Framing Improvements

[Taproot]

Here's a link to a plugin that is being developed for sketchup that gives extensive control of framing members.

 

It would be great to see the framing tools in VW correct the numerous legacy bugs and take a leap forward.

 

 

 

[Diego - Resuelvector]

Yes, please, the Wall framing tool is ancient and, for example, lacks the ability to change the profile of the studs, like using metal "C" studs instead of the wood studs.

[Amorphous - Julian]

Agreed!

And @Diego-Resuelvectorworks point is spot on. Metal studs  sorely needed.

Also :

(1) in terms of appearance in plan, would be good to also have an option to show a cross in the middle of a stud, instead of just  a rectangular outline

(2) would be good have an option to automatically insert insulation between studs

Edited July 17, 2019 by Amorphous - Julian

[Matt Overton]

Was hoping the Framing tool would be made legacy in favour of improving Walls, Roofs and Slabs to include "Framed" components.

[Amorphous - Julian]

@Matt Overton that is a great point! Currently framing doesn’t update with walls and roofs as the design changes. An updated wall, roof and slab tool would make this possible.

 

Would the Vectorworks employers who actively monitor this forum like to start a Wishlist Topic thread on the issue of how to improve wall, roof and slab tools so we can provide some end-user feedback on the topic?

[Diego - Resuelvector]

After long talks with people inside Vectorworks, the wall tool is very complicated to update because is part of the foundation of Vectorworks, and has a ton of legacy code that nobody what to mess with...

Maybe the solution is a new wall tool, build from the ground up like the Curtain Wall tool, to start replacing the legacy Wall tool.

[Amorphous - Julian]

Correct! The way walls interact with framing and  finishes is best overhauled with a new tool.

 

We posted a topic on walls construction before, which is about the way walls are construction and how finishes are put over it- Our thought too was that it should be completely re-thought.

 

 

There are is so much useful user input and feedback on this forum for Vectorworks to improve its tools. Hence I reiterate the point that a dedicated moderator is imperative to collate these suggestions, offer return feedback and questions.

 

if VW employers don’t respond on this forum. We don’t know that you’re reading and understand our comments.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Amorphous - Julian

[Matt Overton]

19 minutes ago, Diego-Resuelvectorworks said:

After long talks with people inside Vectorworks, the wall tool is very complicated to update because is part of the foundation of Vectorworks, and has a ton of legacy code that nobody what to mess with...

Maybe the solution is a new wall tool, build from the ground up like the Curtain Wall tool, to start replacing the legacy Wall tool.

Yes has been talked about a few times.

 

Problem is Curtain wall also needs an overhaul not to be dog slow. 

Hopefully, someones been working in the background. 

[JuanP]

Thank you for feedback, I just submitted this wish under the following: VE-999656

Even though this is an internal # and might not mean much to you all, It will help me/us to keep you all informed of any progress.

[Ryan Russell]

On 7/30/2019 at 4:30 PM, JuanP said:

Thank you for feedback, I just submitted this wish under the following: VE-999656

Even though this is an internal # and might not mean much to you all, It will help me/us to keep you all informed of any progress.

 

JuanP, can you update on any changes since 2019?

[DBrown]

To my knowledge, nothing has improved since then, and any improvements seem unlikely, I ponder sometimes if the focus of Vectorworks is architecture...

[Matt Overton]

On 4/12/2024 at 11:46 PM, DBrown said:

To my knowledge, nothing has improved since then, and any improvements seem unlikely, I ponder sometimes if the focus of Vectorworks is architecture...

https://www.vectorworks.net/en-AU/public-roadmap?url=wall-modernization-83

 

Wall modernization has been on the roadmap in active research for a while now. Hey but at least Slabs/Roof modernisation got move to in development recently. 

[taoist]

Sketchup is not the only other software that will do roof trusses of various types.

 

Vectorworks is way behind the curve with their framing tools.

We should not have to "design" what we need.

 

We amongst others are Builders, not just Designers.

Love Vectorworks, but serious lacking in these areas.

