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Re: So where are we at with BIM in v2009? v2


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The joist take-off worksheet, built on the fly when constructing the skeletal frame, shows me the exact materials list for the entire structure. To get this with ArchiCAD, one must run the model through a separate application, such as VICO's Takeoff Manager or Constructor. And there's no telling what adjustments may need to be made to the model so that the data comes out as expected, since it's two separate software tools. I can easily see an entire day spent adjusting a file when all that is happening the very moment I draw the structure in VW.

Again, this doesn't interest us. We're not interested in how many joists there are, especially when we're designing 10 storey residential buildings. But, if that's the kind of thing you're after, I believe the tool for the job is: http://www.cadimagetools.com/

Yes, but it does interest me, and the point I was making in my previous post is that this functionality is included in the price of VW. ArchiCAD costs twice as much and then to get this functionality I have to spend even more to buy an add-on. That doesn't make fiscal sense.

I'd just again echo Peter's comment. It's working for me at the moment. I'm evaluating other tools as well because I became frustrated with the interface. I'm sticking with VW because it's what I believed in and I still believe it can grow to be a better tool.

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In any case creating our own intelligent objects might give us the parametric configurability we need (if we had a quazillion dollars to spare) but it's not going to give us the speed or the integrated intelligence we want.

I believe this is where you fail to fully understand the power of VW and its advantage over other CAD packages. Except for the inability to have multiple windows with different views, the core technologies are superior to others and you can certainly mimic or create better workflows than other packages through programming. You can add intelligence to these objects and even establish communication between them so that if you modify one, another can adjust accordingly. The problem most of the time is that the user knows what he wants but cannot change the software to work his way and the programmer knows how to change the software but only has the essential knowledge to offer what he thinks the user needs.

VW does not offer a Civil Engineering module but yet, I still use it to design roads and traffic signals. I could have used Microstation since it has the tools to do a decent job but it still would not give me what I need in the end and it also lacks the "intelligence" to do the job faster. In Landmark, the only tool that is essential to my projects is the DTM and everything else has been developed. I even had to program my own "import survey" command because the one included in VW did not meet my requirements.

So where are we at with BIM? This is certainly something that could have been achieved with VW since the inception of hybrid and plug-in objects. The objective of BIM was on my mind when I created Wall Framer where every piece of material had information attached to it. This facilitated not only the reporting of a bill of materials but also potential conflicts with other building elements. To me the basic problem with BIM at the moment is that it lacks a common platform where all the different CAD programs can exchange this information. Every CAD company is trying to pitch BIM the best way that it fits their own software and to influence others to follow their way of doing things. This is the problem with dwg or dxf as a CAD exchange format where you cannot have a transparent conversion because it lacks features found in other CAD programs and viceversa.

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We don't want to spend our time thinking about how to model/draw. We want to spend time designing.

This got a snicker from me.

Although I don't necessarily agree with Jeffrey's recent posts, I can understand his frustrations with your comments. If you could have just gained a fuller understanding on how the other BIM applications work, you'll realize that modeling and drawing are VW's greatest advantages over them. Just because WGR seems too complicated for you, it doesn't mean that it doesn't work. A lot of VW users have successfully used it in their projects.

Each software developer chose a certain development path. UI changes can be challenging if not impossible. BIM is still a moving target and it's comforting that no one company is influencing its direction. Looking at where BIM is in the industry, I like how VW is keeping pace. (I just wish the IFC certification would finally push through.)

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I'm not saying you aren't capable, but there aren't that much workarounds needed than you think.

What sort of buildings do you work on?

Sometimes thinking a little different from time to time solves a lot of problems.

This is part of the problem if you ask me. We don't want to spend our time thinking about how to model/draw. We want to spend time designing.

We work on many types of buildings going from small family homes to big appartement buildings. At the moment I'm drawing a rest home with service flats and I'm drawing it completely hybrid with little workarounds. I'll try to post some screenshots the next days of this.

I think I have a different view on things then you do because I'm a building engineer and a programmer. Being a programmer helps me understand how the software works.

