have a laptop with enough umph to do graphics. I want to buy my next PC from a Linux dealer as mentioned in my last blog. The secret is that Open Source GIMP and Inkscape softwares require less power than Photoshop or Illustrator. This may not be an advantage for commercial graphic folks but for me, it is the cream and fine for what I do. Folks are always trying to get you to compete on a higher level and buy from the higher shelf. I say it is OK to use what you have access to, fits your need and make your own tools if you have to. The only thing that really matters is the type and quality of the final file format anyway. How you get there is what an artist does.

I was driving toward downtown on a freeway overpass, looking to the right the billboard changed, I said "that's the mother of all digital monitors!" Something in my head went "epiph!" (short for epiphany). Then I went to a lady's home to fix her computer. She had a 42" wide flat screen on the dresser so she could work sitting on her bed. Hey, there's that "epiph!" again. For me If I get a 42" screen it will sit in the living room to share with the whole family. But the thought of a large digital canvas is very intriguing. I started having flashes of the movie "Minority Report". Tom Cruise was gesturing in front of a very wide display that floated in front of him. And I also saw CNN folks doing the multi-touch thing  and thousands of Wii users waving their remotes. So, you see, the technology is there, it is just not dedicated to the purpose of digital art. It is up to the artist (the chameleon) to bring together the computer tools (the elephant) in one place.

Art is all about the process toward the finished piece. Songs, poetry, stories if written well, depend upon the delivery, the same with music. Having cool tools makes the process worth the hassle to get it out there. OK, now, let's see, move this nuclei here, snip, slice, dice and..............!?! There it is, the elephant can now ripple his color in any pattern, shape, form and that tongue, you thought the trunk was a nuisance. The chameleon, "you don't see me here, do you?"