Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 February 16

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February 16

Strange error with norwegian characters!

I have a game that i made that allows users to unscramble letters to make norwegian words for points....

The problem is, the norwegian letters end up goofy most times! This is a list of 16 letters:

giæuvvgføfmbyøaå

it looks like this, but the 'æ' character combo is the norwegian character 'å'. I paste the two characters by themselves and it comes out fine, but when i run the program it likes to keep switching between correct and goofy characters.

I wrote the program in mirc script, and use the $read function to get the norwegian letters from a text file. Does anyone know what is going on? is UTF-8 broken or breaking my script?

Many thanks in advance!

137.81.40.122 (talk) 00:17, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's a little hard to know what's going on when we don't have the source code and it is in a relatively obscure language. But why don't you try it with English words and see if you get something similar. That'll at least let you know if it has something to do with the Norwegian character set. If it is indeed something related to the language handling Norwegian characters, you're almost certainly going to have to get in touch with a more specialist community of mirc script programmers to get any useful advice. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I do think this is UTF8-related... "breakup" of a character in two is typical. Is mIRCs language UTF8-safe? HardDisk (talk) 01:53, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - that would be my best guess too. For characters that lie outside of the ASCII set - there is frequently a multi-byte representation. When you 'scramble' your letters, you need to keep all of the bytes that make up these 'special' characters together or it will do exactly what it seems to be doing. SteveBaker (talk) 04:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Merge contacts in WM6

Hi all,

how do I merge contacts in the Contacts app of WM6, if there exist 2 contacts (one MSN, one Outlook) for the same person? Do I have to copy all the 45 double contacts and all their info by hand or do there tools exist?

Thanks,HardDisk (talk) 01:39, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

There's only 45? Just do it by hand. Tempshill (talk) 06:01, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Not really... that'll take me a lot of time to sort out this mess by hand... HardDisk (talk) 14:48, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

unistalling programmes

I have sevsral pprogrammes which I would like to uninstal, one is a music player called "KMPLAYER" the issue is that it's not included in the list of programmes in the add/ remove programmes list in the control panel neither does it has an option in the startup programmes list for uninstal. Is there a way of removing the programme and all its content from the registry? Regards! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.9.197.28 (talk) 08:11, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

nirsoft had a program at one time called Myuninstaller ... let me look ...yep ... try this link ... now that I look, mine copy is an older version - guess I should update. — Ched (talk) 09:41, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

This link might provide advice on removing the KMPLAYER program.

I am a little puzzled by Ched's advice - why install something else just to uninstall a program?? Without an entry in add/remove programs and no uninstall option on the Start menu, it would be just as easy to delete the program's folder from "c:\program files" and delete the Start menu entries associated with the program. Astronaut (talk) 21:31, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Those steps won't clean up the registry like how the OP wanted. Jay (talk) 03:56, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

re: Astronaut - Actually, the program is a standalone/portable - no need to install it. I have it on a thumb-drive, and only use in the rare cases when there is no unwise/uninstall entry for a program. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it does seem to remove a little more than just deleting a folder from "Program Files" There are some brute-force uninstall tools as well, but they tend to be a little more complex. Wasn't my intent to mis-lead or provide faulty information. — Ched (talk) 09:07, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I've used Revo Uninstaller (sorry, only a pathetic stub here) for that purpose. Yes, it needs installing, but it does a good job of removing registry entries for half-installed/half-uninstalled programs. And it also does a good job of uninstalling itself, once you're done. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

opening files

Hi! I do come across several files including system files plus other files which I would like to view or change their contents but when you double click to open them you get the notification" windows cannot open the file" is there a software which one can use to open such files? Thanks in advance —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.9.197.28 (talk) 08:14, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

These would be files which are meant for use by the operating system or applications running on your computer, and not meant to be viewed or edited by the end-user. Programmers use an IDE to open some of them. Jay (talk) 09:12, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

To directly answer your question: yes. A hex editor will open these files. Word of warning though: be careful. You can kill your system with one of those things, very very easily. --Aseld ^talk 09:17, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I always use Notepad to open such files. If they're garbled then you may be able to figure out what program created the files by Googling the 3-letter file extension (like ".hex"). Tempshill (talk) 16:21, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

linux!

Halo there!

I want to explore linux os. I have downloaded fedora 10 and burnt it to a disk. I have never used linux before. I basically use my computer for playing music, doing school work which include programming, database management services, webdesign etc, also playing games plus other stuff. would I be able to use the softwares that av always used in windows like Netbeans, Visual Studio; music players like VLC etc. And if possible pliz refer me to a link where I can be able to get sufficient beginners tutorial on using linux esp fedora 10. Would you recommend another version of linux?

