Chris D

You know what, in for a penny, in for a pound, as we say here.. I'm all for open standards, but there are open standards and open standards. The first sort are evolved, slowly and painfully, by a stalinist navel-gazing committee, like IFC. The second route, as Steve Jobs did with FaceTime, is to just get on with it, implement it, and then open the doors to the house party. I reckon FaceTIme will have wide adoption before IFC is even finished. So, here's the FaceTime* style plan: Nemetschek already own and control three platforms - Allplan, ArchiCAD and Vectorworks. Bentley (any enemy of your enemy is your friend) would join an anti-Revit alliance, so add in Microstation. Take these four platforms and don't just agree some exchange protocols, agree a single file format which each program can edit natively. OK, it's still a committee, but a committee of two. Two companies, with four platforms, coming together to head off the closed Revit platform becoming the de-facto standard for BIM. Develop the common file type, publish it, then invite everybody else (Revit, Sketchup etc) to play. *Cue anti-apple lashback in 3-2-1...

Hmm, I'm not even a big fan of BIM...at least in its current worldy incarnation.......why am I getting myself into a discussion with someone called "the BIM guy"... ;-) Perhaps my naivety is an advantage....I don't have any baggage to bring to this discussion, but the way i see it is this - I think your view of BIM is based on an old 2D workflow (the one I use day in, day out). With BIM, I expect to see a single building model, which I expect to live in the cloud. Nobody owns the model...it's developed jointly by the design team. Consultants - the architects, structural engineers and services engineers check out their own 'elements' of the project, and then check them back in when complete. Other team members can review these submissions and comment on them, or even veto them. This review procedure is the only rule. Like a wiki server, you can roll back any changes that users make if you believe them to be incorrect. Does this happen on any BIM platform? If not, why not?

In such a prolonged absence of an open standard, is it any wonder that RVT will become the DWG of BIM? Better sort out your RVT export rather than your IFC export then Jeffrey...

Lord help us if the big contractors choose consultants based on their favourite BIM package. It won't be Vectorworks.

I was there with Christiaan and Peter Besley (another architect), plus Martyn Horne from Computers Unlimited (the UK distributor) and I came away with the impression that NV Inc were receptive to our requirements. We've agreed to post our full 'agenda' here for discussion...which we'll do shortly.

Anyone else experiencing this issue? Did this happen in the previous version (2010)?

OK, I'm away from my computer so I can't verify that these junctions are robust and repeatable, but let's say the greatest brains of the Techforum have rose to the challenge I set. I still don't believe that the VW wall join tool is anything other than "poor". I consider myself proficient in CAD, having used AutoCAD, Revit and ArchiCAD as well as VW over the last 20 years (7 years on Vectorworks now), but VW wall joins defeat me, along with the rest of my colleagues. We need component joins that aren't limited to Walls that are pre-joined or limited in number. We should be able to have 5 walls join at one point, at any angle, with any number of components, and we should be able to join any component to any other, robustly and reliably.

By the way, I still think the tool is broken. Returning components on the inner leaf should NOT affect the structural opening of the external leaf and certainly should NOT make the wall components of the outer leaf overlap with the window frame. I believe this is a bug.

Thanks Assemblage, I'm away from my computer this weekend but it sounds like the window tool CAN be made to behave, even if its default behaviour is non sensical and it requires a team of enthusiastic geeks to figure out what should be easy and intuitive.

Maarten, could you post the VW file please. I believe what you are saying is that you can make the wall "look" like the correct arrangement, but they are not actually component joins, and therefore not robust during adjacent edits...like the next junction 5 metres away... We've tried to get the walls joins to work over the years, but the danger of a junction going wrong and being issued on a drawing is too high, so we use wall patches, which are static and safe.

Ok, file added. I've mocked up the junction in VW2011 with similar wall types that I had available. If anyone else wants to have a look, you'll need version 2011, or at least the 30 day trial version like me... (trial version available for download here:) http://www.nemetschek.net/eval/eval_form.php

Wait, this is worse than I thought. Display order is not even respected. Linework within the group can slip below objects that are BEHIND the group!

