ACM and Supply Store

Services overview
wPrint
Manage Printing Funds
Supply store
Plotting services
 

The Architecture Computing and Media group provides computing support for students, faculty and staff in the School of Architecture.

ACM supports and manages a range of teaching and research facilities within the school. Students have access to basic and advanced computing equipment and operating systems as required by their studies. A helpdesk, staffed by ACM, is available to answer student, staff, and faculty computing questions.

ACM manages facilities for digital still image, video and audio processing. The equipment in these facilities include a professional-quality sound studio, video editing facility, scanning and digital photography. Equipment including cameras, video cameras and audio recording equipment can be rented for use outside the laboratories.

The day-to-day running of the infrastructure is managed by ACM group members:

Architecture faculty, office staff and students should direct their IT support questions in the first instance to the Helpdesk ext. 27600, Helpdesk.

Services overview

The building has wireless network access throughout. In addition, graduate students can request wired access in their offices.

The main lab is set up with Windows based computers with MS 365, Adobe Creative Cloud (student subscription login required), Rhino, SketchUp, and the Autodesk Suite. This lab is available for undergraduate and graduate use.

Printing, photocopying, and scanning are available on black & white or colour with payment through WatCard. The School has five multifunction devices accessible to students. 

Digital cameras, video cameras, laptops (limited quantities), sound recorders, and data projectors are available to be signed out from the ACM helpdesk. Items are borrowed on a next-day return policy.

wPrint setup for personal machines

The Architecture campus provides printers that can be accessed wirelessly. You must have a WatIAM username and password. All printers can print both colour and black & white; the difference between the printers is the paper within. The Draft printer has regular paper and the Photo printer has a higher quality semi-gloss.

We currently have 6 student access printers available throughout the school. The Draft printers are located in the Library, in the 2nd floor hallway outside the computer lab, inside the 3rd floor studio, and in the grad lounge. The Photo printer is located in the 2nd floor hallway outside the computer lab.

To access these printers you must install 4 virtual print queues (one for Draft black & white ; Draft colour ; Photo black & white ; Photo colour) on your personal machine. Once installed these e-queues will allow you to print to any of the 6 student use printers. The drivers can be downloaded from xerox.ca > support & drivers > WorkCentre Xerox AltaLink C8030 / C8035 / C8045 / C8055 / C8070 Color Multifunction Printer with built-in controller.

Mac instructions:

  1. Select System Preferences > Printers & Scanners 
  2. Select the + on the bottom left of Printers and Scanners, and select Add Printer or Scanner
  3. Right click on any of the icons on the top left of the window and a window will appear. Select the last option, Customize Toolbar
  4. Drag the Advanced icon onto the icons toolbar 
  5. Click on Advanced > in the Type: field select Windows printer via spoolss 
  6. Now in the URL: text box type in for Draft bw smb://uprintps.nexus.uwaterloo.ca/arc-draft-bw-vx
  7. As before name the printer (Draft bw), and then select the Software driver (Xerox AltaLink C8045 for Draft and Xerox AltaLink C8045 for Photo), and click Add 
  8. While the printer is setting up, click Configure and change the paper trays from 3 trays to 5 trays (if you skip this step, you will not be able to use the paper feed tray in the future).
  9. Repeat from Step #5 above to add the other three print queues:

    smb://uprintps.nexus.uwaterloo.ca/arc-draft-colour-vx
    smb://uprintps.nexus.uwaterloo.ca/arc-photo-bw-vx​
    smb://uprintps.nexus.uwaterloo.ca/arc-photo-colour-vx

Windows instructions:

  1. Make sure you are logged on to your machine with an account, which has administrative privileges.
  2. Open Devices and Printers located in Control Panel.
  3. In the address bar located at the top of the window type the following address including backslashes \\uprintps.nexus.uwaterloo.ca
  4. A window titled Windows Security should appear. Type your username and password and click ok. Make sure your username is preceeded by "NEXUS\" example: NEXUS\your_username
  5. A list of available printers should be displayed. Right click on the following printers you want to install:

    arc-draft-bw-vx
    arc-draft-colour-vx
    arc-photo-bw-vx
    arc-photo-colour-vx
     
  6. And choose "Connect..."
  7. You should be prompted to install the driver, confirm the installation.
  8. The printer should now appear in the Devices and Printers window and be ready for use.

To release your print jobs, you must go to the wPrint website and login with your WatIAM credentials.

Reset your Profile

Your Waterloo Nexus account stores user modifications to Windows on a special profile server (ecfile2). Most account problems occur when the user profile becomes corrupted, perhaps because you've run out of your allotted space on the server.  

