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Fundamentals vs. Industry Series


Zhin

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Dear all,

While waiting for my demo copy for VW 2008 Architect, I thought this to be the best place to ask this question.

As I am quite tight financially (at the moment) and am also new in the freelance world and am converting from AutoCad 06, I really would like to know how indispensable the Architect series is compared to Fundamentals. You see, I am thinking of purchasing just Fundamentals and Artlantis R.

Sure the industry series has all the bells and whistles with doing things in 3d, but with all the custom stuff designers usually feel inclined to do, just how indispensable is your industry series? If things are going be quite custom designed, then most assumptions from any CAD package does not really prepare for the unexpected do they? How far will productivity levels drop in your offices if you were all forced to use Fundamentals?

Please be frank!

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What do you plan to design? And for which locality(ies) are you designing? (Country or state) Once we understand that, I'm sure a few of us can give you some qualified answers.

For our office, and the highly custom (generally timber-frame structures) we design, the cost differential between Fundamentals and Architect would be recovered in less than a day.

Good luck,

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I am overseas..as in SE Asia. Right now doing mostly residential interior work and landscape architecture for both houses and public areas. My scale of work is mainly residential.

Things that I like to detail include door handles, metal claddings, cabinets, exterior metal work for conservatories, trellises etc, etc..

Hope this answer helps. My solo company just got setup over 2 years ago...so i don't have a team of cad monkeys to run around..nor the budget.....yet.

Then again this question allows me to figure out how necessary the Industry series is. Anyone here who just uses Fundamentals?

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There is a lot of stuff that is not in the fundamentals and that are very needed for a fast and good workflow. I thought that even export to pdf is not in the fundamentals, but I could be wrong.

Also the navigation pallette is missing from fundamentels, etc.

All the good things are not in it.

I once compared them when I was to by VW, and the conclusion I had to made is that fundamentels is missing to much. I make my own pio's, so it's not for them I bought architect. It's for all those other little things.

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I can't see much value in Architect unless one does residential work (or Goverment sector space planning) in the USA. The two useful components, wall styles and IFC, are, however, worth the price if one needs them. Navigation palette is nice and may even be useful to those who work in an unstructured or chaotic manner.

Having said that, it's not hugely expensive.

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Hi Zhin

DWorks has some good points. The designer series should not be bought for Section Viewports (doesn't work 100%) nor for the window/door objects (doesn't work). There are some other tools that's missing in Fundamentals like the Navigation palette and sketch styles but these are small things but you can do without it.

My suggestion is buy Fundamentals now and when you get more money later, upgrade to Architect or Landscape or Designer 2009 (when it comes out, maybe next year September 2008). This should apply especially if you want it more for 3D presentations.

Hope it helps,

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Aren't sketch styles part of RenderWorks?

Artistic RenderWorks is of course part of RenderWorks, however VectorSketch (in simple terms, the difference is Artistic RW requires a 3D model, and is resolution dependent because it is raster not vector based) is available in the Industry Series.

I completely disagree with Petri about the significance of the nav palette. I have a highly organized work flow and file structure and regularly utilize the navigation palette to assist me in quickly switching layers, classes, saved views and sheet layers. In fact, the navigation palette allows me to be more organized, because setting layer and class visibilities on the fly, and creating saved views are made significantly easier with the use of the nav palette.

As far as everything else, I find that there are a host of tools that help with design documentation, not to mention the libraries you get, making the IS a better choice. I would recommend against starting off with Fundamentals and then adding on Architect and or Landmark later only because the work flow that you will learn could be very different then if you started off with the IS from the get go.

I would also strongly recommend trying RenderWorks before going to Artlantis. I use it extensively. It's hard to argue with complete integration, though I don't ko the level of 3D renderings/animations you are trying to produce.

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Michael,

Access to saved views is now even easier than before. Switching between layers has always been easy. But, as you attest, the Nav Palette enables - nay, encourages - a disorganised working style, including "setting layer and class visibilities on the fly".

Artistic RenderWorks is of course part of RenderWorks, however VectorSketch (in simple terms, the difference is Artistic RW requires a 3D model, and is resolution dependent because it is raster not vector based) is available in the Industry Series.

Right. Having the Designer Suite with RW is somewhat problematic: one does not really know what other set-ups are capable of.

(Not that the sketch mode would be of any practical use, but in the "Hello, World!" -league of programming it is cute.)

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I've been using Fundamentals since before it was called that. I don't draw buildings, so I have no use for Walls,Slabs,Roofs,Stairs and so forth. I do some 3d work.

So even though I won't use most of the stuff I'll be buying, I will be upgrading to Architect when I go for V13 for just a few good reasons: 2 way worksheets, rotatable 2D views, global object editing, and (hopefully) improved resource management.

I don't know if batch printing is available in v13 Fundamentals, but it's wasn't available in older versions that did include it in Industry Series, and for me this is another good reason for the upgrade.

