As you should know, Segment PRO was designed to make ‘standard’ Segmented bowls. There are two kinds of standard feature ring bowls, though. First is the closed forms consisting of vases, SW designs, etc. and all of these have similar features. The top is smaller in diameter than the rest of the bowl, the feature ring is towards the vertical center of the bowl and is almost always the widest ring of the bowl and finally, in addition to the primary feature group there is a feature group at the top and the bottom of the bowl, both consisting of a special ring and an accent ring.
The other type of bowl is the open form bowl where the widest part of the bowl is at the top or near the top of the bowl. In an open form like this, the feature ring always goes at the top of the bowl. Since the primary feature group goes at the top of the bowl, there is no need for the upper feature group and so it is automatically deleted and there is no reason to move the feature ring down so that functionality is disabled. Does that mean you can’t have it some other way? No - you can have it any way you want. Segment PRO is a rules-based approach to building standard Segmented bowls. Woodturner PRO isn’t a rules based program. It does whatever you want it to do. You add each ring, you select the type of ring and all of the details of every row down to the Segment level. You are in complete control. Woodturner PRO is the most powerful segmenting program ever writer and that’s the good news and the bad news. The bad news is that you have to do all the work whereas Segment PRO does most of the work for you. It is far faster to use because of this.
So the key it’s knowing what you want to do before you start. If you are making a gift, donation, cremation urn, SW design, those can always be standard bowls and you should use Segment PRO to get into the shop quickly. But if you want to make something that isn’t standard, Woodturner PRO is your only option.
You should start with Segment PRO. Once you have built several bowls, give Woodturner PRO a try. You’ll immediately see why you should use one or the other.
With regards to the 3D spaces in which you can see your bowl in Segment PRO, the 3D field is in the place it shows in the tutorial - in the Bowl Details window at the bottom of your screen. If you don’t see it, you are likely using a laptop with only 768 vertical lines and the standard is now 1080 and has been for many years although you can still get one with 768. If you have low resolution, you will have a scrollbar at the right of your screen that lets you see the fields not shown by default. I have placed the most seldom used fields at the bottom so that you don’t have to do much scrolling.
if you don’t have small resolution, you have incorrect display options set on your computer and I’ll be glad to help you fix them using screen sharing. You need to install Zoom Video for this and then call me at 503-781-5117. It will only take a couple minutes and then I can help you with Segment PRO training as well.
Lloyd