Thanx in anticipation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.9.197.28 (talk) 08:22, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

While NetBeans can run on Linux, Visual Studio, being a Microsoft product, will not. However, there are equally good *nix alternatives available; for IDEs you can use Anjuta, KDevelop or Eclipse. In general, software made for Windows will not work on Linux, but there are almost always alternative solutions available. Fedora is a good enough distribution for beginners, however if you have trouble adapting I would suggest trying out Ubuntu. --Aseld ^talk 09:00, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

It is true that you may not be able to use all windows based software directly on Linux, but there are some solutions that make it so you can use this software while running Linux. Basically what you would have to do is create virtual environment in which a windows program can run. There are several programs out there that do just that, the best known one being Wine (software). Another solution that you can try would be in install a Virtual Machine like VirtualBox and install windows under that, there are some limitations to both Wine and VirtualBox, I am unable to go in to much more detail on those limitations (mainly because i don't know them). But since your 'new' to Linux, i would suggest that you try Ubuntu, It has an option to install it self under windows and allows you to dual boot to it when ever you like. And it does this without the need to make a seperat partition on your Hard drive. I use Ubuntu and i have to say that i enjoy it a lot, i supose the best thing i like about it whould be the extensive reposotoryies. Making the finding, downloading and instalations of programs very easy. (generly all three is as easy as typing in this command: 'sudo apt-get install VirtualBox'). I hope this helped – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  17:10, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Wine is a set of libraries that link to the Windows program and convert all of the system calls into the equivelent calls under Linux. It doesn't work 100% perfectly for all Windows programs - but it's pretty good. The result is that your Windows program runs like other Linux programs and the GUI's look a lot like Linux programs under whatever window manager you've chosen. VirtualBox and other similar programs work by actually running an entire copy of Windows as a program running 'inside' Linux. In that case, you have an entire Windows desktop - and all of the benefits of switching to Linux are lost because the 'virtual' Windows computer is just as vulnerable to all of Window's issues as a 'real' Windows computer - it can even be infected by viruses and malware. However, I'd strongly advise you to try to use 'equivalent' Linux programs rather than trying to stick with Windows tools in a Linux world. There really are very few applications programs for Windows that don't have some sort of Linux equivalent. SteveBaker (talk) 04:10, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Cutting the junk in Mac OS 10.4

My "iBook G4" has just four lousy GB of space, even after I moved piles of jpegs and videos elsewhere. A program called Duplicate Files Searcher does what its name proclaims, but I'd like to do more, without spending too much of my time on it. My guess is that this Mac has video tutorials for software and miscellaneous other junk that I could easily remove. Is there software that would guide me through this?

("System Profiler" tells me that I have a "27.94 GB TOSHIBA MK3025GAS" drive and I suppose I could replace it with a drive of ten times that capacity; however, the procedure seems alarmingly intricate; I might break something. And come to think of it I've no idea of limits imposed by the filesystem, by power consumption, etc. etc.) Morenoodles (talk) 09:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Your best bet is to remove the (normally) un-needed and pointlessly big language-tools thing. These pages (http://ogasawalrus.com/blog/node/233 or http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/22127-uninstalling-unneeded-options.html) should give you an idea. OS X is a pretty big OS on a laptop with that kind of storage so your best bet is to reduce down what is installed from the OS - there'll be plenty of stuff you don't need. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:37, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

As it happens I'd like to keep one or two of those bulky drivers. But yes, printer drivers! Thank you for the links. Morenoodles (talk) 10:43, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The procedure for replacing an iBook G4 drive is alarmingly intricate and takes well over an hour or two just to do the hardware swapping. (Apple appears to have realized the limitations of this approach as the next model, the MacBook, is comparatively simple by comparison—one little hatch removed and you just slide the drive in.) I don't recommend undertaking it yourself unless you have had some experience inside computers (there are a million tiny screws that can easily get lost and a few moments in which you have to do rather delicate things).

