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how to work with perspective view


frv

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I have worked in 3D in Vectorworks for years but the past 5 years have been all Sketchup for 3D.

Now with version 2011 I might model again in Vectorworks. Gettting started with the demo version of 2011 I was a bit surprised to see the "narrow" and other perspective modes still present. It seems so clumsy to work like that, in a weird perspective window. Sketchup is so much easier to work with I can hardly expect anyone these days still working with Vectorworks way of working in perspective view.

But maybe I am no longer up to date on how its best to work in 3D in Vectorworks 2011, maybe there is a good way to work in 3D, either in perspective or orthogonal. And maybe even in some kind of shaded mode that is fast enough to model in.

Any help is very appreciated.

Francois

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Vincent C,

I would have to agree with you, maybe its a throwback to the old days (or not) but multi perspectives, at least to me seem more accurate and faster in the initial design.

But that may just be the old pen and paper talking. Its just how I think when I draw. And from what it sounds like It's how allot of people think.

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What I mean to say, is there a way to just draw in a normal window in perspective view or is the only way to set up the silly little perspective view window you have to stretch to see something.

I find the best way ever to model for achitectural work is the way Sketchup is set up. Not with multiple windows for top or front view but just in a moderate perspective view of your model, were the model never needs to be in wireframe mode .

I think wireframe modeling in othorgonal view is no longer an option in the year 2011. Those days have long gone by and nobody still does that.

I am hoping there is a way to model in Vectorworks almost the same way you do in Sketchup, Modo, Revit or practically any other modern 3D app. I am afraid VW simply does not have a proper model view to work with. That was number 1 reason to move over to other 3D CAD app's. I am beginning to think its also number 1 reason to keep staying away from VW in 3D still.

I hope someone can explain to me I am mistaken. We love to use VW for 2D work, but in 3D, VW seems to be very very outdated, even version 2011.

Francois

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Ok, thanks,

When you model in 3D and then afterwords create the 2D drawings I wonder what the best way is to set your workview.

I hate to jump around from view to view and rather just flyover my model depending were I need to be, preferable in somekind of simple rendered view. Is that actually possible in VW, more or less like Sketchup ?

Francois

Edited by frv
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Fran?ois,

In 2010 and culminating in 2011, working in a 3D orthographic view is quite the norm. Granted it is NOT a perspective projection, but I would argue that the perspective projection is most useful at presentation time rather than during the "model building" process. I'm not sure what version was the last one you used, but it would be worth checking 2011 out.

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Hi Jeffrey,

I am using 2009.

I always modeled in VW until Skechup came to the market. And after maybe 5 years I have completely forgotten how to model in VW. Although I did professional presentations for years.

Sketchup is such a fast way of modeling in rendered perspective view that I no longer can go back to orthogonal view, or wireframe modeling.

We now also work with Modo and Maxwell. Perspective view has many advantages apart from being able to see what you get. I can draw a beam from wall to wall inside a room snapping perfectly acurate in perspective rendered view. Try to do that in orthogonal view.

I am afraid VW is not yet up to date yet on how fast modeling these days is really. We get very little time to model and we also model while designing, often with the client at the screen. Things have changed seriously and VW should really get into it. VW2011 is a great improvement again but it needs a serious UI overhaul as far as the modeling proces is done. There are some ideas taken from Sketchup but it looks like the programmers of VW have not a clue what Sketchup is really about. Sketchup is actually bigger than Revit, and just slightly behind AutoCad on recent statistics were VW is not even mentioned. SU came to the market 10 years after VW. VW should have been doing much better looking at what great ideas are there, especially in 2D.

Nemetchek should really focus more on how designers model these days. Its not all engineering anymore. Modeling is the new CAD.

Francois

If you like to see our work, all done in Sketchup, Modo and Maxwell, here you can

www.fillieverhoeven.nl

All our 2D engineering is done in Vectorworks. We are evaluating VW 2011 but as far as 3D is concerned we already lost interest. We can still model a lot more efficient in SU. Renderworks is no competition for Maxwell either.

Edited by frv
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Goeiemorgen (Good morning)

I agree with you Francois that the perspective views are horrible to use in VW, however I do mostly presentation 3Ds in VW and only a little 2D drafting and I can't agree with you that SketchUp is better....my opinion aside I don't think you can compare the 2 in this way either....VW is a BIM app meaning all info can/should come from the same model, both 2D and 3D while SU is 3D modeler only. Of course NNA can learn from SU when it comes to working in 3D, and I suggest you put your wishes on the wish list because they do take note of these!