[Matt Panzer]

On 4/16/2024 at 9:45 PM, Matt Overton said:

Wall modernization has been on the roadmap in active research for a while now. Hey but at least Slabs/Roof modernisation got move to in development recently. 

 

The wall has had significant reengineering starting with Vectorworks 2021. Wall closures are the biggest user facing feature that came out of it with additional improvements in later versions. The new Wall tool (with both arc and straight path modes) is another.  The improved wall, slab, and roof component texturing is another and slabs and roofs also had some reengineering done to them in order to support those improvements.  A lot of the reengineering is behind the scenes but lays groundwork to make adding other planned future features possible.

[DBrown]

1 hour ago, Matt Panzer said:

 

The wall has had significant reengineering starting with Vectorworks 2021. Wall closures are the biggest user facing feature that came out of it with additional improvements in later versions. The new Wall tool (with both arc and straight path modes) is another.  The improved wall, slab, and roof component texturing is another and slabs and roofs also had some reengineering done to them in order to support those improvements.  A lot of the reengineering is behind the scenes but lays groundwork to make adding other planned future features possible.

I think the wall closures are a nice addition, but is all on the wrong front, I can't remember any single user asking for wall closures, however, there have been plenty of users asking, begging, and demanding stacked walls for, like forever, ... so maybe you are doing great work in places were few people are going to use?

[Tom W.]

5 minutes ago, DBrown said:

I think the wall closures are a nice addition, but is all on the wrong front, I can't remember any single user asking for wall closures, however, there have been plenty of users asking, begging, and demanding stacked walls for, like forever, ... so maybe you are doing great work in places were few people are going to use?

 

Just to offer an alternative view I think Wall Closures are a huge deal + am very pleased they were developed. For me, stacked walls are lower down the list of priorities.

[Matt Panzer]

1 hour ago, DBrown said:

I think the wall closures are a nice addition, but is all on the wrong front, I can't remember any single user asking for wall closures, however, there have been plenty of users asking, begging, and demanding stacked walls for, like forever, ... so maybe you are doing great work in places were few people are going to use?

 

Actually, a very large number of users have been asking for what wall closures provide.  Without them, holes in wall show the component structure that would be otherwise hidden by finish components.  At it's most basic level, wall closures does this but it does it in a much more true BIM way by actually modeling what the components should be doing (along with some other features like profiles).  Stacked components, tilted walls, etc. are all very important to us (and on our radar) but there are other things we need to implement before we can get those features show properly in plan drawings.

[taoist]

Matt,

We can appreciate all the advances the Vectorworks has made, truly happy to see these.

 

I have owned the software since it was known as MiniCad 8.

 

However, no advances at all have been made to update the wall framer tool, let alone stacked wall components.

It seems odd that other software is able to do this, but Vectorworks is not.

Vectorworks core tools must be kept up to date as a matter of principle, otherwise, why are they there.

Why have a tool if it does not truly work the way one builds in the real world?

 

Vectorworks needs to take a closer look at what other design software is doing.

I choose not to believe that Vectorworks software engineers are not capable of doing this.

At some point, one has to let go of legacy code and start anew.

There is an old saying:  Today's solutions are tomorrows problems.

It is a never ending state of keeping up to date.

That is just the way it is.  Adapt or perish.

 

FWIW

 

 

[Matt Panzer]

@taoist,

We do know what other software is doing and we do realize the importance of the requested features.  I admit that I have not looked to see what BIM software out there has done recently regarding framing but I don't believe they have anything better than Vectorworks has built in to their software (but I could be wrong).  They may have more capable third party products but that is not a built in solution.  As I stated before, some features are dependent on other functionality we're working towards.  Specifically, functionality that has to do with how floor plans are created from the model and/or how objects show in Top/Plan.  Creating features before this would mean we need to create ad hoc solutions for each object that needs it, only to have to try to remove them after the need functionality is in place.  As a long-time user (since MinCad 4) before coming on board at Vectorworks, I would've said "so go ahead and create ad hoc solutions per object because we need this sooner than later".  The problem is that we do not have infinite resources and it would take significantly longer to implement and manage ad hoc solution that would likely cause other issues (in the form of many bugs) moving forward.  We want to do things in the right order instead implementing quicker solutions that immediately become "tomorrow's problems".

