Microstation vs. VectorWorks

[_c_]

I'd love to know what people thinks of Microstation, expecially switchers from Microstation to VectorWorks and the other way around.

Extensive search on the internet brought truly miserable results.

[Eoin R]

Orso

As a switcher from Minicad to Microstation and back to Vectorworks I would sum up the key differences as follows:

1. Microstation has better options for referencing files. You easily able to move, rotate and mask reference files. You can do most of this in Vectorworks but the process is more convoluted.

2. In Microstation you can rotate the drawing workspace which you cannot do in Vectorworks.

3. In 3D Microstation used to have very strong rendering options as a core part of the programme. We use VW primarily for 2D so I cannot comment on how they compare in this respect.

We chose Vectorworks for a number of reasons:

- cost

- ability to create good graphic presentations

- suitability for our scale of work

- mac compatible

- simplicity of use

- ease of importing image file formats (tiff, jpeg etc...)

I think Vectorworks is outstanding value for money and hopefully the features above where Microstation has an advantage will be available in Vectorworks in the not too distant future.

Hope the above helps

John Ryan

CPR Architects

[alanmac]

Try asking your question over on the Architosh Forums, you may get some additional opinions over there, although as John has touched on, Vectorworks is Apple OS compatible and Architosh is a Apple OS promoting site, whilst as you I'm sure are aware, Microstation is Windows only.

http://architoshforums.forest.net/

Alan

[eric.rktek]

I agree with John CPR. The two biggest things that I liked about Microstation were the robust reference file controls and the ability to easily rotate your view. I used Microstation for some 3D work and it seemed fine. I enjoyed using Microstation much more than AutoCad, but chose Vectorworks when I opened up my own office. I felt that Microstation was a good CAD program if you do skyscrapers or other really large scale projects where many people are going to be collaborating on the project, in a large office environment. This is not the kind of projects I work on now that I've opened my own shop. Also, I wasn't about to pay the price for a full version of Microstation when comparing it to the features and costs of Vectorworks. Vectorworks really shines with its graphical abilities for 2D and 3D work. It is making strides with its reference file capabilities with V12 as well, but still has plenty of ways to go.

[P Bartoli]

I've been working with Microstation for about 10 years (since release 4) on Macintosh. Too bad it's out of development for this platform since 1997 (latest release for Mac OS is 5), anyhow it keeps rocking even under OSX.

I find it a very robust CAD, flexible and powerful. As already said its referencing capabilities are excellent. Some years ago I was able to reference some 20 drawings (each was around 5MB) from city maps: this might sound normal right now but it wasn't some years ago running with a mere 128mb ram... Microstation was way way ahead of the competitions in 1995, still working after 10 years without crashing a single day...

On the contrary it's a very complex application, I keep on forgetting where to find some commands. I read in the last release they added some 900 commands. Its complexity is also it power: you can customize almost anything from the interface to custom commands.

For those looking for 3d, Microstation Modeler is a enhanched version with parametric geometries (btw, who had parametric 3d in 1995?).

Pro:

- very powerful referencing (when will we have this in VW??)

- very fast, still faster than VW under osx...

- very good implementation of curves (Bezier b-splines etc), much more controllable than in VW

- imports/exports 3D IGES and SAT

- plots to hpgl, this mean you get small plotfiles, drawings plots way faster than VW's.

- standard package includes rendering with raytrace, animation

Cons:

- scales. In Microstation you can't setup different scales for each layer, as you'd do in VW. You have to use refencing within the drawing. If you move you drawing to another folder the drawing might lose its reference (you can attach it again)

- acad compatibility. It's not anymore uptodate with Acad: its dxf get till release 13, so if you need to speak with the acad world you're out of business. This was one of the main reason I switched to Vectorworks

- image import and font management: not as flexyble as VW dealing with

- expensive compared to VW