Can VW Designer do 3d walls, doors, windows + section cuts? aka, cheap BIM?

[Roman]

I've always used Vectorworks for 2d drafting but now I'm looking to purchase the program for professional work.

Does Designer allow you to make 3d walls and doors and parasolid shapes that can then be sectioned into 2d drawings? Let's say I'm doing a house with a funky roof shape and I need to generate all the necessary drawings...

Just curious if I need to get the Architect version of this program.

[CipesDesign]

You should ask the sales team to be certain, but I believe that the Designer product contains everything (eg: Architect, Landmark, Machine Design, etc.) whereas the Architect product contains a bit less, but is more geared toward that particular specialty. Someone check me if I'm wrong...

[mike m oz]

Roman, it's also worth look at these Training resources on the NNA website:

- 2009 Overviews: http://www.nemetschek.net/library/index.php?movie=overviews

- Video Case Studies: http://www.nemetschek.net/library/index.php?movie=presentations

- 2009 Feature Demos: http://www.nemetschek.net/library/index.php?movie=2009movies

- Free Resources: http://www.nemetschek.net/training/free_resource.php

While you are in the Video Library also check the Related Links

For advanced 3D modelling have a look at the the 3D Power Pack webpages: http://www.nemetschek.net/3DPowerpack/qtexamples.php

Edited March 26, 2009 by mike m oz

[Pat Stanford]

Peter is exactly correct.

Designer is at the top of the heap and includes all of the functionality of Architect, Landmark, Spotlight and Machine Design. It is the only way to have the functionality of more than one module at a time.

Based on Roman's original question, if you are doing fairly standard architecture, then Architect Should do what you need. If you are doing more sophisticated stuff and need 3D Nuts and Bolts, or truss, or need to do planting plans, then you should consider designer.

Architect (and Designer) both include the Section Viewport tool that will let you easily cut sections and elevations.

[Keith W]

I just bought Designer: it includes Architect plus everything else (that is, Architect DOESN'T include anything that Designer doesn't have). Part of the reason I went for Designer is that Landmark allowed certain site design things that I thought might be frustrating otherwise. But I subsequently have run into several places in the manual that say "if you have Designer, do it this way, otherwise, you have to do it this way", so there are some things that are disabled in Architect: I think it was about external file referencing or something...

Keith

[Roman]

Excuse me, I meant Vectorworks Fundementals. Sorry about the confusion.

[mike m oz]

Roman for professional work you should be using Architect. Fundamentals does have architectural capabilities but the additional architectural specific capabilities in Architect will make you far more productive.

[ccroft]

Not to mention the many other non-Architectural productivity features that are missing from Fundamentals. They are the primary reasons that I went to Architect:

Batch Print and PDF export, rotate plan, two-way worksheets, nav palette, some appliance symbol libraries and others that I can't remember right now.

I don't use any 'architectural' tools at all, and Architect is still worth the upgrade.

(stifling my usual rant on this subject.)