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Vectorworks Cloud Services Credits. How do they work..?


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I downloaded the new Nomad App for the 3D viewing of files on an iPad.

As a VSS subscriber I regarded this as a free service included in the price.

I was surprised, and a little confused, to see mention of "credits" but was heartened to read in the FAQ :

21 "What does Vectorworks Cloud Services cost?

Vectorworks Cloud Services is a part of the Vectorworks Service Select subscription offering in some countries. All benefits of Cloud Services are currently free for Vectorworks Service Select members.

and

What is a 3D credit?

3D credits allow for processing compute intensive tasks such as cloud rendering of viewports.

So

a) If the service is free what happens when you run out of credits?

b) Do the credits renew on a daily/weekly/monthly/annual basis?

c) Do people who are not VSS members have to pay for them?

d) Can VSS members manually renew them if they need them?

e) When you say all benefits are "currently' free does that mean you have plans to stop them being free?

f) is the 3D viewer basically Cadfaster's product?

I am really impressed by the fact that it does work (I checked in my iPad).

When I ran the test files they processed with no reduction in the credits which ties in with the notion of it being "free"

However, when I uploaded and ran one of my own files I noticed that the credits dropped, hence my above questions as I have no idea what "credits" actually are.

Matt

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a) If the service is free what happens when you run out of credits?

You get in touch with your distributor to see if you can get extra credit. Right now, this is just an administrative process.

b) Do the credits renew on a daily/weekly/monthly/annual basis?

AFAIK, it's a yearly process. But I might have it wrong - someone else will have to confirm that.

c) Do people who are not VSS members have to pay for them?

People who are not VSS members don't have access to these services. At all.

d) Can VSS members manually renew them if they need them?

Yes. As I said, get in touch with your distributor.

e) When you say all benefits are "currently' free does that mean you have plans to stop them being free?

Depends on how successful this becomes. These services run on rented servers, and those servers don't come for free. As long as this doesn't punch too big a hole in NVW's wallet, it will remain free.

f) is the 3D viewer basically Cadfaster's product?

No, not by a far stretch. It is an extension of Nomad, it uses your VW files "out of the box", it is based on the VGM (Vectorworks Graphics Module).

Edited by BaRa
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I was kind of expecting Jim to answer this.

Thanks for the answer but who are you and how do you know this?

Also it seems like the 3D credits are ONLY used for processing Sheet layers.

I thought 3D meant converting the 3D model to run on an iPad.

Is that right?

Matt

ps VGM or not it REALLY does look like Cadfaster....

pps I pretty much guessed the free bit had something to do with usage.

I was more asking whether or not they were committed to making it free as a incentive to get more VSS subscriptions (which are getting substantially more expensive every year). I would expect Nemetschek know how many subscribers they have and are quite capable of making a forecast about potential usage. Or maybe not....

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

All of BaRa's answers are correct! (Sorry, I was sleeping ;) )

To give a general idea: They are not positive what is going to happen to the credit system. Originally the plan was to include an allotment and then charge for users that use the service extensively if they need more credits, but I do not think that is the plan anymore. It is possible the credit system will just disappear entirely.

Cadfaster also used an OpenGL engine of their own making, so the results look similar. However once work finished on the VGM it was seem that engineering could use it's OpenGL capabilities directly instead of licensing something from a 3rd party and they went that way with it.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Just wanted to chime in here about the 3D credits.

Vectorworks Cloud Services as was stated is a free service to Vectorworks Service Select members. The 3D credits are free, and should you reach the 100 credit limit that is in place, we simply ask that you request additional credits through your local distributor support service. We're excited to be offering this as a free service to our members and at this time have no plans to be charging for 3D credits.

We hope you all are enjoying version 3.0 of the service as well as the Vectorworks Nomad App with 3D viewing. We're looking forward to hearing more and more feedback from those of you trying or using the service so we can continue to improve upon it. Our goal is to provide you a cloud service and apps that can be of the most use to you and your work. So please feel free to send us feedback using the feedback button in the app or the portal, or even send me feedback directly. I'd love to hear from you.

Jeremy Powell

Director Product Marketing

T 410-290-5114 x652

E jpowell@vectorworks.net

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Ok, Thanks to all of you.

The two queries still outstanding are :

1) What are the credits actually for? It looks like they are just for rendering sheet layers. If all I want is a 3D model on the iPad it seems like I do not need any credits. Is this correct?

2) What is the maximum size of file that will work in the 3D IOS viewer? I did speak to Cadfaster and they implied 250MB was absolute tops but you were better under 200MB. I know this isn't Cadfaster but I'd just like to know what your numbers are. I have some big files......

Thanks again,

Matt

Edited by Mattheng
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

2. Nomad for Android tablets, both client and current versions.

It will happen, its just behind the iOS version. I use Android as well ;)

1) What are the credits actually for? It looks like they are just for rendering sheet layers. If all I want is a 3D model on the iPad it seems like I do not need any credits. Is this correct?

2) What is the maximum size of file that will work in the 3D IOS viewer? I did speak to Cadfaster and they implied 250MB was absolute tops but you were better under 200MB. I know this isn't Cadfaster but I'd just like to know what your numbers are. I have some big files......

1) Both as far as I understand. Its effectively a currency of "Processing Time" which is lower for the 3D models compared to complex flat renderings, since OpenGL is much easier to render in than Final quality across a bunch of viewports.

2) I do not know of a max size, I believe the main restriction is time. Currently if the job takes longer than 24 hours to complete, it will halt and send you an error message. (I think this is mainly a temporary safety measure in case a file or rendering becomes stuck since this system is new.)

Edited by JimW
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

A directly reply from the engineers working on it:

"The answer for that is, there are four things that are important to note as far as ability to open on a device.

1. How much memory is available on the device

2. How much curved geometry is in the 3D model

3. How many textures the model has.

4. There is a difference between the size of the vwx file and the size of the 3D project that is seen in Nomad. There is no way to predict what the size of the 3D model will be based on the vwx file size. In some cases it could be bigger and other cases could be smaller.

We will be working on optimizing this in the future, so that bigger 3D models can be handled by the same devices.

File size by its own is not the only thing that determines whether will be handled by the device. I've seen smaller files crashing due to out of memory and bigger files being opened. It really depends on how many textures the model has and how complex is the geometry."

-Iskra Nikolova

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Jim,

1) Both as far as I understand. Its effectively a currency of "Processing Time" which is lower for the 3D models compared to complex flat renderings, since OpenGL is much easier to render in than Final quality across a bunch of viewports.

Ok,thanks. Seems we are at about the same level here.

1) 2) I do not know of a max size, I believe the main restriction is time. Currently if the job takes longer than 24 hours to complete, it will halt and send you an error message. (I think this is mainly a temporary safety measure in case a file or rendering becomes stuck since this system is new.).

I have had two files completely fail on an iPad air with the Nomad app.

They processed ok but were not viewable on probably the most capable IOS device you can get.

They just crashed the app.

I am guessing it's a size limit but it might be something else..

Thanks for all your help anyway.

Matt.

ps how do I get a quote to show who I am quoting..?

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Matt, we would be happy to take a look at the files that you experienced failure or crash with so we can try and determine a root cause. If that works for you, please send an email to vcs@vectorworks.net with a link to download them and we'll let you know what we find.

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