Chris D

A review of 2013 in relation to my recent BIMfail list: - No live sections Hit: Clip Cube kind of does this - No multiple model windows e.g. plan and section open at same time Miss - Poor architectural tools, windows, doors, stairs, roofs, curtain walls etc Miss (mostly): Minor improvements to windows and roofs only - Missing architectural tools rooflights, gutters, foundations etc Maybe: rooflights yes, roof objects no - No multi-core / multi-thread support e.g even auto-save stops you working while it saves Maybe: Background rendering yes, background saves no (not mentioned) - No building materials, just 2D hatches, textures, fills with no relationship between them Miss - Poor workgroup referencing. No workgroup server or BIM server Miss - Poor stock component library, especially for the UK Miss - Poor Coordinate System support. No multiple UCS (moving origin doesn't qualify). Miss - No 3D working grid or reference lines related to storey settings Miss - Poor Stories implementation. No split levels, mezzanines, double-height spaces etc. Miss - No 3D hatches so all drawings need to be rendered for presentation Miss - Render quality needs to be set very high for decent elevation output Maybe: Rendering now in background so less of an issue The big one for us is the big fat miss on the vector-based elevations with 3D hatches. You can't do a BIM workflow if you can't even do your 2D drawings from a 3D model. VW still can't do this, yet it's the default behaviour in proper BIM packages like Revit.

There's some proper juicy stuff in there, I'll give them that. And I recall most of those features being added to the wishlist too...so it looks like they do listen...but can't quite act fast enough..

No 3D hatches for vector-based elevations....no sale.

'Editing in perspective view' and the 'clip cube' will certainly enhance 3D modelling, but I can't see any BIM enhancements on that list, and that's where the failings are.

exactly.

Revit: Reference Planes

Terrible workaround and typical of Vectorworks fudges. Destructive editing just to view something the way you need. Grouping objects that have associations, are cross-layered, have constraints etc etc is destructive. Hopefully this is fixed in 2013.

oops

VW's target audience is small practices as sole practitioners...same as Revit LT's by the look of it. How many use rendering? And VW doesn't yet have Work Sharing either...

The new kid on the block is Revit LT....announced yesterday. It's about the same price as VW. Cat, meet pigeons

oooh...VSS members get a sneak peak it says. That's not us. Anyone? Do you sign an NDA first....?

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://resuelvectorworks.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/nemetschek-anuncia-vectorworks-2013/

No interface changes then....

If this is the feature Tamsin chose to highlight...it doesn't bode well for more major improvements...

True. On a more positive note, I was asked by a contractor* if we were planning to use BIM on a new appointment we have with them and whether we would provide IFC files...first time we've been asked. They have BIMsight installed. The downside is that Tekla don't make a Mac version of BIMsight so we couldn't have got very far with our VW on Mac setup anyway. ...goes back to the Revit training CD on the Windows box in the corner... * 'Contractor' means construction firm in the UK...not sure about the US

We recently surveyed the 8 or 9 structural engineering firms that we regularly work with, regarding their BIM position. We included a question about IFC amongst the ones about platform and future plans etc. Of the 6 who responded, all are either using Revit Structure, or planning to switch to it in the next 24 months. A couple of them were already exchanging RVT files with other architects. More importantly, only one had ever considered using IFC and none had Navisworks, Solibri or BIMsight installed. You know where this is going...it's clear that like DWG was, native Revit files are going to be the lingua franca, like English, while IFC will be like Esperanto...much admired but no one uses it...

I once thought about listing out all the permutations of visual control you can have...which I never did, but this would have been high on the list. To be honest, it's quite hard for novice users to work out why something is displayed the way it is at the moment, so any new 'power controls' will need far better visual feedback.

At this point I can't see the merger happening. In fact, since Trimble bought Sketchup I've been waiting for the news that Nemetschek will sell one of their 3 architectural BIM apps to Trimble, who have all the BIM components except the architecture bit (Sketchup excepted). Most likely either ArchiCAD or Vectorworks rather than Allplan. It wouldn't be a bad thing to be in the Trimble stable if it resulted in better investment in improving VW...instead of the glacial pace we have now.

Not to be cheap, but have you thought of having a 1 week free-for-all to celebrate your new resource? If your stuff is good you'll pick up subscribers (no pun intended).

In Revit you can isolate (or the opposite: hide) by element or category...it's very powerful and less dangerous than grouping/ungrouping which doesn't work across layers.

Ozzie, you cracked it! Converted it from a rotated rectangle to a polygon and that fixed it instantly. Sorry for misleading you fine folks that it was a polygon. I'll file a bugsubmit for mapped hatches on rotated rectangle in SLVPs...

just a polygon with a hatch

same file

And does anyone else find using the attribute mapping interface to be like trying to plait fog? (nail jello to the ceiling...for US readers)

if you use the attribute mapping tool on a hatched polygon, the mapping can be ignored in a sheet layer viewport: