We all know by now, the amount of time required to render hidden line sections in Vectorworks can be soul-destroying.
So I asked my friends who uses Revit how long their ‘hidden line’ elevations and sections take. And they said ‘INSTANTLY- just like in sketchup’
I googled some Revit videos and, alas, it is true. Revit equivalent to VW hidden line rendering is INSTANT, (with all the surface hatches appearing) and works just like in sketchup.
I figured when creating a drawing for 4 interior elevations of a room, Vectorworks is at minimum 80 times slower than Revit.
This is the Calcs: each elevation viewports takes 20 seconds to render in Vectorworks, and I have 4 elevation viewports, Vectorworks would have made my workflow 80 (20s x 4) times slower than my Revit counterpart, who gets this instantly.
This is not even taking that most of our sections take a few minutes to render, not just 20 seconds. Nor does this take into account each time we make a change, we need to re-render these viewports. Further, if you want ‘surface hatches’ to appear, that is many more multiples of times longer.
See below a video of hidden line rendering in Revit (note in Revit hidden line means ‘dashed hidden line).
I have also included a link to a post, where I posted videos showing elevation viewports ‘with’ surface hatches takes 20 times longer to render than ‘without’ (6 min vs 20 seconds)
DEAR FRIENDS AT VECTORWORKS: IF REVIT CAN DO INSTANT HIDDEN LINE- WHATS STOPPING US FROM HAVING THAT TOO?
WHY SHOULD MY WORKFLOW BE TENS OR HUNDREDS OF TIMES SLOWER THAN MY REVIT COUNTERPARTS??
I’d respectfully asked to be spared on what is ‘possible or not’ ‘in terms of engineering’. From where I’m standing, Revit has achieved it, so in terms of engineering it is possible. Hidden line rendering speed improvement must be a priority! And we are not talking about a v2021 or v2022 priority, it is a priority NOW! We need to see it within v2020.
I’m imminently going to lose staff and lose projects due to Vectorworks inadequacy to help us efficiently produce documentation.
@Julian Carr@Matt Panzer@Tolu@JuanP this issue of Hidden Line improvement can’t wait any longer. I posted about this issue in August 2018, with many others on the forum agreeing. If this doesn’t get improved in v2020, please let me know in advance, so I can have more time to reconsider my position on VSS renewal for 2021 and beyond.
If improvements can’t be seen in the next few months, I would rather invest my time and money to convert to Revit. The efficiency recovered in Hidden Line renders alone could be worth extra time and money.
Please understand I am not being adversarial or unreasonably demanding here. My office has invested so much time and money into Vectorworks because we loved working with it. It will be a shame to throw away all the systems we built up with it. But I am talking about the realities of project pressures and business needs I must confront here, and I need to see Vectorworks recognising that and resolving it with us (and not take years). This important hidden line improvement will not be just for me - but everyone using 3D Vectorworks workflow.
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Amorphous - Julian
We all know by now, the amount of time required to render hidden line sections in Vectorworks can be soul-destroying.
So I asked my friends who uses Revit how long their ‘hidden line’ elevations and sections take. And they said ‘INSTANTLY- just like in sketchup’
I googled some Revit videos and, alas, it is true. Revit equivalent to VW hidden line rendering is INSTANT, (with all the surface hatches appearing) and works just like in sketchup.
I figured when creating a drawing for 4 interior elevations of a room, Vectorworks is at minimum 80 times slower than Revit.
This is the Calcs: each elevation viewports takes 20 seconds to render in Vectorworks, and I have 4 elevation viewports, Vectorworks would have made my workflow 80 (20s x 4) times slower than my Revit counterpart, who gets this instantly.
This is not even taking that most of our sections take a few minutes to render, not just 20 seconds. Nor does this take into account each time we make a change, we need to re-render these viewports. Further, if you want ‘surface hatches’ to appear, that is many more multiples of times longer.
See below a video of hidden line rendering in Revit (note in Revit hidden line means ‘dashed hidden line).
I have also included a link to a post, where I posted videos showing elevation viewports ‘with’ surface hatches takes 20 times longer to render than ‘without’ (6 min vs 20 seconds)
DEAR FRIENDS AT VECTORWORKS: IF REVIT CAN DO INSTANT HIDDEN LINE- WHATS STOPPING US FROM HAVING THAT TOO?
WHY SHOULD MY WORKFLOW BE TENS OR HUNDREDS OF TIMES SLOWER THAN MY REVIT COUNTERPARTS??
I’d respectfully asked to be spared on what is ‘possible or not’ ‘in terms of engineering’. From where I’m standing, Revit has achieved it, so in terms of engineering it is possible. Hidden line rendering speed improvement must be a priority! And we are not talking about a v2021 or v2022 priority, it is a priority NOW! We need to see it within v2020.
I’m imminently going to lose staff and lose projects due to Vectorworks inadequacy to help us efficiently produce documentation.
@Julian Carr @Matt Panzer @Tolu @JuanP this issue of Hidden Line improvement can’t wait any longer. I posted about this issue in August 2018, with many others on the forum agreeing. If this doesn’t get improved in v2020, please let me know in advance, so I can have more time to reconsider my position on VSS renewal for 2021 and beyond.
If improvements can’t be seen in the next few months, I would rather invest my time and money to convert to Revit. The efficiency recovered in Hidden Line renders alone could be worth extra time and money.
Please understand I am not being adversarial or unreasonably demanding here. My office has invested so much time and money into Vectorworks because we loved working with it. It will be a shame to throw away all the systems we built up with it. But I am talking about the realities of project pressures and business needs I must confront here, and I need to see Vectorworks recognising that and resolving it with us (and not take years). This important hidden line improvement will not be just for me - but everyone using 3D Vectorworks workflow.
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