VW12: Live Sections

[mike m oz]

Setting the unit accuracy and particularly that for angles high will overcome most of your innacuracies.

Interestingly I have had imported AutoCAD building drawings that have exactly the same accuracy problem you refer to. As above I think it relates to the unit accuracy used. Then again it could just be sloppy drafting.

[Ariel]

Sorry to repeat myself but could someone please post a sample project. I want to understand why I can't be just as accurate/efficient/fast by using the current tools VW already offers.

Personally, I seldom go through the layerlink route. I usually draw all the walls as is. What's so wrong in using the offset tool or just hitting ctrl-L to rotate an angled wall by 90 degrees?

Ariel

[Peter van der Elst]

Ariel -> Is it possible to offset walls? I never found this in my VW Basic version?

Regards,

Peter

[michael john williams]

The accuracy of VW has been an ongoing problem which more recently has been resolved to some extent but I would still say autoCAD is more accurate than VW. The main reason is that it is the industry standard and there is no loss of data during import and export. This greatly improved but I remember a few back where the firm I was working for was sued as a road was built in the wrong location and in brief the problem was exporting from VW to the Engineers AutoCAD drawing. The fact is that if lines are drawn at say 89degrees rather than 90degress this is a serious issue which AutoCAD more successfully resolve with the ortho commend. NNA should listern to the big players and meet their requirements otherwise the product is on a downward slide.

[Jershaun]

There is no need for rotating a 2D view. VectorWorks works perfectly the way it does now. I have done a lot of rotated buildings, sometimes 3 buildings at different angles on a site. I think people just don't know how to use VectorWorks, be it 50 or 60 people in one office. One has to think out of the box and effeciently. I do my site plan in one file. My ground plans on seperate files. These are then referenced and linked to the site (rotated and positioned anyway I like). If a building has various angles then the answer is the SmartCursor. It's extremely powerful if used properly. It does the job and more. I think people need to get out of the AutoCrap groove and see the full benefits of VectorWorks.

Coming back to the "live sections". I don't think it's really live. From the images in the PDF it covers the "cut" part with a red polygon. It does not deferentiate between concrete slabs, brickwork, glass, etc, etc. This does not represent true Live Sections like archicad.

[Ariel]

>Ariel -> Is it possible to offset walls? I never found this in my VW Basic version?

Oops, sorry my bad. You can only offset walls using the control-drag method. Would have a been a nice feature though.

Ariel

[Ariel]

>Coming back to the "live sections". I don't think it's really live. From the images in the PDF it covers the "cut" part with a red polygon. It does not deferentiate between concrete slabs, brickwork, glass, etc, etc. This does not represent true Live Sections like archicad.

Call it whatever you like, Michael. As long as the section view updates when I revise my model, I'm not complaining. I've been asking for this feature for years. Thanks, NNA!

Katie, when can we expect the demo software?

Ariel

[michael john williams]

Ariel

So why has it taken so long for NNA to add it and why was it not in 11.5?

Opps...I forgot, this way they make more money!

Interesting that you are not convinced that it is really live sections.

[Ariel]

Sorry I confused you, Michael. I meant I'm not convinced that we need the rotate 2d view feature.

Ariel

[mike m oz]

Forgive me for pointing out the obvious;

- The whole point of BIM is that the elevations come from the model and therefore you don't need to rotate the plan so that you can draw the elevations.

- If you absolutely have to draw your elevations manually use layer linking to give you an updating version of the plan which you can rotate to your heart's content.

- Rotating a plan to check whether walls have been drawn orthoganal (relatively) is a very innacurate way of testing this. If your actual angle is part of a second the outcome cannot be correct. (Also depending on the accuracy you have set for your units you may not get the correct rotation.)

- Getting your knickers in a knot about decimal points of a mm is ridiculous. If your builder gets within an inch (25.4 mm for those of us who are metricated) on site you will be doing well. Don't lose sight of the reality of the building world - in my 30+ years in this game I have seen many onsite discrepancies that would make an inch seem wonderful.

[ 10-14-2005, 11:05 AM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

[Guest]

Ariel,

We hope to have CDs available by October 24 and possibly before that date. Please contact your sales rep now to reserve a copy when they are ready.

[RichieHatch]

Hi Shaun and all other non-believers....!

Firstly i would like to apologize for hi-jacking Kevin's post.

As an example of a building that lets say is a little difficult to work on please click here:

http://www.pbase.com/richiehatch/image/50714967

This is an 8000sqm school in Ireland. One section of it is orthogonal to the view and is easy to work on. The rest is rotated at various different angles. Now have a look at these drawings which i screen captured from Microstation:

http://www.pbase.com/richiehatch/image/50714968

This first image shows one whole section rotated very slightly against the rest of the building. Now I will hit F10 which I have set as a shortcut to Rotate View by Element. I click on a line that is rotated by the said angle and the plan now has rotated by the difference between the angle of the line and the view which in this case is 2 or 3 degrees. I can now work on this part of the drawing orthogonal to the view:

http://www.pbase.com/richiehatch/image/50714969

I think this is quite clear as to what i mean. Saying that 'There is no need for a rotate view command' maybe fair enough for you Shaun but for some of us it is a necessary and a sorely missed time-saving tool. Accuracy is not my problem with not being able to roate a view. Speed and efficiency of drafting are....! Especially on multi million euro jobs such as the ones we are comissioned to design.

