Digital Studio 2nd floor computer studios are now running 64 bit Windows 7; all the machines have at least 8Gb Ram that Windows 7 64 bit applications can take full advantage of.

The 64 bit applications now running are:

• AutoCAD 2013
• Autodesk Revit 2013
• 3D Studio Max Design 2013
• Adobe CS6 Photoshop / Illustrator / Premiere / After Effects

Other applications are installed which currently only exist as 32 bit versions and so would not take advantage of the Win64 platform; e.g. Rhino 4, Sketchup, zBrush

There is also a new large format plotter / scanner which has been loaded up with “Wallpaper” style Art Paper on a roll.  This is thick, slightly rough, slightly pigmented paper which is very similar to the art paper sold for use in the A1 sheet feed plotter.  The advantage of the roll wallpaper plotter is that it doesn’t require jobs to be fed manually one at a time.  The plotter can also process the plot jobs more quickly and the standard of plot is much higher (the sheet feeders suffer from green hue when printing black on that paper).  The paper is quite expensive and difficult to get so the price is £3.50 per A1.  This machine will also scan large format prints up to A0 size; no charge for this.

One issue that is currently affecting plotters is the “sticking” in the setup pages; unfortunately this irritating bug occurs on newer plotters across the University and means you have to be extra patient when specifying size of paper, quality etc.  It appears to be an issue between the queue accounting software and the plotter drivers – the central IT team is investigating a solution for this.