 

Keep in mind that we have many users around the globe each with their own high priority list of wishes that can be very different than each other.  Every year, we set out to address as many of these as reasonbly possible.  Having been a longtime user like you, I get your frustration and wish there was more we could do, but there are limits to what is humanly possible.

[DBrown]

The framing tool is another example of things left behind in Vectorworks or to use the fancy word "legacy" all. I mean, ALL of the other BIM software have a 10x tool to create 3D  parametric framing solutions with the embarrassing exception of Vectorworks, just doing a simple YT search you could find examples of other BIM solutions, from the almost unknown ChiefArchitect to SketchUp, not to mention the all-present Revit or Archicad.

The roof framing tool is another option to be embarrassed with, another tool left behind in favor of the AI eye candy for the higher-ups.

Well, at least Vectorworks is crossplatform

Edited July 29 by DBrown
typo

[Matt Panzer]

@DBrown
Cheif Architect is very much niche software which makes it easy to focus on a far smaller feature set.  SketchUP is also much different (nowhere near the capabilities of Vectorworks) and, as far as I know, does not have a built in framing solution (but has some good third party framing tools).  BIM software that is more comparable to Vectorworks are ArchiCAD and Revit.  As I mentioned, I have not recently researched what they can do “out of the box” but I don’t recall them doing much either.  Regardless of what software does what, that’s just a small part of the equation.  There are many factors that go into deciding what we do next.

 

[Amorphous - Julian]

@Matt Panzer

In highly bespoke high-end architecture/interior work, there is little use for ‘wall style’

 

There are too many changes in wall finishes + wall profiles details in even a small space, to make using a continuous wall style a less attractive in design and documentation process.. 
 

Not to mention the endless combination of finishes on both sides of the walls such bespoke work will require.

 

Hence, I suggested wall finishes to be ‘slapped and snapped’ onto core walls, instead of fixed combination of composites.

 

I’ve covered this in a previous post (see above- from 5 years ago) so I won’t flood this thread with the thought again. 

In vectorworks environment, my office continue to build walls from ‘core’ and ‘finishes’ as separate walls. But two things I’d love to ask for, as feature requests would be:

 

- if door and window objects can ‘trim’ wall objects *in front of them*. Say, I have one core wall (where I’ll place the door) plus one finish wall in front of it. I currently need to put in a door object in the core wall, then place an empty opening in the finish wall. It’s quite cumbersome. In another world, I’d like the door object to trim the (outer) ‘finish wall’, and this ability to ‘trim beyond’ it will save time and chance of error

 

- walls should be above to ‘snap’ against another parallel wall adjacent to it. In our current workflow above, to move any walls, we have to first move (drag) the core wall, then secondly move (drag) finishing wall separately. If they were snapped to each other then I can just move it once.

 

Hope you understand what I’m talking about here. I’m happy to schedule a demo, 

 

I hope you can understand I’ve been very patient (along with the rest of the people on this thread), it’s been 5 years since I posted on this topic (above). But none of the improvements and features I have put forward have been addressed.

[DBrown]

We've have been waiting for stacked components for years now, we I'm with you on that! @Amorphous - Julian

[Matt Panzer]

17 minutes ago, Amorphous - Julian said:

@Matt Panzer

In highly bespoke high-end architecture/interior work, there is little use for ‘wall style’

 

There are too many changes in wall finishes + wall profiles details in even a small space, to make using a continuous wall style a less attractive in design and documentation process.. 
 

Not to mention the endless combination of finishes on both sides of the walls such bespoke work will require.

 

Hence, I suggested wall finishes to be ‘slapped and snapped’ onto core walls, instead of fixed combination of composites.

 

I’ve covered this in a previous post (see above- from 5 years ago) so I won’t flood this thread with the thought again. 