When I clean out my hard drive I find a disk visualization tool useful — it shows me what's actually taking up the space. Disk Inventory X is the one I use but I'm sure there are others. Printer drivers are a big thing you can drop; so are sound files for Garageband if you don't plan to use it ever. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:46, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I suppose the alternative is to buy an external USB hard drive (I presume those work with MacOSX). You can pick up drives that are not much bigger than a credit card and less than a half inch thick for pretty low $$$. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SteveBaker (talk • contribs)

They work fine with OSX. And as you say, they're cheap. But they're more stuff I'd have to remember to cart around. It's a possibility, but not such an appealing on. Morenoodles (talk) 09:03, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm just an old cynic -- I assumed that making hard drives hard to get at was deliberate, deterring people from upgrading (and driving up the price of upgrades by others) in the hope that they'd buy replacement computers. Yes, I'll zap as much of Garageband as I can find, and also the program for making DVDs. Thank you for these new ideas. Morenoodles (talk) 09:03, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

You can run du / | sort -n (that's a Unix command) to see which directories are heaviest. —Tamfang (talk) 17:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the reminder. I found that I don't have Garageband, but I did have iDisk--and now I don't. Morenoodles (talk) 07:32, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

iBook battery retention

Another iBook G4 question, sorry.

We have two of these things at home. One's due to be replaced, and one of several reasons is that the plastic ring that's part of the coin-operated battery-locking mechanism has shattered, meaning that the battery springs out, meaning no battery, meaning that if you unplug it even momentarily it forgets everything.

Today I noticed a crack in the same plastic ring of the second machine.

I asked about having that fixed. Response: the entire underside of the computer has to be replaced (presumably with one including the same terribly designed plastic washer). Estimated price: about half what the entire computer cost me four (?) years ago. Ha ha no thank you.

Is there a cheaper fix? I googled but was unsuccessful. Morenoodles (talk) 09:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Cheap but ugly fix - Sellotape the battery in place. Cheap less ugly but potentially less strong fix - double-sided sticky-tape on the underside of the battery to hold it in place. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:32, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I assumed that sellotape wouldn't be sufficient but I'll certainly give it a go. (I really don't care what the result looks like.) Thank you for the tips. Morenoodles (talk) 10:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately the labor is really the cost here—you could probably get another iBook bottom shell without too much trouble by buying a dead iBook on eBay or something like that. But removing the bottom shell takes some time. It's not as hard, though, as replacing a hard drive, though it's still no walk in the park. The iBook has a lot of irritating little design flaws like that (has your little hook holding it closed come out yet? my wife's did and there's no way to replace that without removing the whole screen chassis—not really worth the effort). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:50, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

No, that one hasn't happened yet. Apple does put a high percentage of its effort into pretty packaging for the showroom, doesn't it? If I want OS X again, I think I might get some rival company's machine to run it on. Unless I'm reassured that Apple's newer machines are, mechanically as well as cosmetically, better than this "iBook" thing. Morenoodles (talk) 09:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Self-taught programmers

Are most programmers self-taught? I assume that since someone could learn seamlessly through actual programming (computers... with the help of the Internet) and that because it's mostly sbout experimenting (there's not much theory that's formally taught, is there?) do programmers usually learn at university or such? And if not how do they prove themselves if they want a job? 94.196.67.254 (talk) 12:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I taught myself a few simple computer languages. But in my experience, it's much too hard to learn a complex language on your own. (The same goes for human languages, too, by the way.) For example, I taught myself JavaScript and HTML, but I had to learn VB.NET and Java in school. A friend of mine taught himself PHP, another easy language. Another friend of mine was taught Java and C++ on the job, although that's definitely less common. In other words, you need a firm hand to keep you on track when you have a lot of learning to do. I've talked to other people who just lied and said they taught themselves C++, but when we sat down to code, it turned out they didn't know squat. They just read part of a book and declared themselves gurus. It doesn't work that way.--K;;m5m k;;m5m (talk) 12:54, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Much of programming is essentially a craft, and is mostly self-taught. Little of what computer scientists and software engineers learn at university and college could be called "programming", programming is the language it is taught in. Instead they learn formal, theoretical stuff - lots of math, operating systems, database theory, graphics, hci, signal theory, abstract algebra, algorithms and datastructures, analysis, functional programing, linguistics, artificial intelligence, formal methods and verification, and the (rather nebulous) "software engineering" (which can be everthing from specifications and testing to teamwork and a bit of product marketing). While it's certainly possible for the dedicated autodidact to pick all this stuff up too, but you won't chance upon 1st order predicate calculus or formally verifying VHDL designs when hammering out another php site, so it'd take a dedicated programme of study. The downside, I suppose, of this is that graduate CS/EE/SE are often initially not terribly good programmers (that is, they really haven't written all that much, particularly on preexisting systems and with teams of people); a year or two of graft will fix that because (bluntly put) engineering is hard, but programming ain't no thang. 84.45.132.96 (talk) 12:56, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there is lot of theory that is taught, there are courses in universities, and there are programming certifications. See Category:Computer science education and Category:IT qualifications. There are also many self taught programmers. Some consider programming to be a skill, some consider it an art, some consider it a mix of both. Jay (talk) 13:21, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

"Are most programmers self-taught?" I don't have any statistical data, but it seems that way.

