Vectorworks 2015 , 64bit and other technical questions

[PVA - Admin]

I have a project that I could start today or wait another 2 weeks to start it in VW 2015. Some concern if I start it in VW 2014 are;

1. Will stories setup be compatible and editable?

2. Will wall and slab styles be compatible, due to the introduction of "materials"?

Thanks,

1) Stories have been given a revamp, its now possible to create levels that are not bound directly to design layers. Letting you bind walls/slabs/objects to level heights separately from design layers and their respective heights.

Im oversimplifying things a bit, but it will make more sense once the demo videos explaining it come out.

2) There is no introduction of a Materials feature. Wall and Slab styles are still two separate resource types.

[PVA - Admin]

Jim can you give some more insight in the different new commands and changes?

If there are any specifics you would like to know, I can accommodate.

[Dieter @ DWorks]

1) Stories have been given a revamp, its now possible to create levels that are not bound directly to design layers. Letting you bind walls/slabs/objects to level heights separately from design layers and their respective heights.

Im oversimplifying things a bit, but it will make more sense once the demo videos explaining it come out.

Thx! That will sure make it a lot easier to cope with, and to explain to customers....

[Dieter @ DWorks]

A question about the 3D hatches: Will classes now have two fills? One for 2D view and one for 3D view? Or how else would these 3D hatches be applied? (Maybe we need to choose between hatch or texture then?)

[cberg]

So how will plan cuts work then with this new level/story paradigm?

If I have a stair tower that goes up say three stories. And I have windows and doors in various locations. How it be possible to make sure that they show up correctly in plan?

Cberg

[PVA - Admin]

A question about the 3D hatches: Will classes now have two fills? One for 2D view and one for 3D view? Or how else would these 3D hatches be applied? (Maybe we need to choose between hatch or texture then?)

3D hatches are now included as a component of Renderworks Textures. So in addition to bump, displacement, reflectivity etc you will also be able to select an hatch to be overlaid on the texture.

You can also choose to only display the hatch portion of the texture if you want. The hatches selectable are the same as the regular hatches already available and if you've made new hatches in that file, those will be selectable as well.

The mapping of the hatch can be controlled manually to align the hatch pattern to an underlying brick or tile image texture, for instance.

[PVA - Admin]

So how will plan cuts work then with this new level/story paradigm?

If I have a stair tower that goes up say three stories. And I have windows and doors in various locations. How it be possible to make sure that they show up correctly in plan?

Cberg

Anything you were already able to do before you can still do now. The main change was that instead of having to create a new design layer to bind the tops and bottoms of geometry to is no longer needed.

If you mean it wasn't possible before, it may be possible now but one of the industry specialists may be better able to answer the specifics. In that described situation I would expect the viewports for each floor could be configured to show only the classes and layers of the items desired, but I may be misunderstanding.

[PVA - Admin]

And just to head this one off, no you will not be able to install Vectorworks 2015 on your shiny new Apple Watch

http://www.apple.com/live/2014-sept-event/

[Guest Wes Gardner]

Levels will let you bind not only the wall, but any component within a wall to a level. Levels CAN exceed the bounds of a story. A plan view is still dependent on layer settings.

[PVA - Admin]

So did anyone ask? When??? 2014 was released in October I believe.

Vectorworks 2015 will be released on September 16th.

[Bas Vellekoop]

A 'few' questions, haha:

- Is it possible to bound a wall between the 1st and 4th floor and put windows in al floors?

- is the model history intact with the different new model tools?

- can you elaborate on the 3D app, is there a app coming for the Surface/windows 8? Only open gl or hiddenline too?

- can you elaborate on the remote app, is it on surface/windows 8? (will it be on windows 9 ;-)What can a specific use be?

- no changes in the layer plane / screen plane stuff?

- the third mode/icon of the new model tools is not mentioned in the video, what is it?

- 3d hatches is part of renderworks and needs rendering?

- can you ungroup 3d hatches so you get al the lines?

- do textures of sketch up import as well?

- can you create a gradient that is transparent at one side and goes to solid at the other side?

[PVA - Admin]

Im going to number your list if you don't mind:

1) Is it possible to bound a wall between the 1st and 4th floor and put windows in al floors?

As far as I understand it, yes. the Doors and Windows' heights can be bound to levels instead of layers, so they can all be in one wall in one layer but the various levels lets you control individual object height.

