Tom Klaber

Its true, I get calls asking for Square Footages, and I always have to jump into the file and draw a polygon. If we had spaces feeding that info to a schedule, it could be save some frustrations.

Next project, I will give them a go again.

If that is it, then that is it. I was hoping they were more powerful than they first seemed. The senior associate here simply uses rectangles for that. I have been trying to get him to use spaces instead, but I have been unable to convince him why they are all that much better.

Absolutely nothing as far as I can tell, but I am sure I am wrong since it has its own dedicated pallet. In practice, what are they used for? I have only used them once to create a table that showed square footage by room and floor. I have tried to use it for a room finish schedule, but it just does not work. Every space assumes you only have a N, E, S, and W wall. Feature walls, or rooms that are not square, can not be scheduled using this tool. I have this sneaking suspicion that there is a whole world I a missing out on. What do you use this tool for?

You are right, there are a few new tools - some of which will make work much faster, better, but this is not what I would call a major or bench mark release. Small tweaks like adding tilt turn to the window tool are nice, but should not be included in New Features of the program. For me the biggest thing, and it is not on your list is the background rendering. That is the type of significant change that is going to seriously effect workflow. If hidden line being faster or the space tool being improved is being called a new feature of the release, you know you are in an off year. 2014 Give Me: 64Bits Overhauled Usable Stair Tool Live Sections Revit Object Import Door and Window Type and Variations 2D Hatches on 3D Objects Overhauled Worksheets Electrical Tools Maxwell Plugin

Then what to do with our big libraries? Starting over? We do not maintain a central library of custom objects. We steal things from project to project, and in those cases we will jump into an old file and bring that object up. For all I know, that does not actually cause problems, and the performance issues were not from upgrading but simply from the complexity of the files. But my gut tells me that upgrading a series of interconnected complex files will unavoidably leads to some translation bug somewhere.

This feels like a minor release to me. The one big development for me and the firm I work for is the background rendering. Being able to continue to use VWs while rendering a viewport will be a huge time saver. Beyond that, there is not a whole lot to be all that excited about. Some of the other threads indicated that 2014 is going to be a more substantial upgrade. Maybe they are completing the migration away from Quicktime and to a 64bit program?

In the pase, we found that projects being upgraded from previous versions did not run as smoothly as projects started in the new version. It could be the translation of certain legacy objects are causing the lagging. I have not been using it in depth but in my playing around I have found it quite a bit faster than 2012.

Back when I was using it, I was happy with time to quality ratio with Maxwell. I do not know V-Ray. I have gotten spoiled with Renderworks, and my time expectations have shrunk. I think I would continue to use Renderworks for my day to day renderings and break out Maxwell for major presentations,

I am able to run both at the same time. I have an E licence.

It was silly of me to think that a change that large would have gone unmentioned. Still I thought they came up with some novel way to utilize Arroway. It is not really different from what I do now: go to the Arroway website, download the texture I want, and import it into Vectorworks.

DLVPs currently kill my files. I have to have them isolated so they do not interrupt my drafting. It would be great if they could remain on and more integrated into my drawings.

The new Arroway textures are a welcome addition. But the images they show to demonstrate them are not generated in Vectorworks! I thought that they had reworked the rendering engin to incorporate true 3D bumping, and to take advantage of the Arrowway bump and diffuse image maps, but they didn't. That nice shot of the stone wall is not doable in VWs, because the bump feature is almost useless unless you are adding a find texture or grout lines. Shame on you Vectorworks... Give me Maxwell!

Thanks. I have upgraded, but I just forget to update my signature. That is not a bad plan. The background rendering enticement is so big, I wonder if I can wait that long.

Thanks, Tamsin.

I want to push our office to move to 2013, but we do not want to upgrade projects that are already significantly designed, and just start all new projects in 2013. We did this for the upgrade to 2012 form 2011, and it worked well. I asked this specifically at the seminar and I was told no, but maybe they did not fully understand the question. You experienced more crashing with 2013?

Nicholas, Are you running both 2012 and 2013 on the same computer? I want to install it and check it out but the office is not ready to roll it out until next week. In the seminar they told me that I could not maintain my installation of 2012 if I installed 2013. I am on a mac as well.

Well, if you are 14% faster 50% of the time, you will save 140 hours a year, which is like adding over 3 weeks of production every year.

I am sure it is immensely complicated, otherwise they would have done it. I think I am crying over spilt milk that they did not start the process sooner.... A rebuilt stair tool might appease me for a year or so....

You are right, but it seems that they were caught quite flat footed. This migration to 64bit could easily have been foreseen, but it seems as if they did not act on it early enough. Maybe because the way the program was constructed made it too difficult, but they their back is in a corner at this point. While they shouldn't be in this position, they are now, and they need to work hard to fix it - probably above almost any other concern.

It seems that this only should be the priority. They can tweak the window tool all they want, but if they can not harness the power and capacity of the modern day run of the mill computer, even some entry level machines now come with 6GBs, they are going to be left far in the dust.

The minimum specs are 4GB of RAM - 8GB Preferred. I am not an engineer either, but If they are utilizing more than 4GB I think that means they have moved to a 64Bit architecture.

Ha! Thank you.

I was thinking about that. Since you currently can not export or print viewports that are out of date, this would only save time if you can jump to a different file to do your work. I am assuming they have thought of this. Even if they didn't big time savings.

Hands down the best feature is the background rendering. That could double my productivity. I will miss the forced breaks, but when a deadline is approaching I will never again have to choose between working on my elevation or rendering.