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IFC is the ultimate answer in terms of a potential smooth interoperability and who knows even where Pdfs will take us in the future - one could be esentially BIM and the other transportable presentation

Different software does things in different ways

I have been using VW since version 11 and love it and I think 11 was the version that introduced veiwports and Sheet Layers wasn't it - I may be wrong but that must have been a huge step forward

I get really frustrated with it sometimes and long for big improvements but also appreciate since say version 11 how big the improvements have been

Many using it do different things with it.

I think the new parasolids engine will offer the programmers real abilities through release cycles to improve things greatly and if in say four versions time the changes have been as great as from 11 to 2009 - I will be a happy man

As for Jeffrey he has been a beam of light with what he has done with this board and should be supported and congratulated

I would not have liked to have been in his shoes over the last week - perhaps he over reacted a little but s*#% we are all just human

ArchiCAD SmarchiCAD and I am not saying it is bad software - point is this -

I know of a very large building organistation who with about 10 plus drafties were using it and attempting to document all of their material quantities - they gave up as it was 'too hard' - not because neccesarily the software would not do it - it was just to difficult to get it there

No doubt part of this would have been one or two in the organisation probably were able to but to train and transfer that knowledge to others no doubt the problem

It is not like employing someone to drive a truck

Christian - not having a go at you at all mate - but -

I bet if you transferred over there within a very short period of time you would be on that forum saying - hey how come we can not do this or that - VW can

In a sense we have to be patient get on with our work offer positive input and postive suggestions which Christian's mostly are

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the point I was making in my previous post is that this functionality is included in the price of VW. ArchiCAD costs twice as much and then to get this functionality I have to spend even more to buy an add-on. That doesn't make fiscal sense.

Sure, but ArchiCAD does have this capability so the functionality is not an advantage of general 3D modellers.

Pointing out our lack of interest in this feature was secondary to my main point: that being a general 3D modeller makes it more difficult and slower to model buildings than a building modeller.

Even so to model all the framing in a ten storey building would bring Vectorworks to a screeching halt. ArchiCAD, on the other hand, probably wouldn't even blink.

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Just because WGR seems too complicated for you, it doesn't mean that it doesn't work. A lot of VW users have successfully used it in their projects.

I've never said it doesn't work. Well, actually, I have filed a circular referencing bug that will never be fixed in the version we're using. But I digress. My issue isn't with whether it works. My issue is with how it works.

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I use Archicad and VW parallel daily, don't start over estimating the capabilities of ArchiCAD :), I think the discussions on this topic the last few days have been interesting and reasonable but in my opinion these programs are fairly equal, each with it's pros and cons. It'll take a while longer but all programs that i've been involved with (ie. Bentley Microstation, ArchiCAD, Revit, VW have the last decade in some degree been 'stealing' each others latest pros for every new version. I don't think you should be too critical when it comes to VW, for the price they ask they deliver top of the line cadware.

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As for Jeffrey he has been a beam of light with what he has done with this board and should be supported and congratulated ... I would not have liked to have been in his shoes over the last week - perhaps he over reacted a little but s*#% we are all just human

Agreed.

I bet if you transferred over there within a very short period of time you would be on that forum saying - hey how come we can not do this or that - VW can

Hehe, I have no doubt at all that I would, in fact I almost am already. But, look, let's not pretend VW can model buildings as fluently as ArchiCAD. Jeffery himself has admitted so much.

What I'm trying to understand is am I wrong to assume that it's only a matter of time before VW is as fluent as modelling buildings as ArchiCAD? When I first saw ArchiCAD in action many years ago my first thought was, 'great, this is how VW will eventually work.' But now I'm not sure. Can a general modeller ever model something as fluently as one that specialises? I'm hoping v2010 is going to give me a good idea about the answer to this.

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I believe this is where you fail to fully understand the power of VW and its advantage over other CAD packages.

If there's a reason people fail to understand the power of Vectorworks, it' because of the nature of the documentation.

There's nothing near to comprehensive as Aubin's Mastering... series for ADSK products. The tutorials from both NNA and the leading third parties center around trivial examples and don't poke around under the hood, provide background, and cover the complete package in depth.