2) is the model history intact with the different new model tools?

Unfortunately no, the way our object history works currently it got too slow, they create Generic Solids.

3) can you elaborate on the 3D app, is there a app coming for the Surface/windows 8? Only open gl or hiddenline too?

Nomad 3.0 is iOS only for the meantime with Android app coming. I have heard nothing about an app for Windows tablets. No Hidden Line yet.

4) can you elaborate on the remote app, is it on surface/windows 8? (will it be on windows 9 ;-)What can a specific use be?

Vectorworks Remote is iOS only for the moment with Android on the way. No plans seen for Windows tablets. Basically, it allows you to do with a tablet or phone what most of the various palettes in Vectorworks do currently, giving you back more screen real estate on your desktop.

5) no changes in the layer plane / screen plane stuff?

Some changes to snapping priorities and render handling but nothing "new", mostly tweaks.

6) the third mode/icon of the new model tools is not mentioned in the video, what is it?

Sorry, which tool? Deform? Its new modes are Taper (the whole object, different from taper face,) Bulge and Bend. it also includes Twist which was its own separate tool in 2014.

7) 3d hatches is part of renderworks and needs rendering?

Yes.

8) can you ungroup 3d hatches so you get al the lines?

No, but I have not played with what happens when you convert a viewport of them to lines, I will check.

9) do textures of sketch up import as well?

Yes! 3DS textures too.

10) can you create a gradient that is transparent at one side and goes to solid at the other side?

Yes!

[Bas Vellekoop]

Great! thanks!

Why no windows apps? Please make one In my opinion a very solid platform that works really well together (phone <> tablet <> comp)

[PVA - Admin]

This is my personal view, but I am fairly certain it's just the numbers. The majority of tablet and mobile users we interact with (this is judged on a combo of web traffic to all our sites as well as the metrics from Nomad on the App store and Google Play) are on iOS, followed by Android, with the Windows touch variants all being a distant third.

Not saying it isn't a perfectly valid platform, but we are always tight on engineering resources and unfortunately things that aren't widely adopted are not able to be pushed to the front so quickly.

[VincentCuclair]

Any 'new' solutions to window/door scheduling, specifically with regards to representations of them?

[PVA - Admin]

Any 'new' solutions to window/door scheduling, specifically with regards to representations of them?

There were improvements to the worksheet UI, but I do not believe anything specific to Door or Window Schedules.

[barkest]

Hi Jim

So you will import the .skp file?

What can you import (materials, lights, cameras, mesh etc..)

Thanks

[PVA - Admin]

Hi Jim

So you will import the .skp file?

What can you import (materials, lights, cameras, mesh etc..)

Thanks

SKP import already existed at a basic level, however now you can import them as mesh objects which can be smoothed to get rid of that faceted/polygonal look (there will be demo videos and images showcasing this in the coming days) as well as import the materials/colors as Renderworks textures directly.

I have not tried to import lights or cameras from an SKP file ever actually, but I think this functionality would be the same as previous versions, whatever that may have been. I saw no notes that it had changed.

[Tom Klaber]

Any word on a Maxwell Plugin?

[PVA - Admin]

Any word on a Maxwell Plugin?

Not this time around, no.

[barkest]

SKP import already existed at a basic level, however now you can import them as mesh objects which can be smoothed to get rid of that faceted/polygonal look (there will be demo videos and images showcasing this in the coming days) as well as import the materials/colors as Renderworks textures directly.

We use 3ds so smoothing is great news.

So even colors will map? If do then that is a huge time saver

Thanks

[PVA - Admin]

So even colors will map?

Yup! They are all handled as Renderworks textures it seems, since we do not have a closer direct equivalent for materials.

[barkest]

Fantastic news. If it all works then this is a really great addition. We re-map all of the colors as textures before export and this can be very time consuming.

This with the new modelling tools are very good news for us and a step in the right direction for interior designers

Well done

[Tom Klaber]

PDFs that come out of VW tend to be HUGE. Has any work been done on the export to decrease the size of VW created PDFs?

[PVA - Admin]

PDFs that come out of VW tend to be HUGE. Has any work been done on the export to decrease the size of VW created PDFs?

Yes, in addition to a general reducing of the size and lag in the PDFs exported, you can now disable snapping per-imported-PDF altogether. This makes the VWX file smaller and faster as well as removing the extra snapping geometry included when PDFs are exported inside of other PDFs.