panta rhei

Ever thought of getting Professional Help?

Indeed. This also makes these ?attributes? totally pointless and by and large useless. But then again, I may be wrong! Maybe an AutoCAD file comes with a data dictionary and schema? Wow! One can indeed attach to a Door an attribute relevant only to a Window! Limitless!

Fair enough, Bruce. I'm in agreement with you, too! And am learning... Although I'm a total ignoramus, I've been able to gather that road design is not a trivial exercise. Seems to be almost as complex as architecture. However, notwithstanding etc: surely there is a conceptual stage, too? Or is it a separate discipline? At some stage, a road network must be considered from the point of usefulness? No? You just start with defining radii, intersections, curves and so on. Fair enough.

Excellent, Chad - many thanks! Confirms some of my findings, helps in further investigations & trouble-shooting.

Eg. compared to VectorWorks. Yes, things are different here and in all the countries I've worked in. You must be confusing BIM with the IFC protocol! No, they are two entirely different concepts. IFC is at present still a pipe dream. And as comes to your Weapon of Choice, the Colt revolver model 1888 or whatever is your firearm obsession, even Autodesk advises architects to migrate to Revit. No. Actually you are confusing BIM with 3D-modeling. Even worse.

OK. Now I know what your problem is, mate! You expect program B to be the same as program A, only better. For drafting, as it appears. As a free-lance consultant, I've gone through thousands of drawings created with AutoCAD and lack of precision is the common denominator in them. Well, lack of consistency, structure and discipline is of course even more prominent. By the way, Autodesk is the new kid on the block as comes to BIM.

For better or worse, I am in agreement with Miguel, who also seems to be a Current Resident of This Planet. HighRoad is no longer Australian. An Italian firm bought it a couple of years ago and is, I understand, recoding it from scratch.

Just to add to what Gytis said (and while making educated guesses): Any parametric object (eg. an InteriorCad cabinet) can be saved as a symbol in three ways. The two most relevant ones are - a normal symbol: you can change all instances by entering the symbol definition - a ?red? symbol, ie. a prototype: when inserted, a red symbol becomes a parametric object The third option, a ?blue? symbol becomes a group when inserted. A prototype of sorts and useful in certain situations.

Wouldn't it! Well, this is one (but only one) of the reasons why I created my own massing model tools. In plural, because of geometric reasons in large-scale urban design projects. Also because of historic, VW-related, reasons.

Correction: I sent unsolicited info to Bruce, so of course he was under no obligation to reply.

You're spot-on: object-verb graphics, word-processing and spreadsheet programs are pretty much similar to VectorWorks. It is indeed based on the Apple Lisa/Macintosh concept, so badly imitated by Microsoft Windows. Where is it that you lose precision in VW? In short: what's your problem, mate?

No, they don't, do they! But don't blame the Manuels: they are from Barcelona. Raymond's not. (Raymond: I'm embarrassed. I'm supposed to be pretty good in maths at the conceptual level. The ifs and buts I was working on... Ah well!)

Bruce, The Mysteries of Geometry in VW are beyond me! However, as a result of my total ignorance, I have to confess that my long-awaited Mind Reader add-on is way behind schedule. Not even the Geometrical Rule Clairvoyance module is ready. Well, whatever. Should there be commercial demand, developing tools sounds like a good business proposition. If this does not sound good, who do you expect to pay? Us? I probably should not make this public, but what the heck: here we have someone ?willing to pay?. Some time ago I sent info about an add-on to the esteemed Mr. Robertson. He has not bothered to comment it in one way or the other. Yes, here we have another prime example of a Paying Customer!

I take that AutoCAD does everything exactly the way you would have wanted even if you had never used it... Fair enough. When I (in 1996 or thereabouts) tried to use AutoCAD, everything was backwards. The verb-object syntax is contrary to this senior designer's way of thinking.

You are certainly a specialist of misinterpretation - but that is often the case with people who ride to town on a hobby-horse. Have I protested against geospatial approach? Not at all. I am just mindful of the fact that such technology is of no use - ever (yes, that is a long time...) - to the vast majority of current and potential VW users. Considering various fundamental issues related to VW's overall functionality & capabilities, I can't see a mass migration from MicroStation or AutoCAD to VW among engineers working on large-scale projects. Why would they? Landscape architects and urban planners may occasionally have projects that cover huge areas, tens of square kilometers, but in this scale, they only do schematic & conceptual work. Accuracy is not an issue. Some years ago an independent developer created an add-on for doing cartographic visualisations with VW in long/lat coordinates, so to me, the ignoramus, it would seem possible for you to develop a series of add-ons for the needs of the large and growing group of VW users who need to work using geospatial referencing. When VW does not do what I need to do (which is very often), I make my own tools. Humans, after all, are animals who make tools. Become a human, make a tool!

Let me guess. Your guess is right? And guess what? I'm not a bit sympathetic towards your client. Hey, you sound like a pro. Surely you didn't get your software for free? Interestingly, here in Finland even students have to pay for VW. Not the full price, only close to the full U.S. street price. AutoCAD, Revit and ArchiCAD are free for students. For the best guess of VW-penetration in the student market here (except garden design), a free set of useful utilites! If more than one person says zero, the price goes to the first one!

Right. These tools obviously work fully in 3D in conjuction with a DTM?

I gather that if you have VW, you can buy InteriorCad separately. If not so, InteriorCad can't be available outside the EU, because of policies set by NNA.

Incidentally, just a few weeks ago I received engineer's drawings of a few kilometers of a new 4-lane road. To my surprise, they had at least attempted to work in 3D (it's been a few years since I last had anything to do with this kind of thing. The road edges etc were in 3D (although quite a few points here and there were at z=0). No pavement surfaces unfortunately, so the intended 3D visualisation of landscaping does not seem to be feasible within the landscape consultant's fee. So, it may be that there needs to be a software revolution before the actual construction can be efficiently modeled to a level of conflict identification.

A short answer: For the time being, NNA's Window is a VectorScript object, so you can indeed give alternative names to fields and reorder them. However, the Door object is already made with the C++ SDK and the end user cannot make such changes. This, I'd guess, will be the future for the Window, too. The two APIs - application programming interfaces - are converging (VectorScript is getting closer to the SDK), but obviously there are still capability differences and (perhaps more importantly) programmers with C++ skills are easier to find that those with Pascal skills. (Pure speculation.) However, in the schedule you will still be able to rename the columns. Also you only need to create the schedule(s) once and either import them with the Resource Browser on include them into your template(s). Disclaimer: I do not use NNA's plug-in objects so my assessment & advice may be entirely wrong.

That - portability - we definitely need! In fact I probably need to explore this issue in near future for a new user who needs to have templates for any number of clients who have (Auto)CAD layer standards.

I find it curious that there are two commands for one function... But it was good that this was brought up: I have to update my script to do also Poly into segments (including path of a PIO.)

Maybe it is "tedious", but it also means that one can have as many representations as one needs. In one of my templates I have five. Yes, they are saved.

This is an excellent wish! With hatches this already is the case. I've always known that there's something fishy in this Resource business but haven't realised what... Inconsistency! Yes, that's it.

Sweet! The Crusade is still on!