The new and improved Vectorworks Nomad app - can it really make floor plans

[techdef]

Tried the room scan seriously on a client house for the first time yesterday. Pretty neat, but zero stairs. Is that by design or did I just get unlucky?

 

[zoomer]

Yes, I also noticed it won't do Stairs whatever I tried.

 

And it has real problems with parapet Walls.

Or (non existing) angles between rooms.

Or correct or keeping dimensions of cubic objects like furniture.

Or with 4 chairs around a round table ....

 

But it is pretty good in spreading cubes and categorizing them

in different furniture types.

 

I see so much potential.

But so far it is not very Apple-like standard.

Edited April 30 by zoomer

[rDesign]

On 3/26/2024 at 4:02 AM, KingChaos said:

hi,

 

i failed with the textures. it imports the geometry as well, but its white and somehow the textures (usdz???) is not imported into vw23

Are you running the latest Service Pack for Vw2023? In this other thread I reported the lack of USDZ textures in Vw2023 and we were told that the lack of textures would be fixed in SP6 (as also posted earlier in this thread). I have not tested this in Vw2023 to see if this was fixed.

 

 

Edited April 30 by rDesign

[James Russell]

Ahoy,

 

Having worked with Apple RoomPlan on other projects for a little while now, I'm fairly confident that the Nomad Scan is a refined/polished version of the full base code and sample available - as in my testing sporadically over the last few years seem to correlate and @techdef I echo the sentiments on the lack of Stairs and Multi-Level surfaces.

 

For those of you interested in the Apple RoomPlan capabilities it's available here ( https://developer.apple.com/documentation/roomplan/ ) but as a short list, here's the available room details;

 

Inspecting room details

• The story, floor number, or level on which the captured room resides within a larger structure.
• An array of floors that the framework identifies during a scan.
• A 2D area in a room that the framework identifies as a surface.
• An array of doors that the framework identifies during a scan.
• An array of objects that the framework identifies during a scan.
• A 3D area in a room that the framework identifies as an object.
• An array of openings that the framework identifies during a scan.
• An array of walls that the framework identifies during a scan.
• An array of windows that the framework identifies during a scan.
• One or more room types that the framework observes in the room.

And the available object detection categories;

 

Determining the object category

• A category for an object that represents a bathtub.
• A category for an object that represents a bed.
• A category for an object that represents a chair.
• A category for an object that represents a dishwasher.
• A category for an object that represents a fireplace.
• A category for an object that represents an oven.
• A category for an object that represents a refrigerator.
• A category for an object that represents a sink.
• A category for an object that represents a sofa.
• A category for an object that represents stairs.
• A category for an object that represents a storage area.
• A category for an object that represents a stove.
• A category for an object that represents a table.
• A category for an object that represents a television.
• A category for an object that represents a toilet.
• A category for an object that represents a clothes washer or dryer.

I think with these two lists in hand you can see exactly where the capabilities are - at least in my current usage and understanding of both Nomad and Apple RoomPlan.

 

Happy scanning!

 

J

[zoomer]

7 hours ago, James Russell said:

Inspecting room details

• The story, floor number, or level on which the captured room resides within a larger structure.

 

Really ?

 

So far I tried Room to Room to Staircase to upwards .....

Beside that the second Room got rotated and it ignores any Stairs, I think the Stairs

made it harder to scan the Staircase Walls.
I got the double story height ceiling but on the upper Story it was no more willing to

accept the openings and the last landing/floor.

[James Russell]

@zoomer, sorry I should have been slightly more clear.

 

The list above is the capabilities of Apple RoomPlan. I'm unsure if they're all implemented into Nomad -  that would require someone from the Dev team to probably chip in.

 

I more posted the list so people could make a clear assessment of, for example, "Will Nomad know what a Car is if I scan it"; as indicated by the list above, Apple RoomPlan doesn't know what a car is, therefore it's safe to say Nomad won't know what a car is.

 

Again, Dev team might be able to shed more light on this - and more importantly, I'd like to know the future of this app in terms of active development.

[zoomer]

4 hours ago, James Russell said:

The list above is the capabilities of Apple RoomPlan. I'm unsure if they're all implemented into Nomad

 

Yes, I got that.

Thanks for the list. I searched for new uncovered features.

Just that I can't imagine how that should work, from my experiences

with continuous scanning of more than a single room.

 

That features sounds like you could easily scan a multi Story Office Building

or a Hotel in one go. Maybe it just reads the room number plates on the doors 🙂

 

Should scan a kitchen to check if it recognizes all appliances.

(Air fryer, steamer, coffee machine ....?)

 

[James Russell]

I think much of this relies heavily on the success of Apple Vision Pro and if they're using the same Apple RoomPlan technology for elements of it's mapping (which I suspect they're not an it's just active point cloud lidar for surface and object detection).

 

Realistically until Apple RoomPlan update for uneven surfaces, curved walls, stairs, columns, raked floors and many other things I don't see why/how Nomad would be able to do anything further with this feature - however I'm happy to be proven wrong! 😛