abhikalpan Posted June 5, 2007 Share Posted June 5, 2007 CAN ANY ONE GIVE ADVANTAGES PROS AND CONS FOR V 12.5 AND ACAD 2007 . WHATS BETTER IN WHAT . THOUGH I KNOW THIS IS A REGULAR TOPIC POSTED . Quote Link to comment
D Wood Posted June 5, 2007 Share Posted June 5, 2007 (edited) 1. Welcome to the VectorWorks forum. 2. Use lower case, DON'T SHOUT! 3. It is useful to other forum users to add a note of what computer and software you are using. 4. This is a forum for VectorWorks users, not for comparisons between CAD programs, which is going to be like comparing apples with oranges anyway. 5. If you know this is a regular topic, use the Search facility before posting, so you can frame a new question. Edited June 5, 2007 by D Wood Quote Link to comment
abhikalpan Posted June 5, 2007 Author Share Posted June 5, 2007 would be grateful if anyone online would help me on this topic , since i am new to the forum . and we have a problem of acad and vectorwork users both working together and comparing which is better . this has put us in a dilemma. Quote Link to comment
abhikalpan Posted June 5, 2007 Author Share Posted June 5, 2007 there is no previous thread or topic . i have searched . kinldy help Quote Link to comment
takesh h Posted June 5, 2007 Share Posted June 5, 2007 These threads are from another forum of which I am a moderator, but they might help. Revit vs Archicad vs Vectorworks vs 2D drafting Autocadasaurus BIM Documentation Not Ready for Prime Time Usually, this kind of "which CAD is better?" talk ends up with "it all depends on how good you are". Quote Link to comment
abhikalpan Posted June 5, 2007 Author Share Posted June 5, 2007 thats absolutely right . but when people dont know that we have to show the facts and convince them why vectorworks is better in lot of ways than acad Quote Link to comment
jfmarch Posted June 5, 2007 Share Posted June 5, 2007 it might be useful for you to look at the pros/cons yourself by creating a list of items that can be compared. for example, you can start by price, computer platform, visual appearance, ease of use, ease of learning, plot/print quality, BIM availability, graphic ability, etc. if you do much 3d modelling, i beleive VW would be more advantageous. if you only do 2d graphics (plans), it might be a wash. take a look at what you want, what you need, and what you want to do and give it a go. and please post- we all would like to see what you find! Quote Link to comment
islandmon Posted June 6, 2007 Share Posted June 6, 2007 Don't forget to factor in this knowledgeable, helpful and dynamic VW User Group ; ) Quote Link to comment
atari2600 Posted June 6, 2007 Share Posted June 6, 2007 I honestly believe it really depends on how you plan to use them. Knowing your overall intent with the applications will help you realize which one is probalby a better fit. I have used both extensively and I personally find Vectorworks to be more versatile than Acad 2k7. That is, of course based on primarily needing 2d residential drawings. And don't forget, if your only tool is a hammer, everything will seem like a nail. You will probably be most limited by the willigness of your users to actually learn the software and what it's capable of. Quote Link to comment
Thom Posted June 6, 2007 Share Posted June 6, 2007 It will also depend on your design discipline and how often you will interface with AC and how willing you are to setup standards to use for the exchanging files. (VW - it would be nice to have a list of do's and do not's for file exchange. Quote Link to comment
David Bertrand Posted June 6, 2007 Share Posted June 6, 2007 If you are doing 2D line drawings, without a lot of colorful fills, and don't care whether the drawings look attractive, then AutoCAD is a world beater. This would apply to most structural and civil drawings. As an industry standard, with AutoCAD there'll be fewer translation problems if you exchange files with other offices. Everyone will understand what you're talking about when you communicate about a project. For architectural drawing or similar work, where you want to make the drawings attractive and still have lots of versatility (including 3D), then I'd go for VectorWorks. It's nice to be able to plop in an attractive symbol when you need it. The blocks in AutoCAD tend to be functional but unattractive. I've got a whole bunch of them and wonder how I could have stood them. Remember that AutoCAD is horrifically expensive, especially if you buy add-ons to make the work in a particular discipline faster. List price for AutoCAD 2008, including Architectural Desktop, is around $5,590. Quote Link to comment
jan15 Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 If you are doing 2D line drawings, without a lot of colorful fills, and don't care whether the drawings look attractive, then AutoCAD is a world beater.Note that David is referring to working in VectorWorks with only one hand. I use two, and find VW faster at 2D drawings, even though I have a lot more experience with Autocad. Quote Link to comment
domer1322 Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 In my book it is simple .... VW is less expensive, and just plain better, except for one big factor..... too many other people use ACAD. Although VW can import dwg files, it is not as smooth as using ACAD for all these websites that have furniture symbols, const details, plants, plug in software, etc. Quote Link to comment
mike m oz Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 The answer to that is to get more symbols available in VW format. Sharing through Vectordepot would benefit us all. Quote Link to comment
