Bot clean written on C++
You can refine your algorithm by getting rid of all these counters and while loops and replace them with a for loop such as this:

for (int i = 0; i &lt; parquet.size(); i++)
    parquet[i] = ... // do whatever


Similarly, you can re-write the summing algorithm as: 

for (int i = 0; i &lt; parquet.size(); i++){
    for (int j = 0; j &lt; parquet[i].size(); j++) {
      if (parquet[i][j] == '*') &amp;&amp; (parquet[i][j + 1] == '*') {
          j++;
          sum += a;
      else 
          sum += b;
      }
    }
}


That said, I notice you're naming your counters as "iter" (which I assume is a short for iterator). Are you trying to access your vector in a typical STL manner (i.e.: using iterators?). If that was your intent, you can try something like:

vector&lt;string&gt;::iterator myIterator;
for (myIterator = parquet.begin(); myIterator != parquet.end(); myIterator++)
// Do whatever


That is, of course, assuming your procedure works as intended. If not, please state otherwise.