"there's not much theory that's formally taught, is there?" Actually, there's quite a bit. I have a 4 year degree in Computer Science and in retrospect, that's probably enough. After graduation, I went on to read another 100 or so books subject which helped me a great deal. Even still, I know very little about design patterns so even my knowledge is incomplete. It's funny. All day at work I think to myself about all the things I don't know. Then I interview someone and I'm amazed at all the stuff I do know.

Here's my 2 cents. In my experience, most developers suck. Even worse, they don't know that they suck. They think that what they're doing is perfectly fine when it's not. I've recently become active on Microsoft's MSDN forums and the amount of code that should never reach production is staggering (at least on the VB.NET forums). You try to help these people but sometimes their code is so bad, there's only so much you can do.

Personally, when I look over a stack of applications, all things considered, the ones with a Computer Science degree carry more weight. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally I learnt everything myself and wasn't taught anything. However you must be willing to continuously learn - something I'm afraid many programmers do not do. If you want to prove yourself you could try an open source project or just do your own thing and sell it as shareware. That's an apprenticeship route and will take just as much effort or more as a course but you might get through quicker if you're good. Dmcq (talk) 14:02, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

You say "(there's not much theory that's formally taught, is there?)", but that's completely wrong. There is a large amount of theory. If you don't mind me generalizing a bit, theory is what the self-taught programmers are usually (but certainly not always) very weak on. It's virtually impossible to pick that up by "experimenting". Instead you would have to intentionally research it. "The Art of Computer Programming" is often mentioned as a good tome to learn from, but it's a bit heavy. There are any number of easier books.

Incidentally, when I went to college, there was very little instruction on programming languages beyond the first semester. After that you were expected to pick up language and syntax more or less on your own. APL (talk) 15:52, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Before studing software development in college, I created probably the worst sorting algorithm of all time. It was only later that I learned formal sorting algorithms (quick sort, shell sort, hash sort, etc.). A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:40, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

• Most programmers I work with enjoy programming as a hobby, so all of them are self-taught at least to some degree. As for demonstrating their ability without having a degree, that comes out in the technical job interview, and by showing off demos. It would have to come out in the interview, anyway, because you can't assume a coder is proficient at the particular specialty that's being sought just because they have a degree. Tempshill (talk) 16:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I am completely self-tought. I began programming when I was 12, and today I write quite advanced Delphi applications, using Win32 API. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

You can teach someone how to program - but they'll NEVER become great programmers unless they (a) love doing it and (b) write lots and lots of code. Truly practice is the only thing that makes anyone good at it. Part of that is being able to use your language of choice without having to think about it - so it's as natural as speaking in English - the other part is that you need this big 'library' of code snippets in your head. You should be able to program something like a circular buffer or a linked list or a hash table without having to think about it - and you should be able to have it work first time. So I believe that a little initial teaching is valuable - but it's only practice that'll get you good at it. SteveBaker (talk) 03:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The instant-hashtable part depends on one's language of choice. I'm a Java programmer, so while I know how a hashtable or linked-list is implemented I'd never normally write one myself - I should and do just use the standard java.util implementations. Generally I agree with you though. I'd also add requirement (c), which is to read a lot of good code (most of the snippets posted on Web forums etc don't qualify) and to have other (skilled) people look at your code while you're learning. I don't necessarily mean formal mentoring or code-reviews, just a shared codebase that isn't split into separate "personal empires" will do. This allows the novice to pick up some of the standard ways of doing things, and a reasonably sane code style, and allows his colleagues to (politely!) point out improvements, or the fact that that approach X isn't a great idea for Y well-known reason, and so on. 93.97.184.230 (talk) 09:34, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Yea, programming theory sucks. I feel sorry for those people - using up so much of their time learning theory but never applying it. The best thing to do is to learn the theory as necessary while you're programming. --wj32 ^t/c 08:58, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Loud buzz from computer while hard drive very busy

It only lasted less than a second. Does anyone know what it signifies please? I'v never heard it before. I've been looking for this article: "Defective Hard Drive Noises" by Marc Erickson, but it and the sound files that go with it no longer seem to exist.......or do they? Thanks 89.240.213.147 (talk) 22:01, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Is the buzz coming from the hard drive itself or something else ? If it's from the hard drive, it's probably on it's last legs. If it's from something else, perhaps it's a wire/cable hitting a fan. Vibrations from the hard drive could cause the wire/cable to move into the path of a fan. In this case just move the wire/cable. Removing the case will make it easier to identify the source. StuRat (talk) 02:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Not sure. Is it the noise the hard-drive makes when the thing-that-reads-it hits the suface? 78.149.164.211 (talk) 11:55, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion for a small web-browser?