jan15 Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 .... too many other people use ACAD.Yes, that's the rub. And they're all so stubborn. There's something about using Autocad that alters the brain and makes it stubborn. All those variables with names like ACADLSPASDOC, ATTDIA, and AUDITCTL, and whether to make the text 6" high or 6 3/4" high, and the dimension ticks 3" or 3 1/2" to print correctly at the current scale. It drives you crazy. And learning to do all that is such an ordeal, like learning the NY city sewer system by walking through the whole thing. It makes you think that learning another CAD package is going to be the same kind of ordeal, and you don't ever want to do that again. So that's something to consider. Therapy for all your CAD operators. Quote Link to comment
David Bertrand Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Note that David is referring to working in VectorWorks with only one hand.I do use two hands, one to move the mouse and the other to scratch my head. I suspect that most of us are not as multi-dexterous as jan15. And I liked those crazy variables. There's a subtle but noticeable difference between .110" and .125" text. Quote Link to comment
jan15 Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 See what I mean? All that craziness becomes a habit that people can't kick. If using Autocad required hitting yourself in the head with a rubber mallet every 10 seconds, people would be complaining that VectorWorks doesn't have a mallet. They'd want to put it on the Wish List. Quote Link to comment
David Bertrand Posted June 8, 2007 Share Posted June 8, 2007 If using Autocad required hitting yourself in the head with a rubber mallet every 10 seconds, people would be complaining that VectorWorks doesn't have a mallet. They'd want to put it on the Wish List. That is very low, and besides, I was never issued a mallet. Quote Link to comment
mike m oz Posted June 8, 2007 Share Posted June 8, 2007 Different paradigms. Different strengths and weaknesses. Almost impossible to compare rationally because different users will use different features and therefore have different opinions. Its all about fitness for purpose or what works best for what you want to do. Quote Link to comment
P Retondo Posted June 8, 2007 Share Posted June 8, 2007 Different paradigms. Different strengths and weaknesses. Almost impossible to compare rationally because different users will use different features and therefore have different opinions. Its all about fitness for purpose or what works best for what you want to do. Mike, you're being too generous. AutoCAD has a couple of features, such as move and copy by vector, that VW lacks, but one simple fact puts VW way ahead in terms of productivity: it is not necessary to hit after every command. Add the 3d/2d interface that VW has mastered from very early on, and I find that my productivity in VW surpasses ACAD, which I used for 3 years, by a significant margin. Fortunately, I learned MiniCAD first and didn't have to deal with reconfiguring mental pathways. I find that most ACAD users have trouble at the conceptual level when learning VW. Quote Link to comment
David Bertrand Posted June 8, 2007 Share Posted June 8, 2007 I find that most ACAD users have trouble at the conceptual level when learning VW.A good point. AutoCAD is fairly simple to grasp: throw down a bunch of lines, then trim and fillet them, and you're done. I'm still having trouble learning Vectorworks' "add, clip, intersect, combine surfaces" or "compose" and "decompose." I have to stop and think about what they mean and which one I want to use. Quote Link to comment
mike m oz Posted June 8, 2007 Share Posted June 8, 2007 That's what I mean by a different paradigm. You have to adjust to the different ways of working. Once you are familiar with it and doing things without thinking about how to do them your speed will increase. David there are a couple of third party options for Point to Point if you want it: - VectorMove from Vectorbits: http://www.vectorbits.com/ - Pt2Pt Move and Pt2Pt Copy from the old section of VectorDepot: http://www.vectordepot.com/Plugins1.shtml - Move and Duplicate/Multiple from the old section of VectorDepot: http://www.vectordepot.com/Plugins1.shtml Quote Link to comment
David Bertrand Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Thanks Mike. I already have those point to point plug-ins, and don't need them as much as I expected. It's that paradigm thing, I guess. As an aside, the rel. 12 User's Guide is such a vast improvement over that of rel. 11 that I actually enjoy using it. The index is complete; each command is clearly explained with excellent illustrations. It leaves no doubt as to how to use each command. With the rel. 11 version of the guide, I was never sure if I understood what they were trying to say. Consequently, I had to do a lot of experimentation. Quote Link to comment
mralistair Posted July 10, 2007 Share Posted July 10, 2007 the 'faster' debate is probably un-solvable. having come from autocad and microstation i'd say that if you want something that feels very solid and accurate and prefer to draw in lines, use acad, if you want to do new-build residential type plans with pretty fills and repetative symbols (and don't mind putting up with the near-constant resetting of inches to millimetres) use vectorworks. Quote Link to comment
Luciole Design Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 There are some things I could mention, but no chart - it also depends on what you do with the program. I'm a landscape architect, so my needs are different. For example, I need to quickly and automatically extract data linked to symbols (blocks in ACAD), sort it, do some simple computations, and display it on the drawing. It's a fairly simple process in VectorWorks. Unless AutoCAD has drastically changed since I used it, there's no comparison. I also find that the user interface in VectorWorks is easier than ACAD and requires less keystrokes/user input, resulting in less time spent telling the program what to do. Quote Link to comment
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