Vectorworks Top Ten Home Improvements
(not sanctioned by Marth Stewart)
10. What if we were to have classes that viewed... but didn't print? We could actually have a functional redmark class.
9. Workgroup referencing portions of drawings.---I can currently unlock and delete certain objects but if I edit the original and update the drawing everything reappears. This works great for commercial projects with many people using one base plan to produce detailed plans of sections of the building in different scales. (you might be sensing that I'm forced to use that OTHER program alot.)
8. Wall Join---anything much more complicated than a "T" and you're on your own.
7. When will mac-users have programs that support anything better than mono-button mice? -That scroller would be really handy to zoom in and out, for instance, maybe even in the middle of a command..
6. Importing transparency (alpha) and bump maps for Renderworks. You guys at Nemetschek are great and you've come up with some neat looking grass and circa 1970s wood panelling, but give US the power to edit our own complex textures....allowing us to at least render "paste-ups" or "knock-outs" of people in our models. I won't even mention what we could do with trees.
5. Do those lighting objects really have to stay the same size regardless of how far I zoom out?
4. Multiple window panes. Could I look at an object from two angles at the same time? That would be really deep and probably take me to the next level of CAD zen.
3. "Render to lines" is an incredible presentaion tool for bid and construction documents, and one that few CAD programs could even consider. But. . . when I render to lines, sometimes I don't want to see all of the striations in a curved object or wall. If I set the "convert to" resolution lower, the curves aren't smooth and all of that post-editing is time-consuming.
2. Chamfer without an angle or distance -- this would be markedly faster than "join." This could also allow you to join the short end of a line to the long end of another (if you're into that kind of thing.)
1. The trim tool, is this a joke? Simple arcs or even multiple trim operations on the same line are probelmatic. Frequent errors "The picked object was not able to be trimmed." even though it's quite obvious that the objects intersect, or even cross, are simply a stop sign on the road to production and, occasionally before a deadline, make me consider reaching through the monitor and forcibly showing the program that, yes in fact, they should be able to be trimmed.
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GJacobs
Designer
Gamut Design