In vectorworks environment, my office continue to build walls from ‘core’ and ‘finishes’ as separate walls. But two things I’d love to ask for, as feature requests would be:

 

- if door and window objects can ‘trim’ wall objects *in front of them*. Say, I have one core wall (where I’ll place the door) plus one finish wall in front of it. I currently need to put in a door object in the core wall, then place an empty opening in the finish wall. It’s quite cumbersome. In another world, I’d like the door object to trim the (outer) ‘finish wall’, and this ability to ‘trim beyond’ it will save time and chance of error

 

- walls should be above to ‘snap’ against another parallel wall adjacent to it. In our current workflow above, to move any walls, we have to first move (drag) the core wall, then secondly move (drag) finishing wall separately. If they were snapped to each other then I can just move it once.

 

Hope you understand what I’m talking about here. I’m happy to schedule a demo, 

 

I hope you can understand I’ve been very patient (along with the rest of the people on this thread), it’s been 5 years since I posted on this topic (above). But none of the improvements and features I have put forward have been addressed.

 

We're well aware of this desired workflow and I agree it's needed.  I did much of the same as you do on my projects before coming into Vectorworks and this workflow is well understood because I often bring it up myself.  While it seems like a simple idea to users, it's a highly complex thing to design and implement in software.  Also, please keep in mind that there are well over a half million users out there each with their own different high priority request they've had for years as well.  That said, this particular workflow is very important and on our radar.

[taoist]

On 7/29/2024 at 4:01 PM, Matt Panzer said:

@taoist,

We do know what other software is doing and we do realize the importance of the requested features.  I admit that I have not looked to see what BIM software out there has done recently regarding framing but I don't believe they have anything better than Vectorworks has built in to their software (but I could be wrong).  They may have more capable third party products but that is not a built in solution.  As I stated before, some features are dependent on other functionality we're working towards.  Specifically, functionality that has to do with how floor plans are created from the model and/or how objects show in Top/Plan.  Creating features before this would mean we need to create ad hoc solutions for each object that needs it, only to have to try to remove them after the need functionality is in place.  As a long-time user (since MinCad 4) before coming on board at Vectorworks, I would've said "so go ahead and create ad hoc solutions per object because we need this sooner than later".  The problem is that we do not have infinite resources and it would take significantly longer to implement and manage ad hoc solution that would likely cause other issues (in the form of many bugs) moving forward.  We want to do things in the right order instead implementing quicker solutions that immediately become "tomorrow's problems".

 

Keep in mind that we have many users around the globe each with their own high priority list of wishes that can be very different than each other.  Every year, we set out to address as many of these as reasonbly possible.  Having been a longtime user like you, I get your frustration and wish there was more we could do, but there are limits to what is humanly possible.

Matt,  there is other software that has better framing tools than Vectorworks, and yes, they are built in.  That is to say, the framing tools are not an add on or a plugin.

They also have vertical stacked wall components.  I know, because I own it.  This gives me a comparison ability between the two.  Yes, Vectorworks has a lot of great features.  The Framing tools are not what they should be, let's be honest.

 

Whether or not Vectorworks decides to update them, is their choice.

We will keep asking.

[Matt Panzer]

1 hour ago, taoist said:

Matt,  there is other software that has better framing tools than Vectorworks, and yes, they are built in.  That is to say, the framing tools are not an add on or a plugin.

They also have vertical stacked wall components.  I know, because I own it.  This gives me a comparison ability between the two.  Yes, Vectorworks has a lot of great features.  The Framing tools are not what they should be, let's be honest.

 

Whether or not Vectorworks decides to update them, is their choice.

We will keep asking.

 

Sure.  I completely agree that the framing tools are not what they should be (and by a long shot).  Decisions as to what features are added or improved come from many placeholders and other factors.  I'm mainly trying to provide some insight to that effect.  There are literally thousands of requests we have and hundreds that are high priority.  All software companies want to do everything better than the competition but each much choose manageable chunks to work on at any given time.

 

We do want users to keep asking for things that are important to them because what's important to users is also important to us.  Just because we haven't added or improved something wished for since "X years ago" does not mean otherwise.  As I previous mentioned, we do want to improve our framing tools and vertically stacked components is very high on our list.