Amorphous - Julian

Way back in 1997, ArchiCAD introduced Teamwork, a file-based project sharing method, like how we have it in Vectorworks today. In 2009, ArchiCAD ditched Teamwork and introduced BIMserver, a server-side project sharing management tool, allowing fast and simultaneous syncing. In 2014, ArchiCAD introduced BIMcloud, which allows remote collaboration. In 2019, ArchiCAD retired BIMserver, supporting only BIMcloud. In contrast for us, it is year 2020, Vectorworks still ’project shares’ with the technology of Teamwork, Archicad ditched this method 11 years ago because of its problems. Problems with file-based Project Sharing: Entire file needs to be synced (takes a long time, processing); Other team members are locked out during the sync process (waste of staff time); Constant file corruption and information loss (waste of time and soul destroying). This has been my experience, and I also verified this with someone who professionally maintains ArchiCAD systems for architects and saw through its ‘file-based project sharing’ era. As both ArchiCAD and Vectorworks are Nemetschek brands, surely Vectorworks engineers can learn from the experiences of ArchiCAD engineers and implement BIMserver into Vectoworks quickly? @Tolu @Julian Carr @JuanP @Biplab please close this 23-year technology gap with ArchiCAD on Project Sharing. We need to end project delivery disruptions due to the current method of Project Sharing. Below is a video on ArchiCAD BIMserver and BIMcloud. Note time code 5:45 in the video: ‘BIMserver’s mulitherading architecture allows any number of clients to simultaneous sync....’ That’s really music my ears. With this feature, it would make Vectorworks scaleable for any offices and project size. Following is my post documenting our office’s struggles with Vectorworks file-based Project sharing that began 6 months ago. The disruption caused by Project Sharing to our office has became unacceptable, and must change fast. Thank you for your attention to this.

11:00pm. We are trying to untangle the myriad of working files after the crash. Some bits appear on one file and not another... other pieces appear on another one. Some have titleblocks, some don't, some have tiled floors, others don't. This is making our work impossible. I'm exhausted and just want to publish drawings and go to rest. If we never went with the route of project sharing we'd never be mired in this mess. Please either swiftly fix PS once and for all, or release it when it's truly ready and reliable.

After what my team has been through today. I may just answer my own questions. I have worked in an ArchiCAD office before, and at no time have I ever experienced chronic, ongoing project sharing issues like this. For the purpose of project sharing, I would prefer to work in an ArchiCAD office if the choice was my own. For my team's work today, it has without-doubt been more hinderance than aid. I just wish for Vectorworks to throw all resources it has at its disposal to make it robust, efficient and stable. It can't happen quickly enough.

[Update 6 - 13/03/2020] Just as we are going to 'publish what we have', we find that in sheets after sheet our data tags are disassociated (we are publishing 30 sheets today). I have just been told by another VW employee that if I don't check out both the tag, and the object it tags, then the disassociation is certain. We were given a workaround that is simply infeasible. So are we meant to re-do the work we have done over and and over and over again everytime we save and commit?

[Update 5 - 13/03/2020] I forced my Vectorworks to quit, it didn't 'lock up' the project file like it often does when you force quit in the middle of a save and commit. The other team members are able to commit their changes to the project file, but my working file now wouldn't open. My last save and commit was at 4:30pm, 3.5 hours ago. So I am losing 3.5 hours of work. Not happy.

Hi @Luka Stefanovic thanks for passing this on. I'm on version 2019 SP6, Australian Version.

[Update 4 13/03/2020] Just to top off a terrible Vectorworks Project Sharing workday, my S&C is stuck on 'Updating Story Bounded Objects' It has been stuck here for 10 minutes now. No one else can work on ANYTHING in the meantime. I have a few options: - Force Quit now- and everyone loses ONE HOUR of work - If we Force Quit, the Project File remains in the LOCKED state, and no one else can connect back into it. - Wait for this to be over- and don't know when this will end FRIGGIN LOSING HOURS OF WORK AGAIN...ARRGGGGHHHHH!!!!

@Luka Stefanovic this is a ridiculous. Sorry.... but this is unacceptable. Version 2019 is now at SP6, version 2020 is now at SP2. How can such a fundamental problem not be fixed by now? Do you know what it's like to look at the work you and your team do disappear in front of your eyes? Do you have a sense of the economic costs of this? This is real, we pay wages. Lots of wages. We can't waste our resources like that. As for the workaround, when we tag an entire floor of walls, doors, windows, and we have a few people working as a team, it is simply not feasible to use that workaround suggested. When would the fix be available?

[Update 3 13/03/2020] More wall disappearances. These are viewports, so there are not confusion about 'turning on classes' The existing wall (indicated in RED) and the new wall (indicated in GREEN) just disappeared from viewport and model.

