no more yearly releases

[digitalcarbon]

yearly releases get everyone all hyped up, then we need to install and learn a bunch of new stuff.  then you have the  situation that not everyone upgrades at the same time etc

need to have a system like onshape.com.  that works like this:  you subscribe ($1200/ year) and they just keep adding stuff when its READY. there are no versions, everyone has the latest.  then you can work without these big yearly upsets as to learning new stuff, figuring out when the team should all upgrade, when to upgrade the team library.  etc  its cloud based so there is no need to export web view to others (this does not really work in VW2017 because you can only share really small files and its missing stuff that is in the model you own)

 

i have been bouncing back and forth between 2017 & 2016 to try to get some things to work while using some new features that do work.

 

i want to start my own software company.

it will work like a "first person" type of game.  (3d Connexion at the core)

it will bypass old paradigms like sheets, the way Apple bypassed the floppy drive.

it will take a non-conventional "dam the torpedoes" approach.

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2016 by digitalmechanics

[digitalcarbon]

its interesting that when i work in perspective 3d and make models i am a very happy person.  i walk around the house saying "1 really love my work i can't believe I'm getting paid to do this" and my friends can't get me to shut up about the stuff i do.  but after working with sheets for the past 2 days... i hate everyone and everything.  yikes.  

[Tom Klaber]

 

1 hour ago, digitalmechanics said:

its interesting that when i work in perspective 3d and make models i am a very happy person.  i walk around the house saying "1 really love my work i can't believe I'm getting paid to do this" and my friends can't get me to shut up about the stuff i do.  but after working with sheets for the past 2 days... i hate everyone and everything.  yikes.  

 

The future is sheetless.  The industry is going to move away from the traditional set - and the model itself will just be the product of service.  That said - sheet layers work pretty well - I am curious what frustrates you.  

[zoomer]

Nevertheless, I think for the next decade,
generated Viewports from 3D should work in a way that there is not much need to edit these
in 2D, beside some smaller annotations.

 

I know it is not quite fair to always pick selective highlights of all other Apps when comparing to VW,

but there are examples that this can work quite well already.

 

Edited September 26, 2016 by zoomer

[digitalcarbon]

Tom, aside from the below post,  i don't like sheet because you are basically reformatting information (that already exist in the model) to an old system of doing things.  i modeled a 19 acre site and VW did very well at modeling it but when i started to make a few sheets (10)  it choked & was very slow (imagine if i had 100 sheets).  it was a good thing that i did not need to produce sheets for construction. (its like making software, then putting in a box with a hardcopy manual, shipping it to a store for you to by vs just downloading the software)

 

 

please see 

 

[Tom Klaber]

@digitalmechanics

Be the change you want to see in the world! 
Who is making you do sheets? Tell them to get VW viewer or a copy of VW - and transmit the model directly.

[Art V]

Yes generative views would be nice to have, B-thing has that as some other programs as well.
 Not everyone is comfortable with using 3D models in e.g. 3D PDF and often they still want to use images etc. in documents and presentations, so viewports will be needed for a while for quite a few end-users.

 

Until Virtual Reality projectors become widely available, e.g. like the holo-decks in Start Trek

[Art V]

2 hours ago, digitalmechanics said:

yearly releases get everyone all hyped up, then we need to install and learn a bunch of new stuff.  then you have the  situation that not everyone upgrades at the same time etc

need to have a system like onshape.com.  that works like this:  you subscribe ($1200/ year) and they just keep adding stuff when its READY. there are no versions, everyone has the latest.  then you can work without these big yearly upsets as to learning new stuff, figuring out when the team should all upgrade, when to upgrade the team library.  etc  its cloud based so there is no need to export web view to others (this does not really work in VW2017 because you can only share really small files and its missing stuff that is in the model you own)

 

I beg to differ on this, as it is comparing apples with oranges.

- Onshape work in the cloud only, which makes it not very usable for those working on a location with slow or no internet access.

- Because Onshape works in the cloud, they have full control over everything and this allows them to make sure things "work"

- Vectorworks is installed locally on a wide variety of systems, so there will always be situations where things may not work, it comes with the territory of almost any application running locally (i.e. not in a local container, as that is a whole different thing).

- Adobe no longer has yearly releases but ongoing updates (sort of) and even they manage to mess things up badly and having to roll back updates. Ditto to Microsoft with Windows 10. There are reasons why some companies don't like this and they want to test everything before implementing any updates/upgrades. Small users like most of us do not have this option/luxury to negotiate delaying implementation.

- Ongoing updates of tools/features or introducing them one at a time also means ongoing adjusting to those updates esp. if they change existing things to work differently. Then one yearly update might not be that bad either.

- Yearly updates allow for planning to implement them, with ongoing updates a la Adobe you're at the mercy of the developers.

There are more arguments for not fully embracing cloud bases software yet, such as e.g. having access or not to high bandwith internet connections, control over data esp. confidential/valuable data etc. etc.

 

All this cloud only subscription only stuff may sound nice, but the caveats are real and in some cases showstoppers.

It looks promising in the long run, but for now they're not good enough.

[Matt Overton]

7 hours ago, Tom Klaber said:

 

The future is sheetless.  The industry is going to move away from the traditional set - and the model itself will just be the product of service.  That said - sheet layers work pretty well - I am curious what frustrates you.  

 

People have been saying this for what 10+  years now and it's not any more true today than it was back then for many and varied reasons all mostlyto do with contract boundaries. 

 

6 hours ago, Art V said:

Yearly updates allow for planning to implement them, with ongoing updates a la Adobe you're at the mercy of the developers.

There are more arguments for not fully embracing cloud bases software yet, such as e.g. having access or not to high bandwith internet connections, control over data esp. confidential/valuable data etc. etc.

 

This to me is why the October 2016 release is called 2017. Allows time for "Open Beta", a couple of service packs and office system updates over the Christmas close with new year training for staff to help re-motivate people for the new year. 

 

Not adverse to say monthly service packs and rolling take up of features in the release (like say Plug-in styles being rolled out across all stock plug-in objects) but major features need planning to work in to the production stream.

 

 

Edited September 27, 2016 by Matt Overton

[zoomer]

Continuous feature releases for select subscribers for me means still

freezing and pulling out a version every September for a standard update option.

 

I see the main advantage of continuous feature releases in circulation the current
Feature Lock between major releases.
So e.g. if the developers of the Structural Members Tool had another 6 weeks after

the 2017 input deadline, to finally add Level and Story Support to their Tool so select

subscribers could get the final Tool in December.
That would be great for subscribers and normal updates would get that tool finally in their

next yearly release, which still can be a bit larger with new file system and those things.

Edited September 27, 2016 by zoomer

[Thomas Wagensommerer]

Tool and plugin updates could and should be pushed to the users as soon as they are ready. I do that all the time with my own plugins. For instance, if the stair plugin needs a better user interface, please go for it as soon as possible.

 

As far as I am concerned, big updates (those that need installation, might have compatibility issues, change the file format) could and should stay yearly as they are now.

[zoomer]

On 27.9.2016 at 1:56 PM, zoomer said:

So e.g. if the developers of the Structural Members Tool had another 6 weeks after

the 2017 input deadline, to finally add Level and Story Support to their Tool so select

subscribers could get the final Tool in December.

 

 

Oh, no one corrected me here.

 

Structural Members of course have Story Level binding.

I must have overseen the other Setting Tabs in early testing chaos of VW 2017 release.