VW2011: Concepts:Good, Execution: A lot to be desired.

[Assembly]

I have now had a small dabble with my purchased copy of 2011.

I went for the upgrade because I though with the intro of the Planar tools VW would be in a good position to be a good 3D working environment. The conceptual idea of being able to literally write on the surface of a 3D is very good. This could allow an Architect to work fully in a 3D model and annotated on the surfaces of the objects they draw. This might allow one place for information to be contained/Maintained. Views can be set up, perks / sections / Elevation. Text is consistent in all views.

BUT the two most critical components of this do not work.

1) Section VP's do not bring through the planar graphics.

2) planar Text boxes in Hidden line renders do not display the text.

Furthermore the key PIO objects that could improve the workflow have not been updated to take advantage of the improvements. The benchmark elevation when used in a planar object still uses the Y Coordinate to return height... however if working in a 3D environment we now need the Z value that to be used.

From the moment I saw the promotional video, I thought this workflow and functionality was the obvious use and implementation of the tool. Why else would you use this function?. I am disappointed the main reasons I upgraded seems moot.

This leaves me wondering if VW is being developed by engineers to build 'whizz bang' functionality with out understanding why / how this functionality will be incorporated into a workflow...

So I'd be interested to hear from NA

1) What are the main benefits of the Planar objects?

2) How they see this being incorporated into the workflow?