@Luka Stefanovic this is the part I'm confused about. What does 'definition of a symbol' refer to? Also, after save and commit, we lose all data in all tags. This is incredibly frustrating for a Friday. I have posted the above S&C causing data tags to reset values in the post below. Really need this to be fixed (it's not the first time I have posted about this data tag loss issue).

WE HAVE REPEATED THE ABOVE STEP FOUR TIMES BETWEEN YESTERDAY AND TODAY BECAUSE OF THE S&C DISAPPEARANCE! FOR FRIGGS SAKE! WHY CAN'T THIS WORK LIKE A NORMAL PROGRAM SO OUR DRAWING ISSUES NOT DELAYED? Very very very very annoyed. It is Friday night and my team just wants to leave!!!

[UPDATE 13/03/2020] !!!!!!!! WHAT A FRIGGIN WASTE OF TIME THIS IS !!!!!!!!! After a S&C, all tags in a viewport just went. Just disappeared. HOURS AND HOURS OF FRIGGIN WORK!!!! I've really had it. SOMEONE NEED TO FRIGGIN FIX THIS. I can't have Vectoworks waste my project time like this!!!!

I made the following post, and just realised this issue has been raised before by @clint29 and @Kevin McAllister. If these issue still concerns you gentlemen, please do vote it up.

[UPDATE 13/03/2020] The following issue has been bugging our file for over a year now. None' class will erratically - after save & commit- turn its default line colour to green. It is always this same green. We can go months without this issue, but it suddenly came back again recently. It is quite difficult in PS situation to change the settings of a class like 'none'. Because it is commonly used by many others on the file and causes a permission issue. So this becomes one of those 'weekend file admin' things I come back to the office to do.

I am not entirely sure about permissions related to 'viewport annotation' in 'project sharing' If we have three people wanting to do different things in a viewport, say: 1 - one is tagging walls, and; 2 - another is dimensioning the plan, and; 3 - another is tagging the doors Can all three people be in the viewport at the same time? If so people can concurrently work in a viewport, then when does a viewport require 'checking out'?

Say you are annotating (in annotations). And then you realise, 'Oh, I need to edit that thing before I annotate further' (be it dimension, etc). Normally, you'd have to exit annotation, click back into the design layer to edit. Once done- click back into sheet layer, and then back into the annotation space to continue where you left off. By the time you're done with all those mouse clicking, entering and exits, you would have already forgotten what you were doing before. Much better if we can 'force select, and edit' right from inside the annotation space, and once editing is done, click 'exit' to re-enter annotation space.

I see, good to know! Hopefully someone at Vectorworks will pick up this suggestion.

@markdd I'm still on 2019 (Waiting for 2020SP3) so haven't used the new/advanced features of Data Visualisation yet. When I posted this I did wonder whether Data Visualisation can do this. Would data visualisation be able to give a one-click solution to toggle between the two display modes?

It would be so good, if, with one shortcut button, we can display ALL lines in the document AS colours. So, regardless of class, we can have: 0,05=RED 0.13=GREEN 0.18=YELLOW etc etc etc (customisable) We should be able to access this on both Sheet Layers and Design Layers, so we can check for lineweights at any time.

Please integrate some functions of this Vectorworks Plugin into it: http://www.vectordepot.com/VM-042/Mouldings Manual.pdf Very important to consider how it looks in TOP/PLAN view. We don't need messy wireframes. We need plan-friendly objects.

Hi Pat, thanks for writing. In our instance, it turned out the issue was leaving the referenced 'Survey' layer (DWG linework) hovering over our 'Proposed GA' layer in the viewport, which contains the wall objects. When we turned off the referenced 'Survey' layer, then the wall tagging worked again without issue.

Yes, missing in the Viewports and also Model space. Otherwise we won't be doing 'copy-and-paste' from a previous version back into here 😆 This is another wall that went missing. Our team member tagged this door (door 20, type G) just a couple of hours ago tonight. After a few rounds of S&C the wall is gone. He's given up and will continue tomorrow.

Another viewport with another wall just disappeared (let me be clear, it is a viewport. We don't change our classes here) As you can see, we tagged a wall here previously. The wall has now disappeared. We are now copying the walls back from a previous version. We are not imagining this. 10:44pm now here and I was intending to issue this drawing set. But we will no longer meet this deadline.

This is taken from a VIEWPORT. All my walls that are masonry are on THE SAME CLASS. No, the classes were not turned off. Here's another screenshot viewport of another viewport I didn't post up. Sure, I didn't know about the 'filters'. But me and my team know something as simple and checking if our classes are turned on before we spend time making a post.

Never used that function before... thanks for pointing it out. I'll let the team know