On a side note to put things in perspective, working in 3D is horrible in ArchiCAD ;)

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Sketchup is just incredible well concieved for architectural modeling. I think its time to handout a huge price for the programmers of Sketchup, and I mean @Last. Google should be given a warning for abusing a masterpiece and neglect.

Nemetchek should give even more attention to what has been achieved by @Last. I am seeing some hopeful signs they are on it. But I have a feeling they don't truly get the genius behind Sketchup. You need to be a designer or use it daily to fully understand how well @Last understood the mental proces and workflow a 3D modeler in architecture goes through. I can compare VW and SU very well since I have used both programs practically from the beginning.

I would easily dare to say that a two story single family house of about 150 m2 can be modeled for photorealic rendering in less than 1/3 of the time you need in VW. Mostly because in SU you constantly see what you are doing and that in only one easy to adjust view or window. Its true that VW is BIM and the data generated is used in many more ways. But in reality my SU models can be read and used by contracters, architects, clients and all other advisors making any SU model more BIM than Revit and VW together. BIM is about sharing and since Revit and VW are not exactly mainstream its not working. SU on the other hand is the best BIM tool I have ever used. If it wasn't for Google's lack of interest, SU would have completely taken over CAD in architecture.

Edited by frv
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SU on the other hand is the best BIM tool I have ever used.

How can you state this when you use VW to create 2D drawings instead of SU (because SU doesn't have the capability to do this directly from the model)?

Don't get me wrong what you say about SU is true it is very good when it comes to 3D modeling, but it is still a long (and complicated) way from being a BIM modeler.....

Edited by Vincent C
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SU will never become a BIM modeler. But when it comes to sharing building information, in the real world, I see that exchanging SU models is already done a lot and with the desired effect. While a model made in VW, or even Revit can hardly be exchanged with anyone.

When you use a modeler that is used by only a few, you need to generate the data yourself to pass along. That can not be the idea behind data exchange or BIM.

VW, by itself is obviously a far better BIM modeler since it has elegant ways to organize the data. But usually though, your organizing your own island. Compare that with SU, were most are able to at least get a fair bit of info out of even a messy model. I don't see any further developments though for SU but that's only because Google has a different strategy for SU.

All of this is getting very off topic. I was just hoping that I had missed something about modeling in VW. But it seems its going back to good old orhogonal no fun wireframe modeling as it was ten years ago.

Francois

Edited by frv
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Fran?ois,

I will tell you that I have learned, first hand, from the developers at Google, that SketchUp is NOT, nor meant to be, a BIM tool. They insist on being a simple 3D polygon modeler that is basic and easy to use for a general audience, NOT a professional tool on the level of AutoCAD, Revit, MicroStation, ArchiCAD or Vectorworks. They want to provide an application to pros that works with us, but not in competition to any of us.

Even with the most recent improvements to SU8, the .skp file format does NOT have the capacity to handle sophisticated data attributes), geometry, and relationships that a BIM tool does (yes, even us Christiaan). Any work done to replicate BIM functionality has been undertaken by third parties, at their own peril.

But, SU can be a valuable part of a designer's workflow, if one recognizes it limitations and how it fits in a bigger picture. I think for our users SU is fine for a conceptual modeling option, that then gets imported into Vectorworks as a background for developing a true BIM. By using this workflow, the user limits the amount of modeling they do in SU (too much detail is utterly wasted), and moves into getting real modeling and documentation done in Vectorworks, when the time is right.

Again, SU is able to pull off some of the tricks that is does because it is so simple comparatively. Comparing SU to Vectorworks is like comparing a 19th century sloop to a 21st century nuclear-power battleship. They both get you on the water, but one got REAL power.

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Thanks Jeffrey,

I am mostly afraid that VW is actually the 17th century sloop though with a nucluar power engine. SU is huge compared to VW, its userbase must be tenfold that of VW. Its about ease of use. That's were 3D Vectorworks is behind SU.

To show my point, these are modeled in SU and rendered in Maxwell by me for clients. To model this in VW is not all that difficult but it takes twice the time. And its no fun at all.

http://www.architektenkombinatie.nl/index.php?id=18&user_reference_pi1[project]=40

http://www.architektenkombinatie.nl/index.php?id=18&user_reference_pi1[project]=52

I am afraid you need to copy paste these addresses into your browser to see the images.

