BIM ? what is it really? - conference in London, UK - 26 June

[J Lucas]

Christiaan, Jeffry, et al.,

I have been following this thread with interest. I appreciate what I have learned from all of you. I, however, do not see why anyone should question another's motive for positing insights, opinions, and questions.

Christiaan, and Jeffry,

I am curious what you see as the main differences in how building modeling is accomplished in Archicad and Rivit vs VectorWorks. ("Virtual" modeling vs VW modeling?)

Thanks,

[Christiaan]

J, my experience of ArchiCAD is limited but basically I managed to learn it and model a 3 storey 10 unit block of flats over a weekend. Minus the learning time I judged it to be about 3x quicker than modelling in VW. I didn't hit any proverbial brick walls but I'm sure they exist (there's also a free addon for modeling the types of windows we generally specify (Velfac) so this was a huge advantage. VW could model these windows but it would take a silly amount of time to model them manually and worse so to edit them later.)

The main differences from my point of view are that ArchiCAD at its core is a building modeler while VW at its core is a general modeler.

In practice I've found this to mean that ArchiCAD understands what a building is and it understands what architect's documents are so it is very quick at modelling the above type of building using the tools provided. 3D tools do what they say on the tin but you're basically limited to those tools. (as a Mac user I found the GUI a bit irritating, seems to be a Windows interface shoe-horned into the Mac, although logically a lot similarities to VW).

Vectorworks on the other hand can model anything you like. 3D tools generally don't do what they say on the tin and large models get bogged down. (The VWA GUI is more polished, but could be better oriented towards architects).

Edited June 9, 2009 by Christiaan

[Stan Rostas]

4 Weeks start to finish, 3 VW users, 6 different files and models, referenced together for comparative studies while designing.

Using non free form modeling tools, namely walls, windows, etc.

Edited June 17, 2009 by 1D2D3D_4D

[VincentCuclair]

Maybe, maybe not, but I'm not hugely interested in what VW can do better than ArchiCAD and Revit. That's not going to lead to any discussion on how VW could be improved.

It helps with understanding, which is great, but my main objective is to see VW improved.

Christiaan, you keep dragging in comparisons to other apps in this forum yourself and then keep backing out of the discussion with statements like this, wouldn't it be more constructive to just add some more specific solutions/requests on the wish list, instead of forcing everyone into the same discussions time and again.

If you really want the best for VWA send the wishes, if you want the discussion to be about the direction VW should take in the future with regard to features, workflows and BIM etc. by using other apps as examples of what is possible, then you're going to have to stop being so surprised about and accept the aggressive reactions as part of the discussion. This whole thread is a good example of this.......!

I don't understand why...a lot of what you point out is valid but that seldomly seems to lead to any concrete viable solutions that can be implemented in VW?!

Edited June 17, 2009 by Vincent C

[Jeffrey W Ouellette]

4 Weeks start to finish, 3 VW users, 6 different files and models, referenced together for comparative studies while designing.

Using non free form modeling tools, namely walls, windows, etc.

As the Brits would say, "Bloody Hell!!".

That's very nice stuff. You make me so proud......

[VincentCuclair]

4 Weeks start to finish, 3 VW users, 6 different files and models, referenced together for comparative studies while designing.

Using non free form modeling tools, namely walls, windows, etc.

That's great stuff! Can you explain a little about the rendering mode, props, etc. Are the renders straight from RW? How long to render each?

[Stan Rostas]

Rendering Mode: Final Quality Renderworks for the Background render with a very fine and minimal and thin Artistic Render in the foreground.

Played around with HDR we created from the site but never quite got the light quality correct due to the time of the year.

Image Props are from what we have created and accumulated overtime for the people and certain other site elements. Many of the textures were from what comes with Vectorworks and those we created on our own.

As mentioned 6 Files which was done to allow myself and 2 other designers work simultaneously.

One file had the Site DTM along with the Site elements which was also the where the Renderings were created from. We used all the LandMark tools available but mostly what you see are Hardscapes.The 5 Building Files were all Design Layer Viewported into the Site DTM file each on its own layer so we could turn off those not in the scene of the Viewport to speed up rendering.

The other files all had the buildings in them with the Site Design Layer Viewported into them for reference along with the Adjacent buildings but not all the buildings with each DLVP on its own Layer.

Each Building File had its own set of layers for the Floors.

Render Times...hmmm

The Overall took the longest at around 4 hours on an 8 core intel mac with 12gb Ram.

The other street shots took around 1 hour on the same machine.

While Vectorworks is not perfect by any means as a BIM tool or as a Modeler we find it is up to the passion and skill of the user to create anything of any value in any application one chooses to use. We post this example as to what is possible.

We have turned these type of projects into documents for tender using Section Viewport, Viewports etc. with teams of 12 or more.

[VincentCuclair]

Thanks Mogul Pot

This gives me a couple of good ideas. Can't match your computer specs though.....i was wondering how you could render all those windows let alone the whole building without a crash

[HOUCAD]

render1final small.jpg

That dog is just sitting down enjoying the shade right?... Right?

[Stan Rostas]

Vincent

No crashes during rendering,but the Mac intel can address up to 4gb Ram and Renderworks uses all 8 processors.

The key though is to make sure the buildings that are DLVP referenced in are on separate layers so they can be off when not needed in the scene. The same goes for many of the landscape objects, use classes or place them on layers that can be turned off when not in th scene.

With Renderworks the final size and resolution have to be adjusted correctly for the level of detail desired in the final image.

These were all done in Viewports.

Houcad, with regards to the dog, yes, sitting in the shade, but like anything each of us can see what we want to see.

[Christiaan]

Well, the conference turned out to be a huge disappointment. Richard Saxon, who was going to give the keynote and who I was counting to provide my Director with the low-down wasn't able to make it.

The rest was all a little mind-numbing to be honest.

If anything it at least gave my Director a sense of what's going on in the industry, so all was not lost. But I should have taken him to the free seminar a week earlier which was apparently so popular they're doing another one next week. Problem now is I've scared my Director off from such events!