Kool Aid

Sigh. Is there a force of nature in force in Northern America (but nowhere else), forcing people to use non-standard dimensioning standards? Use the millimeter, Luke, use the millimeter ? and all your troubles seem so far away! Notwithstanding, it would be nice to have an option in chain dimensions to show the total. (Useful only if one could add & delete parts of a chain dimension, which currently is a purely cosmetic feature. Well, it is a VW feature after all!)

Viewports are, by default, excluded from reports. And for a good reason: it seems to me that eg. the crop has no effect: all items that could be shown, are counted. Actually, is that a good reason? In fact, it is a bad reason: counts should be able to be limited to viewports only and within crops. Thus, one could have drawing-specific (SLVP) reports and overall reports. Have to think about & test referenced drawings a bit more. DLVPs should probably be able to be entirely excluded more easily than by complex and practically-impossible-to-edit-in-a-meaningful-way -criteria. (Why can't we select which criterion we want to delete? The one could be #2 in a list of 20. Now we need to delete 19, then reinstate the 18 we want. Shocking, absolutely shocking. OK: some of us can manipulate the query as expressed as statements, but how many can? 1 in 1000?)

Me closes me MacBook lid and removes the dongle after that, then puts it back before raising me lid. Works more often than not. Not perfect, but acceptable. (I hear that the EU-region sales went up by 10s of %s after the introduction of dongles, so now we have the pleasure to subsidise the pirate-infested lands of the Americas and Oceania even more than we used to.) You're not totally wrong in the interface issue, either. Fun-damentals and a custom workspace? Get rid of redundant stuff and reorganise menus and tools.

Here dimensioned drawings, schedules and specification have always constituded an implied Bill of Quantities. You've got it easy, mate! So, it's just pretty pictures you need to do? Fancy that? And you still call yourselves Architects? Well, whatever.

A good starting point! Do you use data records? Maybe, maybe not. There may be an extra selection and the process may not seem to be quite as straightforward, but?? I have! If my various assumptions are correct, I believe the process of creating a single-file structure with viewports could be automated reasonably easily as a menu command. So, if you have the overall layout on a single layer (as I would), the command could at the same time break the layout to individual design layers by tile class and create a sheet layer and a viewport for each. (There are considerations here.) Of course a title block, with automatically generated sheet-specific data (including Part# & quantity), would be placed, too. Outside the automation you might need to have one or more Saved Sheets for reviewing purposes and the like, but hopefully not. (They're not easy to manage unless the layer/class structure is fixed and that would not be the case in your situation.) Still no batch printing with Fundamentals, but another menu command could at least walk through each sheet layer and invoke the print dialog. (At least on the Macintosh platform, pressing OK could be automated, too.) Your tiles, by the way: they are manufactured pieces of? metal?

I don't have a degree in computer programming, but my window tool can make any shape. Have to think about making the making of penta-, hexa- and octagonal windows even easier, so thanks for the idea! (Hexa- and octagonal windows are not at all rare in pre-WW II buildings in my part of the world now when I think of it.)

Got into trouble with my geometry again, but remembered an old debugging device: n := GETVERTNUM(polyH); FOR i := 1 TO n DO BEGIN GETPOLYPT(polyH, i, x, y); TEXTORIGIN(x, y); CREATETEXT(NUM2STR(0, i)); END; Don't know much about geometry Don't know much trigonometry Don't know much about algebra Don't know what a slide rule is for but at least I can see clearly now where my calculations go wrong.

Sure, whenever you re-import the VW file. That's one of the reasons I went away from Artlantis. When I used Artlantis, only an export/update of the Artlantis-model was required. When did this change to a full re-import?

And I mainly agree with your notions! The comprehensive model -approach does indeed have various cost implications that cannot be ignored. These include the obvious changes in the project-wide workflow between the disciplines, esp. between the architect and the structural engineer. Depending on the client-side implementation, we may need to eg. have each and every column and beam not only modeled but also uniquely and persistently identified. Management of the design model in course of the project is a definite issue in many ways. This aspect is a threat to us VW-users: I don't see any signs of supporting server-type of solutions with a shared database. But who cares: in the absence of IFC-certification, VW can't be used in IFC-based projects for discerning clients anyway. As comes to quantities, the legal responsibility does not really, fundamentally change. We've always been responsible of the correctness of our drawings and schedules. If anything, the brave new approach helps in this respect, especially regarding discrepancies (my fav red-face-in-the-site-meeting -issue.) Finally, I feel very sorry for the smaller construction companies that will be out of business because they don't have the resources to implement tendering based only on models. No wonder the BIM/IFC -issue has been championed in the Nordic countries by the large construction companies? And large design practices!

