Chuck,
This is a good opportunity for me to review the decisions I made when writing Segment PRO.
A large percentage of my users are not strong with computers and I’ve watched them struggle to get over the software learning curve. When I retired to work on this company, I finally had the time to write a new program where I could let the software do most of the work. This let me greatly reduce the user interface and, thanks to video tutorials, it is far simpler and much faster to design a ‘standard’ segmented bowl. In an instant gallery, about 80% of the segmented bowls you find are standard.
The software engine that builds the bowls follows a complex algorithms to build various styles of bowls but if something non-standard was allowed, the engine wouldn’t know what to do. Also, to allow you to add anything non-standard, I have to add a lot of user interface and since there isn’t any more screen real estate available, it would mean additional screens and we’re right back to the learning curve issue.
Fortunately, Woodturner PRO allows you to create virtually 100% of segmented bowls and also gives you much more control of the vessel with the trade off that you have to do all of the work. As Mike can attest, once you work with it for awhile, you will like using it.
The important thing is for you to understand if a new project falls into the standard mode or not. If so, Segment PRO will do it in a fraction of the time. If it isn’t, Woodturner PRO is the software to use.
Since the two programs have almost nothing in common, exporting from Segment PRO to Woodturner PRO would be difficult and very incomplete. Starting in the correct software is the best answer.
Lloyd