A Stair Tool

[Jim Smith]

I would like a stair tool.

Here's how to do it:

-Trash anything that is even connected to the present STAIR THING FROM OUTER SPACE.

- Go to the library.

- Photocopy the section from Graphic Standards on stairs.

- Hire a kid out of computer school - give her those photocopies

- Give her a one year contract to make a stair tool.

- Provide it as a free fix together with a coupon for a free coffee @ starbucks for all of us who have had to work-around this piece of junk for years.

VW13's so-called stair tool is as buggy and clunky as it was is VW8.

[billtheia]

Well said.

[grant_PD]

yes please

[Christiaan]

Too diplomatic if you ask me. You can throw the Window PIO in too.

But there's a better long term solution if you ask me. I think partly the reason the stair and window tools don't work as most of us want them to is that they've been created firstly with the U.S. market in mind. If not this then they've been created by people with experience primarily in the U.S. market.

NNA should spin off part of the company to be a U.S. distributor which can localise VW for the U.S. market, while the rest of them get on with building a neutral CAD package aimed at the global market.

[brudgers]

The stair tool is no more suited to the US market than anywhere else...in my opinion.

[Christiaan]

It's great for McMansions.

[brudgers]

My sensibility is too proliterian for the nouveau riche.

I wouldn't know much about MacMansions.

[billtheia]

Christian, if the stair tool is so US-centric, why does the down arrow point up when viewed from the upper level? This is NOT a US convention.

Perhaps one of the often-maligned mcmansion designers could chime in here but I don't think the stair tool works very well for ANY project.

I agree that the window (and door) tool(s) might be thrown into this mix too. I actually think that most of the "productivity" tools could use a serious revamp and are in desperate need of cross-tool coordination.

Jim Smith, I agree that the tool needs to be fixed but I think that your suggested fix might be how we wound up with the tool that we have. I'm afraid that hiring "a kid out of computer school" is the root of our problem. An actual architect needs to be involved in the development of these tools. Unless the person developing these tools has actually designed and documented buildings, they are not going to be able to create a tool that works well for designing and documenting buildings.

[billtheia]

Come to think of it, a team of architects from different countries need to be consulted, not just one architect.

[bc]

Hey Christiaan, I gotta agree with billtheia and brudgers here.

As US oriented as VW might be, the stair tool still sucks and I have never designed a McMansion and have never really been able to use it for anything other than a guide to help model my own stairs manually. Most users, I presume, would find this an equal pain in the ass and desire a stair tool that works universally.

The tool even fails in simple plan view where such things as the stair break graphic conventions are not supported.

Just a curiosity here. Why would you think this stair tool would work for McMansions? I didn't notice any tongue-in-cheek emoticons nor could I imagine your office being familiar with them.

Edited June 6, 2008 by bc

[Christiaan]

I'm thinking more along the lines of how it's built to handle just two storeys (which is a relatively recent feature). I'll admit the arrow is not U.S. centric but that's presumably a throw over from previous times. As I said maybe it's not that it's U.S. centric but that it's being designed by those with experience primarily in the U.S. housing market... or at least a limited housing market of some kind.

Come to think of it, a team of architects from different countries need to be consulted, not just one architect.

This is what I mean... who have NNA consulted so far about the stair tool? Anyone? Anyone outside the U.S. housing market? Do they have anyone working on it with experience beyond some limited 2-storey housing market?

But why would they feel the need to consult architects from different countries? VectorWorks is made in and firstly for the U.S. market. It's up to distributors to localise VW for their local markets is it not? Which brings me back to my point about splitting NNA up, with a separate U.S. distributor.

At the moment non-U.S. customers subsidise U.S. customers and get an inferior product for their troubles. If NNA were restructured to have a separate U.S. distributor then they wouldn't default to developing for the U.S. market and could concentrate on some form of neutrality and extendibility.

[Chris D]

And the DOOR TOOL too!!

Three REALLY annoying things about the door tool (which just demonstrate a lack of knowledge of how doors are designed and scheduled in the UK):

1. Structural Opening size (can I hear a 'yay' from my countrymen?).

Doors in the UK are sized, designed, scheduled and ordered by Structural Opening Size, NOT by the leaf (panel) size. Frame thickness and panel size can vary between manufacturers. The primary 'door size' element of the Door object MUST refer to the SO size and NOT the panel size. [oh quick lesson - SO is the frame size plus packing/tolerance zone]

2. Project Door Types

Doors are almost always scheduled into 'Types', ie. if I have a typical 910-SO door, with no vision panel, 30 mins fire rating, with hardware package 'A', then that will become a project Door Type. I need to be able to set up door types, use them, manage them and schedule them as TYPES, not as individual doors. My last job had 1500 doors, with 15 or so TYPES. Naturally I didn't use the so-called Door Tool.

3. Scheduling

The trouble with scheduling is that it's fine on McMansions, but not on apartment blocks. If you have Apartment Types whose floor plans are symbolised for management, then you simply can't schedule the doors within the apartments in any sensible way. I need to be able to have the door number know which apartment it is in - and therefore need to schedule by hand. The scheduler is a gimmick at the moment, and one that is unwieldy, inflexible and difficult to use.

/end of semi-off-topic rant

[Christiaan]

As always Chris, a valuable contribution.

[islandmon]

As intelligently noted above ...

door installations are a very complex subassembly requiring design considerations as well as Code compliance. Ditto for Windows & Stairs ... these components are dynamically linked to various critical safety factors. What is required is a linked nodal structure which connects the parameters to the zone-area-usage-spec-code-detail-accessories-naming, etc.

Then dynamically creates a detailed hybrid-isometric schedule of all the assemblies. For the last 2 decades I've used VW with various dedicated Filemaker Pro database modules to accomplish this critical task.

The scheduler is a gimmick

[Chris D]

What is required is a linked nodal structure which connects the parameters to the zone-area-usage-spec-code-detail-accessories-naming, etc.

I think I understand you..

[Chris D]

I'm gonna re-post my door rant in a new topic that can be searched and tracked better.

[gScott]

islandmon,

dat some

good

you smoking

?

[brudgers]

I'm thinking more along the lines of how it's built to handle just two storeys (

I suspect this has little to do with any particular market and more to do with the data architecture upon which Vectorworks is built.

Stairs are the only instance of ab object assigned to more than one layer...at least as far as my admittedly limited experience has shown.

This suspect this required heroic kludging by the programming staff...hence the nature of the current beast.

A stair tower object would be a much more ferocious monster...AKA you think you got problems now.

Of course a compound document interface which allowed one to incorporate stair towers created in other BIM software would perhaps be a universal solution...but that's a thread of a different color.

MacMansions are a problem, but hardly the root of all evil.

Edited June 6, 2008 by brudgers

[Christiaan]

NNA should spin off part of the company to be a U.S. distributor which can localise VW for the U.S. market, while the rest of them get on with building a neutral CAD package aimed at the global market.

In light of the June 2008 e-dispatch from NNA, and Sean Flaherty's comments, I'd like to replace the above word "neutral" with "flexible".