If it's worth it to me, I'd think it'd be well worth it to someone who'll actually use it for architecture, even if some of the parametric objects aren't quite perfect.

(Rant about features not directly connected to Architecture,Lighting Design,or Landscape Design being omitted from Fundamentals omitted)

Charles

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Charles,

This complaint appears frequently. Perhaps the marketing gurus at NNA would consider a low cost add on as an option for Fundamentals that contains the features many users want, but don't need all the other Industry stuff. Currently it's like having to buy an option "package" from a car dealer when all you want is the sun roof.

George

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Charles,

This complaint appears frequently. Perhaps the marketing gurus at NNA would consider a low cost add on as an option for Fundamentals that contains the features many users want, but don't need all the other Industry stuff. Currently it's like having to buy an option "package" from a car dealer when all you want is the sun roof.

The term ?low-cost? will always be relative to the person using the expression. I say that because NNA would argue in a heartbeat that being able to add all of the architectural industry stuff for $400 (I realize this might not be the case outside of the US) is more akin to giving you a bunch of additional options for no more then the price of the sunroof. In fact, you can add all of the industry stuff, meaning all of Spotlight, Machine Design, Architect, and Landmark for only $800 more then Fundamentals. Another outstanding customer service option is that, unless they?ve changed this recently, is that you can add those features later with no penalty. It will always be $400 and $800 more. And again, everything is relative, but look at the other major CAD players and there prices for software and add-ons.

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Michael the problem is the people who fall between the cracks of the four industry series. Exhibition designers, furniture designers, cabinet makers, jewelry designers etc. (there would be many more examples). These users are forced into buying capabilities that they don't need or want to get the few extra capabilities they do want (the cost differential is substantially more outside of the US).

Why can't Fundamentals be just a capable robust general purpose modeler with no industry series components. Instead it could have all of the capabilities that users would want for general purpose modeling like Design Layer Viewports, Section Viewports, Plan Rotation, Sketch, the Navigation palette, etc.

Don't provide floor, wall, roof, door and window capabilities in Fundamentals. Make these only available in Architect, and perhaps a lesser capability in Landmark and Spotlight. Make it so that if you want to do buildings you have to have Architect. That way capabilities could be added without the complication of manipulating them so they are available in some versions but not others. That is wasted time and effort.

PS: An added advantage would be that structural and MEP components could be developed that would add value to the Architect version. Life would be far simpler if the structural and services engineers used the architect version as well. There are issues when they are only using Fundamentals and in the end you have to dumb your proceeses down to suit them and their VW capabilities.

Edited by mike m oz
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I upgraded to Arch year ago and recently had to do some work on a computer with just fundamentals and was really surprised by how much I missed it. I must have a disorganized way of working because I really like the Nav palette, the export to pdf (when it works) is great and now couldn't live without the batch export to pdf since this is how I send sets to the blueprint service. Also being able to customize and save wall styles is a big one.

None of the Arch features separately are worth it but I've seen that all together it improves my work flow/speed.

-Rob

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I'm not suggesting that they add ALL the Arch Industry stuff, but there are some functions held out of Fundamentals that arguably should be included.

Agreed. The Nav. palette for example is a good argument. My point is that while an individual might not fall neatly within the product lines that have been delineated, the technology can be obtained at a reasonable price. Reasonable being defined by the market place, not by me, and that again relates back to the US only. The truth is the issue might not be as pronounced outside of the community that dates back to before VectorWorks 9, when everything was in one package.

Look, I too wish that what I needed was in a single box at a lower price, but there is an advantage for NNA to have essentially divided it R&D resources into clear revenue groups, and thusly be able to better priorities the development of technology for those groups.

Alright, the real truth is I closely participated in the decision to create this product/pricing model (I was after all the former Director of Sales) so you really shouldn?t listen to a word I?m saying. ;)

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Rant taken up:

They should just raise the price of Fundamentals a bit and include the few things that definitely are not "Industry" related. It'd be a lot easier to understand what the modules are for if they only included things used by those disciplines, and it would be clearer to a purchaser outside of those practices which one to buy. That feature matrix is a head-ache.

For EG:There's such a hullabaloo about BIM. I've been using BIM in the workplace for many years, but I think of the building as a verb, as in "Here's the next thing you'll be Building. I think you'll find that all the Information you need is included in the shop drawings. I got it from the Model I built." That's why I want 2 way worksheets.

And batch printing PDF's? Obviously architects aren't the only ones that need to email multipage drawings. (so on and so forth with the other obvious ones)

And while I'm at it, I wish all you architects would butt out of the general discussion forum with all your posts about roofs and slabs and so on. You already have your own forum, but you hardly use it!

Well...I guess I just feel a little over-looked is all. As I said before, for me Architect is worth it and reasonable. I just wish it wasn't called Architect! I like the name Fundamentals better.

All in fun, no offence intended, marketing understood,

Charles

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