Except for the inability to have multiple windows with different views, the core technologies are superior to others

Regardless the accuracy of that claim, the technology is less important than the way it is implimented.

and you can certainly mimic or create better workflows than other packages through programming.

It's possible to create better software of any type through programming...but that's not everyone's skill, and not a productive use of their time. That's why people buy the software in the first place.

This line argument is common within Vectorworks culture. Its validity is demonstrated by the evidence that Vectorworks users tend to purchase Windoor rather than writing a better program.

The problems with the common platform for BIM is that is that it relies on the lowest common denominator for each building object.

I think the real goal is better interoperabliity. Within a BIM, I want to be able to architecturally model doors and storefont in one program, the roof in another, and handle scheduling and data takeoffs in a third.

In my opinion, for practical purposes this capability will be more dependent upon operating system than any one software package.

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If there's a reason people fail to understand the power of Vectorworks, it' because of the nature of the documentation.

There's nothing near to comprehensive as Aubin's Mastering... series for ADSK products. The tutorials from both NNA and the leading third parties center around trivial examples and don't poke around under the hood, provide background, and cover the complete package in depth.

Thank you for that; I couldn't agree more. I think the real frustrations that I have using the interface and achieving results that the documentation wasn't clear about have been successfully addressed by my questions to this forum. Usually all answered by knowledgeable people like Pat Stanford, DWorks, Peter C and (yes, even...) Petri. But almost without exception, those frustrations could have been avoided had the documentation been clearer. I cannot count how many times I've gone to the two tomes that are the hardbound manuals to look up what something is (hoping to find a bit more on how to use this something), and discovered a one sentence description of what the thing is or been directed to other parts of the manual to decipher how to accomplish my goal. That's highly frustrating when one has to take a one-hour tangent from their workflow to figure something out when that something could have been explained better or even suggested better by the interface.

I'd like to see, in tutorials, how tools work?the mechanics of the application?rather than the manner in which I should create a specific object. I'd like to know why I'm instructed on the use of something, in addition to how.

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I'd like to see, in tutorials, how tools work?the mechanics of the application?rather than the manner in which I should create a specific object. I'd like to know why I'm instructed on the use of something, in addition to how.

Charlie, there are many resources available to help with both the how to and the why:

- The Training DVD's and Online Videos are very good for this.

- The Training Manuals and Free Resources are also very useful because they take users through the process of doing a project.

- The earlier version Resolve manuals are very good as well because they are principle based rather than project based.

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Here's the example. Know that this project has just started and is far from finished. Maybe I'll post another file once this is more finished.

Thanks DWorks. My first thought is that this is right-angled building on an open site with a reasonably simple and very repetitive form, and they're also planning design drawings as opposed to construction drawings. Nothing too challenging really.

If you don't mind, though, I'll ask you questions as I think of them.

Have you used the window tool for your windows? How much of your elevations are manually drawn? Do you have any sections? Have you used any parametric tools for your balconies and railing or are they all manually modelled?

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Thanks DWorks. My first thought is that this is right-angled building on an open site with a reasonably simple and very repetitive form, and they're also planning design drawings as opposed to construction drawings. Nothing too challenging really.

There is a lot of repetition in here, I now. But you must begin somewhere. We also do buildings between other and the are not more complicated than this one, even with wierd angles. If I come acros some of these again, I will post them on this forum. I think there is a section for it.

If you don't mind, though, I'll ask you questions as I think of them.

please do.

Have you used the window tool for your windows?

We can't use the window tool. Our distrubutor has made a separate tool that create windows and door the way we make them here in Belgium. So we use a parametric object for those.

How much of your elevations are manually drawn?

All elevations are from the 3D model. So nothing of these are drawn manually.

Do you have any sections?

That's the worse part of VW. I always try to make section from the model, but somehow in every drawing, the section viewport is very slow and full of bugs. (in this one, 10% of the sectioned objects are shown, the others not). So for sections, we use the command 3D section and 2D section for creating a basis where we can draw on.

Have you used any parametric tools for your balconies and railing or are they all manually modelled?

Because of bugs in the railing tool, we draw them manually. It's very easy to do if you know how. They are hybrid symbols. this kind of pio is on my wishlist.