On a final note just let me get it clear that i personally think Vectorworks as a CAD package creates wonderful drawings. In fact, I would go as far as saying that no CAD package can match the final graphical look of drawings made in Vectorworks. We constantly get comments that our drawings are very beautiful which we never did with other CAD packages. If only this one command was implemented I for one would be completely content with Vectorworks...!

Thanks and sorry for such a long post.

Richie

[Bart Rammeloo]

Hi Richie,

Thanks for the very clear example. I understand what the discussion is about. I've used ACAD in the past, but never had much use for the UCS. No that I see how you guys are using it (in Microstation), I understand why you want it. You have my vote.

@Shaun:

You're mixing up a two things, namely live sections and the detailing of your construction.

VW 12 handles live sections very well - a lot better than ArchiCAD in my opinion. Just one example: it's all done in one and the same application, instead of two different ones.

The live sections in VW 12 can differentiate between the different parts of your 3D-model. Of course, the parts can only be visible if they are actually there (in the 3D-model). If you don't see them in the section, that means they are (a) either hidden or (b) simply not there.

What ArchiCAD does (or is supposed to do - it does make mistakes, for instance if you have an intersection of a brick interior wall and a concrete slab - Allplan does a better job at that), is draw the whole set of data not only in 2D, but also completely in 3D. VectorWorks 12 doesn't do that (yet?).

So if you're saying that VectorWorks doesn't work like ArchiCAD does, then I agree 100%. If you say that BIM in VW is not the same as BIM in ArchiCAD, then you're right as well. That doesn't mean VW doesn't use BIM - they have a decently developed Building Information Model. It might be different from others, and perhaps you prefer other BIM implementations. When it comes to live sections however, I think you are - without wanting to sound harsh - completely mistaken. The live section function in VW 12 is one of the best I've seen in recent times.

[Ariel]

>I think this is quite clear as to what i mean. Saying that 'There is no need for a rotate view command' maybe fair enough for you Shaun but for some of us it is a necessary and a sorely missed time-saving tool. Accuracy is not my problem with not being able to roate a view. Speed and efficiency of drafting are....! Especially on multi million euro jobs such as the ones we are comissioned to design.

Thank you for the post, Richie. You explained it very clearly for me. I do very similar projects all the time. But I'm still not convinced that this would make my work any faster. I prefer to view my plans in one direction. I'm also particularly concerned how much this would affect the VW interface (ie. OI palette, data display bar). Perhaps an "editing a layerlink in place" feature would make everyone happy instead. What do you think?

Ariel

[Ariel]

>What ArchiCAD does (or is supposed to do - it does make mistakes, for instance if you have an intersection of a brick interior wall and a concrete slab - Allplan does a better job at that), is draw the whole set of data not only in 2D, but also completely in 3D. VectorWorks 12 doesn't do that (yet?).

BaRa,

Can you please explain this again? Are you saying that live sections are only in 2d? Can VW12 do sectional perspectives?

Ariel

[Eoin R]

Richie

I think you are completely right. I am a VW user who started off using VW, moved by necessity to working on Mircostation and Autocad when I was with other offices and have then returned to VW when I set up my own office. I think VW is an excellent package and just needs two improvements to really make a major difference:

1. The ability to rotate views

2. Improving the referencing functionality

From my perusal of version 12 I don't see these being addressed. Both issues have been discussed repeatedly on this forum over the past year or two.

On a general note we use VW solely for 2D drawings.We use Sketchup for creating 3D CAD models and find it far faster and more intuitive than Vectorworks. My preference would be for NNA to concentrate on perfecting and improving the basic 2Dsoftware package over VW 3Dmodelling which I as an architect and any other architect I know never uses.

[mike m oz]

BaRA - I am very reassured by your praise of VW's Live Sections.

I concur with your comments that ArchiCAD's sections aren't all their made out to be.

[ 10-15-2005, 10:40 PM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

[mike m oz]

Chris - forgive me for being somewhat stupid but I don't quite get the point you are trying to make.

Can you please clarify - without the shorthand English and cryptic comments.

[ 10-15-2005, 11:00 PM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

[alanmac]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chris Manus:

As fashion dictates,sketchup is the flavor of the month

---

As far as Sketch Up is concerned it's got nothing to do with "fashion", its to do with a piece of software that comes along, and by its very nature, ease of use, end result and other virtues makes it a success.

I think Sketch Up is perfect example of a piece of software that, without huge amounts of money spent on promotion, has become highly successful because of the product itself.

Alan

[mike m oz]

Chris - I will concede that there are very few, full stop.

