VW_1 and Chief Architect Comparison ...

[Elite Exhibits]

Question: Anyone have experience or a comparison of VW and Chief Architect Comparison ?

 

Peter

[TomKen]

I've used both but it has been about 5 years since I last used Chief Architect.  Based on my experience with CA from then.
Both programs have the typical BIM features you expect,  walls, doors, window, floors roof, schedules,  levels/design layers,  sheets, viewports etc.

For interior work CA has a huge library of objects,  Their cabinet tool makes the VW's cabinet tool look very sad.
My impression of CA was that it was really designed around Residential wood frame construction and has a lot of settings for that type of construction.  I was not very impressed though with their 2d drafting tools for doing details.
For me, of the two I really prefer working with VW.   I find it is a much more flexible program to work with.  I find the 2d graphics components far superior.   I also find changing from 2d to 3d views for navigating around in my model much easier.
Over the years I've used quite a few different CAD programs,  a lot of them have similar features.  One thing they all have common is that not one of them excels at all features.  One might have a great floor tool but a terrible roof tool,  some have great drafting tools others not so much and so on.
 

My best suggestions to you are determine what you need to produce from your CAD program and select the one that suits those needs.   Most CAD programs will allow you to download a trial versions, so try them out yourself and see what you like.   Last of all a lot of the time it is not what CAD program you choose it is whether or not you commit the time to learn and develop the skills to use your chosen program.   
 

[bpsabatier]

I have also used both, and my experience is about the same.  The 3d modeling in CA was fantastic, but sometimes frustrating to get the program to do anything unique.  While the roofs and foundations were automatically generated, any adjustments to the exterior walls often regenerated the roof or foundation negating any custom modifications you had performed previously (I am sure there were settings that I could have used to avoid this issue...).  The cabinet tool was FAR superior to VW's.  And the graphical display of the model far outperformed VW.  Aligning or centering doors and windows was much easier to do, with a centering tool and automatic dimensions that appeared when selecting an object, showing distances to the nearest wall or objects.  Where in VW you have to select walls or draw a polygon to define a space, CA did this automatically when an area was enclosed with walls.  Oh, and don't get me started on a stair tool comparison!  VW's recent update to the stair tool was extremely disappointing.  Roof ridge caps automatically generated when two roof planes were joined... how cool is that?

 

I could go on and on about how great it was to lay out a residence in CA.... but their 2D was clunky, and ultimately I didn't have the flexibility there to create the construction drawings that looked the way I wanted them to look, so I bailed on CA after a couple of years.  Also, their learning curve was much steeper than VW.  Basic functions we utilize in VW and in other mainstream CAD programs are not that easily found in CA.

 

I've made suggestions in the past for the engineers at VW to buy a copy of CA and steal the great ideas that I loved about working in that program.  No luck with that....

 

Vectorworks is a great program, but it could be way better if they could get rid of some of its legacy baggage, and provide tools that are flexible and simplify the process of designing in CAD.

[Elite Exhibits]

@bpsabatier & @TomKen

 

Thank you for the informative feed back - it is greatly appreciated 

     ... and for just taking the time to comment on the FORUM

 

Peter