The balconies are being made with the door tool we have. We can set the parameters in a way the sill is being used as balcony. This is an example of thinking different for getting the result we want.

Also know that not every pio will be like you want. But you can make them yourself or let them make. It's not that hard or time consuming, and you will win time and money in the future.

I know that construction drawings are very different and some elements can be construction in 1000 ways. So for drawings other then construction drawings, just use a basis. Than later on, use the basis to draw the details of construction.

At the moment, we are just using BIM for calculation areas, reusing drawings and getting our elevations from the model so when we adapt something in plan, it changes in the elevations. Later on with constructions drawings, adapting the model becomes rare, so it's not a big problem that sections and details are not linked with the model.

In the future, when VW will become good at construction drawings, we will link all things, but now, it just gives to many errors and bugs.

Edited by DWorks
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Okay, but all of this confirms the types of issues I've been mentioning. For some of the issues you admit there aren't even workarounds.

And having your own window tool is a workaround in my book (especially for bog-standard windows like these).

As agreed this is a relatively simple building at planning design stage. We haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the proverbial brick walls one can come up against.

ArchiCAD's fundamental advantage seems to be that it is a first and foremost a building modeller and because of this Graphisoft have to ship it with tools that allow people to model buildings well. Vectorworks on the other hand has many ways of achieving many things so there's not as much pressure on NNA to get the building modelling tools right. They can ship with the knowledge that if something doesn't really work as it should there're other ways (aka "manual") to achieve the output you need. Graphisoft doesn't really have this luxury.

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Of course Mike, I'm not for a minute suggesting otherwise. What I'm trying to understand is where are these two different ways of doing things likely to go in the future?

Will Vectorworks continue to be hampered by the fact that it's a general modeller and continue to include parametric tools that never quite fit the bill? Or will it be an advantage and just a matter of ironing out a few problems? I'm hoping v2010 will help answer this question.

On the other hand will ArchiCAD continue to be hampered by inflexibility or is it in a position to overcome its weaknesses more easily than Vectorworks?

I'm not waiting another year to make my own conclusions about this.

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Of course Mike, I'm not for a minute suggesting otherwise. What I'm trying to understand is where are these two different ways of doing things likely to go in the future?

They'll go where the industry tells them. I would suggest that you look at what your clients' (not your office) BIM requirements are if there are any. Here's a link which you may find interesting:

gsa.gov

In this example, the BIM requirements are pretty basic --- just spatial stuff and the building's structure. From my standpoint, I would ask myself what do I really need from my CAD/BIM software *now*. Do I really need to have an intelligent building model if all I have to deliver to my clients are the basics? Why bother with a railing 'intelligently' modelled when nobody cares?

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This is mostly where I'm looking at it from Ariel. As mentioned above, for example, take offs of materials is not something we want or need to do at this stage.

What we need is to be able to supply error-free documents in a timely manner. Producing one's documents from a 3D model is the best way to do this from my experience.

Why bother with a railing 'intelligently' modelled when nobody cares

Because editing a parametric object which dynamically interacts with the rest of the model is astronomically faster to revise.

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Why bother with a railing 'intelligently' modelled when nobody cares

Because editing a parametric object which dynamically interacts with the rest of the model is astronomically faster to revise.

In theory, probably. In the real world, I don't believe so. I'm using Revit so I have no idea how Archicad works. But keep in mind that unless you use only a fixed set of railing designs in your projects, you also have to take into account the time inputting all those parameters on how your intelligent railing behaves. And believe me, behaving how you expect it to isn't always the case in Revit.

ariel

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I can guarantee you, without a shadow of a doubt, in years to come railings in all these 3D programs will be intelligent and dynamic. Whether you input numerical parameters and/or edit them graphically you certainly won't be modelling them manually. Well you might be but you probably won't be doing it to derive a living.

You've allowed your imagination to be confined to the status quo. Talk about something to snicker about.

Take a stair for instance. It is so fast to edit parametric stairs compared to manually modelled stairs it's hardly worth making the comparison.

As one example of how an intelligent railing tool can work in today's software see this video:

http://www.cadimagetools.com/resources/movieView.aspx?id=138

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