Even less so amongst the architects and designers. Many of them work on the principle of why have a dog and bark yourself. In otherwords they use mere mortals to do the hack work. Makes sense in a lot of ways.

I am pleased to see you rank VW ahead of ArchiCAD. I agree on that score.

Once the dust settles on the VW12 release, and we have both had a chance to digest it, we should get together over a cup of coffee and talk about this properly.

[ 10-16-2005, 10:10 AM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

[alanmac]

Hi Richie and other "rotators"

Just been looking once again at the various plug-ins etc. available and as Mike said before there is a free tool at Vectorbits.com to rotate the drawing. Whilst I don't want to enter into the debate that this should be in the program, surely the fact this function is available as a freebie at Vectorbits should make you a happy bunny - yes?

Alan

[ 10-16-2005, 01:32 PM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

[matto]

Alan et al,

the free plug-in fails to provide the true function.

That is the separation of Data from Representation.

The free plug-in you mention manipulates the data, corrupting it (for want of a better word) from what is originally was.

Yes there are workarounds, but they are all clearly workarounds not function by design.

Given that the new features in 12 seem to further the goal of v11 to separate Data from Representation, 2d workspace rotation would seem to be one of the big next steps in that goal.

As for how well Live Sections work in practice i guess we have to wait for the sales rep. to coming knocking on the door to gives us a demo. They certainly look very promissing.

[ 10-16-2005, 08:51 PM: Message edited by: iboymatt ]

[Jershaun]

OK Bara, I could be wrong cause I haven't worked with it yet. All I'm am judging this from is the PDF. Please correct me if I'm wrong but what I'm saying is to visually see a concrete hatch where the section line cuts the concrete, visually see a brick hatch where the section line cuts the walls, etc. From looking at the kitchen cupboard section, I don't see the thickness of the wood and the intersection of the wood and brick and so forth. If 12 can do all what I said then its good.

All the rotaters, I once again I say SmartCursor .

[alanmac]

Chris

Whilst I respect you have a different agenda to many other users, certainly me, as regards Vectorworks I don't in fact sit with the client doing as you suggest, but if it was appropriate and helped in the process of the client realising what they require then I see no problem with that.

It appears you are so hard done by and have such and axe to grind with certain sectors of your industry that you fail to consider that others use this software under different circumstances.

As such find enhancements, new features or the failure to implement your needs as a reflection of poor business practices today and pandering to these sectors of your industry.

I'd even go so far as to say what you require from VW is so specialised it may never have what you want.

As for "fashion" don't you think design is something you should pay for, and good design even more, just the same as any other service.

Apple have traded very successfully using this as one of the cornerstones of their business. Do you not think that the way the interface of Vectorworks has been "designed" to make it easier or nicer to use should not be paid for?

My industry, exhibition design and build and other associated display work, design, quote and pitch totally for free - yes free.

So we will travel, take a brief, go away, create a design with perspective views, plans, costings and other documentation to support our pitch. We then travel back to the client with our mounted visuals, documents and make the presentation.

The prospective client will have also called in other companies to do the same, in some cases unprofessional ones will call in up to half a dozen, all under the same free design basis.

Included in that pitch is a price, one that if the design does not change, we have and will to adhere to.

We then go away and wait, and wait. If we are successful then we a get a phone call.

All this is at our own expense, at no cost to the prospective client.

So yes, in real terms it's not free, but an overhead we have to accept, and in doing so we as a business seek ways to reduce that.

So if a program such as Sketch Up or even Vectorworks provides us with the tools, or work methods to increase our chances at convincing the client, or better explaining our concept to him so we may win the pitch then I'm all for it.

Ease of use, and speed such as in SU is also a good thing, as time is money - you'll agree on that part I'm sure.

It's not fashion, its a change in working practises brought about by new innovations in the tools we use - these days computers and software, as opposed to drawing boards, pens and marker pads of a few years ago.

It is indeed horses for courses, but I think with all due respect your comments would carry more weight and acceptance if they were not covered in a thinly veiled rant with contempt and vilification of fellow practitioners within your industry sector.

All the best

Alan

[quigley]

Getting back on topic.....

Lets get Katie or someone to post a video link showing us the live sections in action?

Also with regards to the rotated views, yes I agree this needs to be in the application - sooner rather than later. It can be faked in 3D by rotating the workplane but to me thats no solution (given that fact that most users never use 3D). Every Autocad user I have trained has asked for this and it IS a genuine requirement.

Rotating the geometry is not a solution, especially when using datum points that are relative to the sheet origin and specified orthogonally.

As for accuracy, VectorWorks is as accurate as any other drafting system out there - computationally speaking. What leads to errors are poorly thought out interfaces to tools. Every CAD app has these. When users are under pressure to meet deadlines these cracks start to show.

I did notice that the workgroup referencing has been changed to allow "live" updating over a network and (more importantly) file independent origins so that the referenced file is not placed into the file relative to its origin (thats my take on the pdf anyway).

On all the architects I train this is their biggest issue using WGR especially when referencing site surveys.