Jump to content

Vectorworks 2010


Recommended Posts

it seems your 'company' is waiting for the perfect single 3D modelling BIM solution to adapt to
No, you're quite wrong. No idea why you think that.
All the evaluating (I even happened to read a post in an ArchiCAD forum by you), and you haven't bought 2009 (yet).

NNA bills VW as the designer's BIM app (a concept I love and buy into a great deal) but compared to something like ArchiCAD it's more like a computer programmer's BIM app.

So far BIM has been explained very many times however there doesn't seem to be a single unanimous definition, I don't think there is one, being so a BIM app could be a large variety of things, ArchiCAD etc. is one in its own right and VW is one in its own right!

To be a designer's BIM app it needs to get out of the way so the designer can get on with designing.
Designing is done in very many different stages of which CAD is the last, through experience I find designing in a drawing app to curb the process greatly.

Designers are interested in the result, not the process by how they get there. Only geeks are interested in this.

I can get the same results on the drawing board, CAD apps are the process to get there??!!!

Link to comment
  • Replies 121
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I agree with the notion that to lead, one doesn't follow. NNA needs to leverage their strengths, not try and wrestle a 2000 kilo gorilla.

What it seems is no longer clear is what are their strengths ?

The parasolid integration is definitely a strength. The non-autoCAD approach to 2d pioneered in Blueprint is a strength.

Platform interoperability is a strength. Price and maintenence is strength as long as its perceieved as equally supported in the community.

Vectorworks started screwing up when they hired an 'industry expert' to tell the community that BIM wasn't going to go anywhere. Now the AIA doesn't even talk about Vectorworks as a BIM application. Firm's IT decsision makers still consider it a toy, and some of that is true, when you compare it to the resources AutoDesk brings to the business side of supporting a firm.

I agree with Christiaan. Get the tools out of the way. Designers need to move past tools and have interfaces 'that just work'.

The DWG integration has been a wonderful way of 'playing well with others' in a project flow. No creative group is going to use all of the same tools, the same way. The successful communities around software will only thrive if they can work together and exchange things.

If I were NNA, I'd stop paying salaries to those who try and limit the application in market or dont bring alliances to the table. Perhaps Vectorworks isn't a true BIM, becasue it simply can perform in large project and workgroup situations. Maybe that the dirty little secret, ey ? Maybe Nemetschek is just not the sugar daddy that NNA needs.

WE have projects that Vectorworks can barely handle coming out of 3DSMax and formZ. Without a robust modeling environment that is rock-solid and interoperable, no firm can take advantage of better BIM processes.

Lastly, if you dont have a dealer network that can advocate and sell above and beyond a Call Center, NNA will be forever trapped in a direct, limited sales channel.

Business and Innovation dont happen without incentive.

Edited by andrewbirch
Link to comment

oh and one more thing, while I'm typing away.

Vectorworks.

Really ?

I wonder if Adobe every considered changing Photshop to Rasterworks....

MiniCAD had it half right. 'Mini' certainly was not the right market focus, but I would have more confidence in a SolidCAD anyday, that a Vectorworks.

Vectorworks ?

Yes ! Lets manage our design and build process with Vectors that work !

OK sorry. I've always wanted to say that.

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Been away and this thread has been cutting the mark!

Normally its just me that is highly critical of VW and gets banned from the site for saying too much...so I had better watch what I say. But if NNA do not listern to their customers then before long it will have no customers, especially here in the UK. We have upgraded every year for the past 4 to 5 years except in 2009 - why? Because the 2009 upgrade was not good enough and at the moment 2010 does not seem to offer any new attractions or corrections to fundamental shortcomings with the programme.

Link to comment
What I know I can not say in a public forum - its a secret!

That is up to NNA and this thread is begging a response from NNA to calm our worries and excite our anticipation for 2010.

NNA had better get that act together and do something very attractive, new and advanced to beat off the competition such as Revit which seems to be taking over in the UK.

...could it be the guys and girls at NNA are in an identity crisis now that they have entered the Big Leagues?!

Everyone wants to know where VW is headed, and most have stated where they would like it to go (including me), however we don't seem to get any answers from 'up top'?? It would be nice to get some feed back, even if it is just a statement of indecision to know where we/they stand.

Edited by Vincent C
Link to comment
  • 3 weeks later...

I am now wondering about version 2010 and the multithreading that may or may not be there with the introduction of Mac OS 10.6. If the Os is going to handle the threading calls by the applications, does this mean greater performance with large model data sets and modeling operations ? interesting.

Link to comment
I am now wondering about version 2010 and the multithreading that may or may not be there with the introduction of Mac OS 10.6. If the Os is going to handle the threading calls by the applications, does this mean greater performance with large model data sets and modeling operations ? interesting.
I don't see anything special with 10.6 that is suddenly going to make VW multi-threaded. Any serious application is going to need to be designed to take advantage of multi threading, rather than have some OS bolt magically enable it. Writing multi threaded apps is non trivial and if it was easy or economically viable, it would already have been done IMHO. There may be some speed benefits with having parts of the OS being multi threaded, but these will be insignificant compared with designing an application and its algorithms to be multi threaded in the first place. That said, I believe bits of the Parasolid kernel may be multi threaded and 2010 may make better use of this.
Link to comment

we are discussing multi-threading as sitting on the OS side and / or the Application side. And further the issue is complicated by how modeling kernels are supporting this, such as the Parasolid tools.

with all respect, Its not the same as multi-processors.

Should I bring up that Lightworks is no where near supporting 64 bit on the Mac....

Link to comment

Interesting that Archicad has no hangups about calling their new version 13! Oh, I forgot - 2009 was taken.

I am so looking forward to version 2010 - there's sure to be at least a restyled desktop layout, there will be new tools to learn and old ones to find, and undoubtedly there'll be a groovy new logo to round it all off. We really don't know how lucky we are.

Link to comment
Most of my work is done in 3D ... Although software like 'Solidworks' is very good at what it does I find VW is able to model some very organic shapes that I can't do in other 'mechanical type' programs.

GWS, I'd like to see what kind of work does VW better than other Mech software.

For what I know of VW, 3d is still boggling and can't compare to Solidworks, Rhino etc.

Maybe I oversaw some parts of VW for mechanical design?

Regards,

Paolo

Link to comment

Manipulating 3D scans of a human figure to take mounting points and harness attachments is one such instance and then forwarding on to a 5-axis mill to replicate in real life for silcone moulding.

Both Inventor and Solidworks struggled with this. As they did with converting the to STL files for 3D printing.

Link to comment

GWS,

quite interesting stuff, I know Solidworks etc, are not very well suited to manage complex curved surfaces.

I design furniture and use Rhino (Mac+Parallels+Windows sigh!) since I don't know how to do 3d stuff in VW.

I tried some time ago to do furniture design in VW but found 3d management very unfriendly, talking about single view window, poor snapping in 3d, unintuitive perspective view management, poor rendering.

Rhino with Vray make spectacular results... both for the engineering and rendering. Have you ever tried?

Link to comment

Not tried either myself but I've seen Rhino being used by a colleague and was impressed. I had heard somewhere that Rhino might be developed for the Mac but that was sometime ago.

I agree there are certain things that I find in other programs that deal with 3D better but VW gives me the ability to cover a wide range of problems including the more organic. I use machine design and work in the Film industry where the projects I come across can be obscure to say the least so I need a program that may not be the best at doing one type of design but gives me more creativity.

There are some great 3D tools in VW and once you get the hang of them the modelling can be quite diverse. i.e. the lofting tool is one.

Having said that, and I know it's been mentioned before, 3D contraints, collision of moving parts, 3D dimensions and assembly style contructions similar to SW or Inventor would go along way to improving the Machine Design module of VW. I sometimes feel, and maybe I'm wrong on this, that VW Architect gets the lions share of the attention. Then again for the price of this software compared to the other two I mentioned I don't really feel I can grumble.

Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...