Is it me, or is "show other objects while in edit modes" now not functioning correctly (in 2011). I understand that there is a grey objects toggle, which I have turned off, by the way. I'm working inside a group, with the "other objects" showing in full colour below. My objects within the group do NOT show their fills while editing. They did show their fills in 2008, and I consider it essential that they do, otherwise how can I make things like wall patches, that use carefully constructed filled polygons, with some polygon edges hidden, to carefully conceal the objects below the patch, which are outside of the group? I do hope this is a setting that I'm not seeing....

heh...of course..

I'm at home on the iPad now. I'll fire up my home iMac and mock something similar up...just as soon as SOKO Leipzig is finished on TV...

Actually, I preferred your inline image...allows you to annotate it and for others to see it at a glance. Pity you have to use an image host to do is this way...(unless I'm mistaken).

Yeah, pretty close

Robert, that's the simplest junction I could find to illustrate the problem. You're selling this product to firms that do more than little boxes on the hillside. The insulation in the party wall (a wall common to two parties, in this case the wall between two houses) would normally be mineral fibre but it's drawn as cellular insulation as it's easier to show as a hatch.

This is the desired arrangement of wall components at a three way join. A pretty simple join... This is the wall patch (a symbol made of polygons) which is hiding the Vectorworks join in the first image This is an attempt to join a party wall component to a component of the external wall.

Mike M has asked me to post some screenshots, which I will do when I get a moment.

Yes, but it solves nothing: A. you can't drag the handle past the line of the outer leaf, which in the case of plaster it would obviously overlap with the window frame and thus be 'within' the structural opening (rough opening). B. this does not prevent the outer leaf from randomly overlapping with the frame

Surely this is the only way to get useful 2D elevations from a 3D model?

Yeah, I set out to evaluate 2011 ahead of meeting the engineers on Monday, but these things made steam come out of my ears so I had to come here with my CAPS LOCK... ;-)

I've never used the 'return wall components' feature in the windows PIO on my drawings. I've tried it before, it draws something very bizarre, physically impossible even...so I've left it. Well, I've tried it again in 2011 and you've guessed it, it still doesn't work. Ignoring 'checked reveals' found in Scotland, we have about four typical conditions you're likely to model in the UK, and I can't imagine that building customs are that different the world over, as far as masonry construction is concerned. You would either return your masonry inner leaf part way into the cavity and insert a cavity closer, or you you would use a full width cavity closer. You might combine these options with a wet plaster finish returning into the reveal, or with plasterboard on dabs returning into the reveal. There is no way on earth I can make the window PIO draw anything that remotely resembles these configurations. Why, when I select one interior component to return, SHOULD THE EXTERIOR COMPONENTS SUDDENLY EXTEND ACROSS IN FRONT OF THE WINDOW FRAME?? Why would you look at this and think "yup, that's what windows look like" and high-five your NV Inc colleagues on another job well done?

I sometimes think that the people who write Vectorworks have never been architects..and I'd probably be right...you wouldn't qualify as an architect and then start over to become a software engineer I guess. You WOULD think, however, that NV Inc would employ somebody who has actually worked in a drawing office, to advise on their 'architect' tools. Heck, I'll advise you, for free, if you'll fix the bloody software. Never mind your weird doors and windows, let's just look at walls. The wall tool has been re-engineered in practically every version since version 12, and yet it still doesn't work. The drawings in our office are littered with time consuming symbols that we call 'wall patches', there but to do one job which is to mask the mess that VW makes of joining wall components together. VW has not one, but two wall join tools, one to join the whole wall and one to join the wall components, but lord help you if you live in the real world, where three walls meet. Just try drawing an internal angle of an external cavity masonry wall, then running a masonry party wall into the back of it. How these components meet is crucial for fireproofing, soundproofing and many other reasons, but Vectorworks can't do it, not even in 2011.