If you are having trouble logging in to your Nexus account, you can try resetting your Nexus profile by going to the Nexus profile reset page. Do not use this reset script while logged in to a Nexus workstation. After the profile reset, log in to a workstation that you have not logged into that day.

Manage Printing Funds

Step 1: Add funds to your WatCard, either online or at the Musagetes Library.

Step 2: Print your job: Login to wPrint to release your job to one of our printers. 

ACM Supply Store

The supply store is a resource available to current Waterloo Architecture students only.

The supply store provides students with a convenient location to purchase basic architectural supplies such as adhesives, drafting supplies, writing instruments, papers and boards, sketchbooks and basswood.

Located in room 2004, the supply store is in the same location as the ACM Helpdesk and houses two large format printers (plotters) for student use.

A full list of materials and current prices is now available online.

Hours

Hours will be extended during mid-term and end-of-term deadlines and reduced between academic terms. All changes will be posted on the exterior ACM door and the website. The supply store is closed weekends and University of Waterloo Holidays.
 

Supply store policy

  1. All sales are FINAL – No returns, exchanges, or refunds.
  2. All items must be paid for before they leave the store.
  3. Services such as plotting are paid for when picked up. Refusal to pay may result in your marks being withheld and you may not be able to register for the next term until payment is received.
     

Plotting

There are two large format plotters available for student use. They are located in ACM on the second floor.

We will not plot files that are too large (panel no more than 35.5" wide, max. file size 80MB) and students will be expected to pay for what is produced unless it is a printing error on our part. Those who do not pick-up or pay for their prints within 2 business days will have a hold placed on their student account - marks will be withheld and they will not be able to register for the next term.

Instructions for Plotting (Plotting Instructions ) 

  1. Layers should be flattened at each stage of the process - before making a .pdf file.
    *For example, if importing layered files from Illustrator into InDesign, you should flatten the Illustrator files before importing. InDesign will not flatten another program's files.

  2. Your panel should be no more than 35.5" wide (there is a .25 white margin that prints on each side). If wider than 35.5" we will have to crop or scale down your plot to make it fit. If you choose a smaller width (24" x 48"), you are still required to pay for 36" width paper.
    Your panel should be no more than 48" long.

  3. Files should be submitted in .pdf format.
  4. Images will be printed at 300 dpi.
  5. Please ensure you have properly prepared your document for printing. We reserve the right to refuse documents that are too large or improperly prepared.
  6. PDF files for plotting should not contain any layers, no vector graphics and should be rasterized

Regular plotting policy

  1. We have a 24-hour plotting policy. Submit files through our online submission form and they will be available for pick-up 1 business day after submission.
  2. If you do not pick up & pay for your plots within 2 business days, a hold may be placed on your student account.
  3. All documents are printed exactly as specified by the embedded colour profile. Colours are not guaranteed to print the way they look on your monitor. If you are concerned about colour calibration or any other quality issues for projects please speak with your professor or TA before printing.
    * It is recommended that you print a test plot when you drop off your files (subject to regular plotting prices). Colours, lines, etc. produced on the plotters vs the student printers are very different.
  4. No Refunds will be given for files that do not print as expected unless the problem is due to obvious hardware failure.

Deadline Plotting Policy

The plotting policy during a printing deadline is the same as the regular policy, with a few exceptions:

  • We do not accept test plots on the day/week of a deadline. You must submit your test plot in advance if you wish to ensure the colour and quality is acceptable.
  • ACM will be open extended hours for a plotting deadline. All changes will be posted on the exterior ACM door and the website.
  • ACM will set a deadline for files to be submitted via Learn, to allow sufficient time for printing. The deadline will be determined by the number of students in the class, number of panels per student, etc. Generally we require 2-3 business days to print for a studio class.
  • If your files are not submitted to ACM by the designated time, there is no guarantee that your plots will be available for your crit.

Plotting Prices

  • Bond Paper: $2.00 / square foot
  • Vellum: $3.00 / square foot
  • Mylar or Satin Photo Paper: $4.00 / square foot

For all media types : prints with full ink coverage (i.e. black or colour background) will be charged $1.00 more per square foot, and monochrome line drawings will be charged $1.00 less per square foot.

Draft Printing Costs

Paper Size

 Colour Options Single Sided Double Sided
8.5x11 B&W $0.10 $0.16
8.5x11 Colour $0.35 $0.46
11x17 B&W $0.15 $0.20
11x17 Colour $0.45 $0.56
Photo Printing Costs
Paper Size Colour Options Single Sided Double Sided
8.5x11 B&W $0.20 $0.26
8.5x11 Colour $0.60 $0.70
11x17 B&W $0.25 $0.30
11x17 Colour $0.70

$0.80