There is more here, all but the typcial organic shapes are modeled in SU.

http://web.me.com/fillieverhoeven/architektuur/1_-_kolumba_01.html

Francois

Edited by frv
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They insist on being a simple 3D polygon modeler that is basic and easy to use for a general audience, NOT a professional tool on the level of AutoCAD, Revit, MicroStation, ArchiCAD or Vectorworks.

Sure, but one of the biggest fallacies in software design is that power necessitates complexity and training manuals. I'm sure you're not suggesting that VW perspective view can't take some lessons from SU and be improved to be more intuitive and easier to use? VW perspective view is, after all, a very old interface.

[bIM tools have] ... the capacity to handle sophisticated data attributes, geometry, and relationships ... (yes, even us Christiaan)

Well I've never really questioned VWs' capacity to handle these things. My complaints have always centred on the difficulty in creating the geometry. Gladly, as of v2011, VW has made some huge leaps on this front.

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[bIM tools have] ... My complaints have always centred on the difficulty in creating the geometry. Gladly, as of v2011, VW has made some huge leaps on this front.

I agree 100 % with this.

Although the improvements show the enormous task at hand as well, to catch up with these days big names like among others Sketchup, Modo, Rhino and Revit.

I also wonder why it has taken Nemetchek so many years to move on.

Francois

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Francois,

Again, SU -> simple 3D modeling, Vectorworks Architect -> BIM. Not the same animal.

The number of users is not an issue. That's NOT the point. Workflow and resulting product is. IF all you need are pretty, simple 3D sculptures with rendering, fine, use SU to your heart's content. If you want to really do virtual prototyping, construction simulation, scheduling, interoperability with other BIM applications, then use Vectorworks.

If you want better UI for Vectorworks, fine, but it will never be as simplistic as SU, because it will always do more, be more, and have more depth and complexity than SU.

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Hi Jeffrey, I hear you but you are wrong. Not in the sense that I think you don't know what you write but that you , and probably Nemetchek as well underestimate the power of simple 3D modeling with a highly intelligent and sophisticated UI that SU has.

Many thousands of users, many more than Vectorworks has, are actually doing construction simulation, virtual prototyping and all sorts of engineering and exchanging data to other parties concerned, with SU. The reason for it is that with SU generating 3D data is fast, easy, accurate, controled, and visually pleasing.

Pretty 3D sculpturing is actually a rather sophisticated and complex hobby of people who are willing to invest in unbiased renderengines and app's like Modo, Rhino, or for example Zbrush. To be honest, 3D sculpturing is probably an area were SU does not shine, unless you like shapes in more or less rectangular forms.

SU shines in architectural modeling, and Vectorworks does not even though its decade long head start. I think its time to find out why. Vectorworks is not going to get big as a wireframe modeler in orthogonal view with Renderworks or its weird simplistic perspective viewport.

Francois

Edited by frv
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Francois,

I'm not sure if I want to get in the middle of an argument, but VW is pretty awesome and obviously continually improving. SU is pretty awesome too. But if you are so sold on SU, use it. I like VW and am getting mere comfortable with the 3D so I use it. I like to compare VW with other software and say why not us too, its how we dialog and improve the software by our needs and wants.

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Francois,

Our office has users who prefer SU and use it daily and users who prefer Vectorworks and use it daily for modeling. The SU users are premier modelers and have been published by the likes of Jim Leggit in his books. The vectorworks modelers beta test and start to model the minute we start to design. In our office the Vectorworks 3d modelers can finish a design of any geometry type and rendering method in a third of the time it takes to create the models in SU. These are real world fee billings. Each has its strengths but the project that use Vectorworks from the outset do not have to exchange or recreate anything within our office setting where as those that use SU all the geometry has to be recreated in Vectorworks so construction documents can be created. This creates huge time savings when moving from the schematic design to the design development phases.

We are not saying that SU should not be used, but used depending on the project as we do all the time. We are not saying that Vectorworks 3d environment is perfect, but having modeled some in Revit and ArchiCAD we can say that Vectorworks allows and has greater geometric capability than these other mentioned applications and is moving more and more toward the SU modeling environment but also more and more toward the MCAD world. As architects we desire the ability to directly edit and impact the 3d objects we interact with in this virtual world and with 2011 this capability is even better.

Finally, we have had recent success with 2011 and IFC exchange with other consultant team members using a variety of other software applications for their work with the geometry properly replicated for them to reference.

The modeling learning curve is much steeper in Vectorworks than SU but once learned pays dividends in time used to complete the task. This is only our office experience with our SU and Vectorworks designers and may not be applicable to other offices with different designers and the tools they use..

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