Very elegant, Raymond! Ahh, the ?easy?: One has to have a REAL variable to store the accumulated lengths, adding each to it. 3D-polys with 3 or more vertices are easy, too? Now pay attention, single-oh-integer: the vertex index starts from zero.

Reconnoitre (Br, Aus, NZ) or reconnoiter (US, Can)? Sorry, could not resist??

Chris, It seems I answered to an unasked question! The workflow suggested by Peter Cipes is the one I use at the schematic stage, too. I definitely don't want to be sidetracked by the complexities of parametric objects or symbols. Not even my own objects? Modeling a complex, non-standard kitchen may well be easier with the ?basic? tools: floors, walls and the like. In my experience, the cabinet-makers will anyway make their own working drawings. (For better or worse: one clever guy did not ask me why the units were split as they were. Well, that was based the maximum size that could be actually brought in?)

Civil design is important, but not something an architect should or should be required to do, except in very small and simple projects. The BIM-concept that eg. IFC is based on makes, in my interpretation, quite a few (valid) assumptions: i single, one-off ?long timber?* residences and McMansions are not even near the focus. ii there are specialist consultants. iii the specialist consultants get the geometry (eg. terrain, but more importantly spaces, columns, beams, slabs and the like) from the Architect and in principle only add information to the Architect's objects. Ad-hoc, my-way BIMs are another pot of chickpeas. EDIT *) This expression is used in the Nordic countries to describe the ancient way of construction demonstrated so eminently by the framing tools of VW. No-one but the DIY-builder builds like that here: we have prefabricated elements.

Most definitely there is no need for BIM in carport extensions and the like. Have fun with CivilCAD when designing the sites of them in your world. Us architects could not care less.

Sure. After the rotation, do they sill point where the LD focused them before the rotation?

Can you tell the cabinet-maker to do the same? Apologies for my flippancy, but there are real-world considerations involved. I'd rather have a corner cabinet arrangement, unless we're talking about a small space, of ?hostess kitchen? size. It is a pity that there appears to be no facility to create a single, combination-wise arbitrary, bench-top from two or more base cabinets. I wonder if InteriorCAD has such functionality and if, what is the (quite demanding) user-interface like. Furthermore, I wonder how one makes an island bench for a kitchen with this integrated product. Finally: not that I would limit the use of base cabinets to kitchens. Not even wall cabinets!

Oh dear. The Architect of course determines the 3D-geometry of the site, including the overall parameters of the grading and all facets of landscaping (including hardscaping, retaining walls etc.). The Engineer then goes and determines the substructure and the like. I'm curious to learn more about client bodies that require buildings in one format and the site in another! Or clients who require buildings in LandXML-format. Pray tell!

1. With a better tool. 2. With extrusions or whatever. The ?Massing Model? tool is shockingly bad and useless. A true NNA ?Integrated Products? tool indeed?

Got caught with this a few times? You have to tell the site model to show proposed.

I can batch-print 50 to 60 drawings from a single VW file?

Curious. When I had my short and miserable period of AutoCAD-use, it was only able to have one drawing open at one time. Surely, if you invoked several copies of AutoCAD, there was no apparent limit. Just make the necessary number of copies of the VW application (only that, within the Applications/VW folder) and each can open 8 files.

I'm sure it does, but that is totally irrelevant in the context of VW Architect and architects in general. As is the fact that there are similar products for Microstation. Architects do not have use to and buy sophisticated civil engineering programs. Many client bodies, however, require the site as a part of the IFC-model.

No.

Of course it doesn't. You are free to ?BIM? to your heart's content in whichever manner you choose in your own little fantasy world. Those of us who do real projects in the real world need to communicate with others, under common rules.

Pray tell: would that create a single IFC-compatible object of the site? After all, we are talking about BIM, not drafting.