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Corporate propaganda re IFC


Kool Aid

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This is what they tell:

Vectorworks Architect Software Now Compliant with GSA BIM Guide Series 02

But what does this mean?

Compliance with the GSA BIM Guide for Spatial Program Validation

Nothing, I'd say. Without full IAI IFC-certification (& without alchemy), VW is at best a wannabe and the corporate propaganda by Robert Anderson and his little helpers is laughable.

Whatever some GSA does, is of no relevance in the real world. Especially in NNA's Real World, in which the U.S. users are a tiny minority and seem to be only be doing McMansions.

http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=134865#Post134865

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Well Petri,

I invite you to put your project(s) where your verbal pain is.

Vectorworks has IFC2x3 Step 1 certification.

In order to get Step 2, we must submit, to the buildingSMART Implementers Support Group (ISG), two (2) Vectorworks user project models, for real new/current/proposed projects, in both native .VWX and IFC format, using the current version of the application, describing the processes used and naming the other applications used to exchange the building information via IFC.

In other words, if you want Step 2, then you, as a user, are required to participate and prove to the ISG that VW and its users, anywhere in the world, are able to create valid IFC models and that those models can be used by other IFC-enabled applications.

We can't do it without user participation, it the rule. We are more than willing to help users, from any market, with direct training and technical support to correct application bugs to enable the process in the current version of the software (VW2010).

To date, we have not yet received ANY user project models using IFC to communicate with other project team applications in the design and execution of a project. We have had a couple projects start with the best intentions, but they were then sidelined by the economy downturn. There is one currently in progress, but until it is complete, presumably successful, acceptable to the ISG, and joined by another project, we will all have to wait for Step 2 certification.

I am more than happy to have a couple Finnish users offer complete project models for our application to Step 2, since your market seems to be the most demanding of IFC functionality. But, to date, there has never been an offer by you, or others, to work with us for this goal.

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Jeffrey,

Thanks for the clear reply.

I gather that NNA has not asked the local distributor to help in this. I'm sure they would have told me? You will need to talk with Ultirender.

However, a Finnish project cannot be modeled with the tools provided by NNA, so someone would have to remodel a project with them as a mock-up. You will appreciate that no VW user here uses IFC, because VW is not certified. Instead, they use Revit or ArchiCAD in jobs where IFC is required.

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Indeed? Quousque tandem abutere, NNA, patientia nostra?

Mr. Anderson proclaimed in late 2006 (over 3 years ago) that one can generate perfectly good IFC data with VW there and then and that one can also write IFC-compatible VectorScript add-ons if one just knows the nitty-gritty.

Both statements were totally untrue.

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Petri,

I have had more than a couple discussion with Ultirender, and all our other distributors, about this and other IFC topics. If you have heard nothing from them, then I suggest you contact them, proactively.

Regardless of your feelings of what Mr. Anderson said in the past (I don't wish to dwell there, but look positively ahead), IFC development never stopped and has continued to improve to the point we are able to produce better IFC files than ever before (including the GSA requirements which are no small tasks). Other IFC efforts on other fronts have helped us increase the quality of our IFC significantly for Vw2010. More current IFC workshops will push the app for 2011 and beyond.

As a developer, you have the tools available to you now, for Vw2010, via the SDK and VS, to create custom objects with IFC export functionality.

As a user, you have the tools ("IFC Data..." menu command) to add IFC identity and data to ANY object or custom geometry, even overriding PIOs already preconfigured with IFC data (e.g. turn a Floor object into a ceiling by applying IfcCovering>Ceiling).

I agree with Vincent, a viscious circle - need an IFC file, no one uses the app to create an IFC, so there is no IFC file to certify so users can use the certified app to create IFC files....

How are you (Petri, et al) going to help us break the circle?

In the meantime, users outside of Finland have stepped up and are working to create IFC models to engage their consultants on other platforms. But more user efforts (project models for submittal) and feedback (like bug reporting) are needed.

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Ohh, I've had countless discussions with Ultirender re IFC and NNA's actions in relation to it.

I've also reported various bugs in the beta-testing of VW 2010, but with no feedback of any kind. For my efforts I have received absolutely nothing ? not even a free licence.

Being a consultant, I have always been available to help you, but I don't work for free. So far I have only been asked to provide free help, especially by Mr. Anderson, who even wanted one of my users to tell him what my Space tool does.

Breaking the vicious circle starts by a commission?

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In the meantime, users outside of Finland have stepped up and are working to create IFC models to engage their consultants on other platforms.

I see? Things are moving fast? Only a few hours ago

To date, we have not yet received ANY user project models using IFC to communicate with other project team applications in the design and execution of a project.

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Petri,

I meant what I said and these points don't contradict. There are users working on this, but nothing has been finished or made available for submission, yet. Issues have been located and addressed. But more needs to be done and more users need to get involved. We need to play the odds to improve our chances of getting this done by expanding the number of opportunities for project models (of any size, type, or market).

You could say there is a horse race, but the race means nothing until a horse (preferably two) actually crosses the finish (or Finnish) line.

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Ohh, I've had countless discussions with Ultirender re IFC and NNA's actions in relation to it.

I've also reported various bugs in the beta-testing of VW 2010, but with no feedback of any kind. For my efforts I have received absolutely nothing ? not even a free licence.

Being a consultant, I have always been available to help you, but I don't work for free. So far I have only been asked to provide free help, especially by Mr. Anderson, who even wanted one of my users to tell him what my Space tool does.

Breaking the vicious circle starts by a commission?

Petri,

At this point, I want to get to the bottom of this because your efforts are valuable, but the feedback through official channels (the Community Board is NOT included) has been non-existent.

How are you reporting the bugs? Are you giving them to Ultirender? Are you emailing them to other NNA staff? Or are you submitting directly through the Bug Submit page on the main website?

I have not seen any IFC bugs attributed to you, or Ultirender, in our BugTrack system since July 2008 (B068038:IFC GUIDs are not persistent, storeys are added on import). Without these BugTrack entries, our engineering staff cannot locate and fix issues.

If there is a communication problem, I want to locate it and fix it so your efforts and needs are properly addressed and met. This benefits all of us.

Please contact me in a PM to further discuss and resolve this issue.

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- need an IFC file, no one uses the app to create an IFC, so there is no IFC file to certify so users can use the certified app to create IFC files....

How are you (Petri, et al) going to help us break the circle?

In the meantime, users outside of Finland have stepped up and are working to create IFC models to engage their consultants on other platforms. But more user efforts (project models for submittal) and feedback (like bug reporting) are needed.

Unfortunately the building industry (in Sweden at least and I'm sure in a large part of the world, I was educated in Holland and at least there and in Germany for that matter, the architect has a much higher status) is an ancient dinosaur in which HUGE amounts of money can be made and therefore many parties (especially the ones earning the money - the client) involved are not to keen to see change........added to the fact that VW is constantly compared (and therefore forced to compete) with other more expensive CAD-programs with much? larger budgets. What I'm getting at is that we users often have very little to say about what app is to be used when push comes to shove. I understand you're frustation Jeffrey, thing is VW can't compete on equal terms however the demands are the same, and I understand Petris frustrations, he sees the potentials of VW (as do many of us others) he however even seems to have the solutions required to most things?? :) but not the means to implement them.

Accept it, we just have to tag along a year or 2 behind the big guys, but with the knowledge that we have a superior (imho) program (and superior minds both internally and externally) and that this pays off in the long run. :) Don't worry be happy!

Edited by Vincent C
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Me too - ridiculous

posted in another thread

http://www.nemetschek.com/en/no_cache/home/investor_relations/announcements/news_detail/article//mitteilung-nemetschek-legt-jahresabschluss-vor-und-wappnet-sich-fuer-die-krise.html

And later in that thread commented

The 150.4 million euros I think is for the whole group

So how many software appliactions is that?

What percentage of that is generated by VW?

Lots of other questions

Which is the best selling software; second best; third....?

European origins fine

With discussions here past regarding BIM; engineering needs and the like what potentially in the future does the group have up its sleeve available to address those issues?

Who knows what the plans are - just found it interesting

Has anyone checked out the other software apart from ArchiCAD Cinema 4D and All Plan

What about the Engineering stuff that Chris Manus is asking be addressed within VW

Seems to me the parent company has itself spread fairly wide as in All Plan, ArchiCAD, Vectorworks, addressing similar but different markets with various software applications

Here within this current thread Jeffrey is suggesting Petri get in there and help

That is fair enough I suppose ? wonder if Mr Anderson will give him a call for a chat

methinks the Nemetschek parent company maybe over time could bring lots of things together ? or is that just a pipe dream?

Are All Plan, Archicad and Vectorworks in a sense just reinventing the wheel or are they just satisfying the different user bases?

Imagine Revit one two and three

Would love to know specifics like how many new VW 2008, 2009 and 2010 licences were sold; how many upgrades ? those sorts of figures

Same figures for ArchiCAD and All Plan too would be interesting

Sometimes I wonder if as users are we not just like little mice running around in the never ending race inside the wheel

IFC, BIM and all of that ? give us a break

Can someone join the dots

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Here within this current thread Jeffrey is suggesting Petri get in there and help

Actually Jeffrey is asking everyone to help..... the impression I get is that Petri actually is one of the few people that actually could/does help........

......better than sitting around only being grumpy all day.......not many mindblowing wishlist items being added since the release of 2010 by the way?!

Edited by Vincent C
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Me too - ridiculous

Why so touchy people?

Sometimes I wonder if as users are we not just like little mice running around in the never ending race inside the wheel

IFC, BIM and all of that ? give us a break

Oh come on all we essentially have to do is produce drawings, calculations and presentations? They are only tools, some better some worse, how hard can it get? How much you are willing to pay to get there is up to you!? I don't really know what the complaints are about?

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Oh come on all we essentially have to do is produce drawings, calculations and presentations? They are only tools, some better some worse, how hard can it get? How much you are willing to pay to get there is up to you!? I don't really know what the complaints are about?

While I sincerely wish that no other country goes to the ridiculous extremes and with that speed Finland has done, I believe that the BIM (modeling) -concept is the best thing after the Paraline that has happened to architects.

The tools are still in the making, but unlike with the introduction of CAD (drafting), the productivity (=profitability) has increased. In my (fantasy) world, profitability translates to better designs and better buildings.

With proper BIM-tools, the time needed for the preparation of drawings and schedules goes down easily by 40% in average; in repetitive work even more. At least for the (short) time being there may even be an opportunity to higher fees for BIM.

Please do not judge the concept on the basis of NNA's pathetically useless tools. Forgive them, because they do not know what they are do. (They can't even design a project to be used for IFC-certification? I wish they had at least one architect on staff?)

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As a former ArchiCAD consultant, trainer and developer:

VW has particular strengths, not (to my knowledge) available in competing software.

Jeffrey already referred to the possibility of defining any geometry as any IFC-entity. The value of this feature is significant: it extends the concept of a ?VW workaround? to IFC-based BIM.

In short: whatever means you can/choose to use to create the geometry, the result can be anything you want.

In one of the dozens of IFC/BIM implementation and research reports produced in Finland (costing roughly 50 million ?), there is a telling tale by an ArchiCAD-user: ?The solid, free-form balustrades needed to be modeled as a series of straight walls.?

Yeah, right. How is the System supposed to know that these particular walls are not walls but a balustrade?

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Nothing to do, perhaps, with the fact that this is simply the program you know?

.....oh no, the strange thing is I know quite a few and most are slightly if not quite a bit better suited for 75-85% of what I (other architects) do, I just happen to 'like' it most and being curious don't mind using a few work arounds.....don't get me wrong, I would like nothing more than for VW to be a full fledged competitor to the 'others' in capability and creativity but I get the impression this is not the vision of NNA, it is a budget app, I just see that as the sorry reality of it. The other reality is that if it wasn't as cheap as it is or would become more expensive....I would not be allowed by my bosses to purchase it anymore.....

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Well for us it?s mainly case of VW being what we know and ArchiCAD?s lack of freeform modelling (and its Windoze-based GUI). Ultimately, however, it?s a race between ArchiCAD gaining freeform modelling capabilities and Vectorworks gaining decent building modelling capabilities and BIM interoperability. If VW needs to double in price then that?s something we?re willing to deal with.

Unless of course Apple breaks into the market, buys an appropriate competitor, and builds the ultimate architectural design BIM app. We can only dream.

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VW has decent building modelling capabilities (substantially augmented by yours truly to select markets) and may one day even have BIM interoperability.

Not holding my breath, though, since in the last couple of days it has been made clear that NNA salaried employees expect users to work for free for the Glory of the Chicken Maryland.

edit: clarification re markets

Edited by Kool Aid
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  • 1 month later...
(..)At least for the (short) time being there may even be an opportunity to higher fees for BIM.

(..)

very unlikely. i can't imagine an investor wanting to pay more for what he could get in an old standard way of doing things in the building industry.

nobody wants to risk the old known flaws for future imaginary gains.

right now my future investor asks 'what's a BIM?'

i have a long way to go...

rob

Edited by gester
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