My IE7 browser will not display most .png images - although it will some. There seem to be various reasons or solutions for this problem, but I have not found the solution that works on my computer despite trying several. Therefore, please can anyone suggest a small web-browser that does not take up much room, and that does not get deeply imbedded in the computer, that I can use when I have to see a png image, when for example I have to type a security code that is given in a png image only - such as that required to register Avast anti-virus for example? 89.240.213.147 (talk) 22:10, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

What's wrong with Firefox? Algebraist 22:14, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Google Chrome is much smaller and faster than any other (not IE based) browser I have ever tried. The installation wizard will not even write to the Program Files folder! However, IE7 should not have any problems reading PNG images... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 22:19, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Can I take the oppurtunity to plug Opera? It's the lightest browser I've ever seen, and can do pretty much anything out of the box. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 22:30, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Note that Firefox, Opera, and Chrome are not bulky and do not mess with the operating system. However, the Windows installers for them will ask if you want a bunch of extra garbage. If you fail to say "No. Absolutely not.", you will get a lot of bulky junk that can easily mess with the operating system. -- kainaw™ 22:32, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I have to say, out of all the web browsers that I have tried, Google Chrome is by far the best. Easy to use, fast, small. Its just amazing. I haven't found a problem with it yet--Dlo2012 (talk) 22:39, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

About a month ago, I asked myself a similar question. In terms of memory usage this is what I found:

I fired up each web browser and opened a single page, the Google search page. This was the memory usage:

Firefox 21,412
Opera   24,072
IE      26,012
Chrome  27,944
Safari  50,008

Then I opened up 3 pages I use frequently and this was the memory usage:

Firefox 40,358
Chrome  41,360
Opera   41,636
IE      62,696
Safari 100,736

It pains me to say this because I've been a long time Opera fan, but Opera is buggy. It crashes all the time for me. But granted I'm a heavy web user so I expect it to be able to have 10-15 pages open at any given time. If your web usage is less, you might have better luck with Opera. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:39, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

EDIT: The above looks much better in a mono-space font. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

One space preceding whatever you're typing, and it monospaces it. Example:

this is monospaced

24.76.160.236 (talk) 00:45, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I didn't know how to do that. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Many of us learn it by accident! —Tamfang (talk) 17:09, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

On one of my computers, I have Opera 6 (2001). I wouldn't use it for SSL, and of course it doesn't handle much CSS as intended. However, I do use it whenever Firefox is unhappy. It's compact and its few noticable bugs aren't the crashing/freezing kind. Morenoodles (talk) 09:18, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

How to selectively download Windows Updates?

Windows Update will only let me download all or none of a group of updates. These total 285mb, or which 284mb is an update to NET. Is there any way to avoid downloading the NET update for the time being, and just download the other updates please? I have XP SP3. 89.240.213.147 (talk) 22:20, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Are you updating by going to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com ? If so, you should be able to do a custom update and select each package one at a time. Note that some packages depend on other ones and will force you to install all dependencies. -- kainaw™ 22:29, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I have not been given the option to choose things, although I was in the past. I think I will uninstall NET completely, since the various versions and updates total about 600mb, which is a lot for something that is seldom required. 78.149.164.211 (talk) 11:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it's worth mentioning that if you uninstall the .NET framework it might stop some programs from working. Obviously I have no idea what you have on your computer, but quite a few things use the framework now so it's just something to be aware of. ZX81 ^talk 12:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I should have clicked Custom rather than Express. 78.151.117.148 (talk) 18:45, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

That is what I meant by "you should be able to do a custom update" above. -- kainaw™ 17:05, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

HVAC administration software for Linux?

Is there such a thing? I was wondering if there are free, open-source HVAC administration software for Linux distros... Blake Gripling (talk) 23:14, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

cad software

I need to find software that converts 2d line drawings to 3d drawings for use on printers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.144.94.62 (talk) 23:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Convert 2D to 3D in what way ? If you mean taking two views in an engineering drawing and combining them to make a 3D solid model, that's going to be extremely difficult to do automatically. Human interaction is required to do such a conversion, to tell the computer which lines and curves should be "married". StuRat (talk) 02:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC)