Jump to content

VW2009 - 2D Improvements & UCS


Recommended Posts

From NNA's documentation, all the 'improvements' to VW2009 seem to be centered around a new 3D engine. And wood screws...

As a large architectural office which uses VW2008 for 2D drafting but has no intention of moving to BIM with 2009 (possibly the majority of users?), does anybody know whether the Parasolid engine will bring improvements or changes to the 2D data? Or is it a separate system altogether?

We would like to see a solid Autocad UCS-like plan rotation feature, rather than the current situation where the plan rotation 'function' merely rotates all of the data in the file by resetting the origin and orientation; causing numerous problems when referencing. Am aware that this would involve a re-write of the legacy Minicad file structure, but was hoping that this would have been sorted out by now after 10 years.

Otherwise, we see little reason to upgrade to VW2009 in order to get a 3D modelling engine which we will never use.

Link to comment

All improvements are not 3D. I work in 2D 98% of the time and I find lots of improvements in 2D work.

Snap Loupe, gray others while editing groups and symbols, pre-selection highlighting, no new document on launch, new libraries, Hitting the enter key after an OIP edit returns the focus to the drawing, auto fit drawing label, similar object creation, drag and drop import, PDF snapping, zoom in worksheets. For me these all add up to increased productivity.

Any time I have to return to VW 2008 I wonder how I got along without the new features.

Link to comment

I was at a VW conference on Monday, where they gave us a 2 hour presentation of VW2009. The presenter seemed to indicate that a bunch of the 2d add surface/ subtract surface type operations all benefit directly from Parasolids, as well as any curved objects and their subsequent manipulation. I have to admit, I am personally more inclined to upgrade every 2 years, not one. If I had just purchased VW2008, I would probably feel very hesitant; especially since I know VW2010 is already "in the works". (Now since my office is on VW12.5, we are definitely going to upgrade to 2009.)

Link to comment

Going to a VW Presentation in London on the 24th so will be sure to ask lots of questions re: changes to the 2D drawing engine and whether VW2009 is true UCS or whether that is coming in VW2010.

The other thing we would love to see is the ability to reference from a Design Layer in one file directly onto a Sheet Layer in another file.

Having looked through the list again, I have to admit that Batch DWG exporting of separate layers looks very useful.

Link to comment

As others have pointed out there are substantial 2D improvements in VW 2009 as well, notwithstanding that most of the attention is on Parasolids.

I particularly like the new 2D snapping and smart cursor cues because they are much more intuitive and a delight to use. The new interactive settings are also very useful (at first glance the array of interactive settings can seem a bit daunting, but once you actually start adjusting them it comes together fairly quickly). Dragging and dropping of resources into files is brilliant, and being able to snap to the vector information in PDF files is very handy.

Link to comment
From NNA's documentation, all the 'improvements' to VW2009 seem to be centered around a new 3D engine. And wood screws...

As a large architectural office which uses VW2008 for 2D drafting but has no intention of moving to BIM with 2009 (possibly the majority of users?), does anybody know whether the Parasolid engine will bring improvements or changes to the 2D data? Or is it a separate system altogether?

We would like to see a solid Autocad UCS-like plan rotation feature, rather than the current situation where the plan rotation 'function' merely rotates all of the data in the file by resetting the origin and orientation; causing numerous problems when referencing. Am aware that this would involve a re-write of the legacy Minicad file structure, but was hoping that this would have been sorted out by now after 10 years.

Otherwise, we see little reason to upgrade to VW2009 in order to get a 3D modelling engine which we will never use.

We also see correcting problems with the rotated plans as top priority. We're particularly interested in getting the correct coordinates for a given point when the view is rotated.

Link to comment
The snapping in Vw 2009 is another history. Is precise and intellingent, it's a neat update to a feature that had several years without one. Once you use it, you don't want to return to Vw 2008.

Could you elaborate on any issues/bugs (if any) please? I upgrade every year, but wait a few weeks for bug reports/fixes.

So far every VW new release features has been well worth the yearly upgrade price for me. There is no other CAD system out there that gives so much for a very reasonable upgrade cost, I like to support them and myself :)

Link to comment
Going to a VW Presentation in London on the 24th so will be sure to ask lots of questions re: changes to the 2D drawing engine and whether VW2009 is true UCS or whether that is coming in VW2010.

The other thing we would love to see is the ability to reference from a Design Layer in one file directly onto a Sheet Layer in another file.

Further to the VW2009 UK 'launch', neither of the above are part of 2009. The 2D surface adding/subtracting does look a lot less buggy. So basically, 2009 is 2008 with a major bug fix...big deal. So we're going to stick with 2008 which by NNA's admission doesn't work properly until 2010 or 2011 when they've had time to make the most out of the Parasolid engine.

Some issues:

? coordinate system still changes origin/orientation of data when rotating page.

? still no RAL colours...I think they got the message this time.

? no SLVP from one file to another (still a 2-step process Live Data > DLVP in another file > SLVP in that file...but apparently they have fixed the issue with the 'flattening' of layers/classes so that layers and classes in a reference come through to the SLVP in another file.

? the new Snap Loupe and Batch DWG functions look useful but not enough to warrant the upgrade.

I'd feel bad paying for Parasolid just to fix things in VW that should already work. Doesn't feel right.

Link to comment

Nick, whilst all the focus has been on Parasolids and how it improves the 3D that is not the end of the storey. Far from it in fact because there are many small improvements which provide benefit to a 2D workflow and will make you more productive. The cost of upgrading is quite modest on a working day basis and is about the cost of a cup of coffee. That cost would be more than recouped with the improved productivity that VW 2009 would provide.

Link to comment

Mike,

Sorry, I don't agree with you.

I can see the benefits of improved 2D snapping and the loupe (why not, yes please), but whilst this might make physical drawing faster, I am talking about the time spent setting up separate referenced drawings and working in an office workgroup environment where three/four users need access to a range of drawings simultaneously. The biggest timesaver for us would be not to have to re-set up our section/elevation/plan references everytime VW flakes out due to a rotated plan issue (even with SP3). This infinitely outweighs any increase in productivity due to being able to snap quicker, or being able to add complex shapes to one another properly.

Link to comment
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Nicoloco,

As far as we know we have resolved all the user origin shift in plan rotation related bug. So if you have some cases that still do not work - can you submit a bug to bugsubmit@nemetschek.net? This will help us immensely.

Link to comment

VW 12.5.2

VW 2008 - SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4 Awaiting....SP10 - None, left with the bugs - Replaced by VW 2009 at a heck of an Upgrade Price.

The upgrade to 2009 is quite modest. I heard from an unhappy VW user who upgraded to 2008 about 6 months ago then found that he was going to have to upgrade again to 2009 if he wanted to stay current - the hint of yearly updates rather than bi-yearly updates came a year ago with the name change to 2008.

I did some prices for him and the cost of his double upgrade from 12 - 2008 - 2009 worked out very reasonable compared to the upgrade from 12 - 2009 - still quite a reasonable percentage (40%) of the full unit price even on a 3 year old product.

Compare this with Adobe CS4. I bought Adobe CS3.3 Design Premium on 28th July, the day it was released. Less than 2 months later, 24th September, CS4 is launched and the upgrade cost is 42%.

That is a heck of an upgrade price.

Link to comment

clb, rather than venting why not tell us all, in detail, what it is you cannot do in 2008 so we may be able to offer some feedback. I don't know what the cost of VW is in South Africa but in most sectors VectorWorks is the lowest cost AEC solution that offers a wide range of 2D/3D/data intergration, Mac and PC, and a robust modelling kernel.

I deal with a lot of VW users, large and small, and most are perfectly happy with the product, especially those that have moved from systems like Autocad or Microstation.

I don't know what your job is but for AEC design it ranks with the best. For MCAD functionality, to be frank, I wouldn't use it as my main 3D workhorse (and I don't, I use SolidWorks), but it still offers excellent tools for certain types of jobs (like plant layouts, schematics etc). With 2009, VW will, I think, take on a more useful role for the engineering sector given that it now imports and exports Parasolid flawlessly (from my tests to.from Solidworks).

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...