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2021 - Material Control Over Cut


Tom Klaber

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6 hours ago, Tom Klaber said:

I think that AutoCad's high satisfaction rate is because they do not know any better

^^This is so true, a lot of people think AutoCAD is market leader so it must be the best CAD program.

 

VW is still a very good CAD program, but the biggest short term improvement for workflow is most likely to fix all those long existing tools that have issues and then expand with the new things. If the  core (or foundation if you want to call it that way) is not solid then it will drag down your workflow and eventually hamper the other tools as well.

The competition is closing in on features where VW had an advantage, at least that is my opinion, so if VW wants to stay ahead then it should really fix the issues that almost everyone has been mentioning lately (door/window tool, stairs, things being all over the place or needing workarounds instead of just working etc.), then it is hopefully also becoming more attractive to users of other CAD software.

 

If only VW would fix the mentioned issues and implement 2 or 3 more things (though it would require licensing a few extra bits of the Parasolid kernel) then I could settle on just using VW as my main CAD program for almost all  (i.e. 98-99%)  of my work across multiple disciplines. Now... not so much, not by a long shot actually.


 

Edited by Art V
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1 hour ago, elepp said:

I am more excited about the guys from belgium. They leverage AI in a interesting and useful way and seem to be very nimble in terms of development of new features.

Yes, and it is progressing in such a way that it may become a viable alternative for VW if they manage to improve some tools. If it were ever to get a class/layer structure similar to VW and get a graphics handling like VW (e.g. rectangles being actual rectangles and not polygons) then I might end up also using it for things that I was exclusively using VW for. It is one of the competitors closing in on VW imho.

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You don't need to. What we need to know is in the Neufert, which every architect has.

I even had it in Italy. I had the first edition from my grandfather and bought a more recent one for the university.

It's in every singular educational book for learning how to symbolise plans and similar.

 

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I have to say that I have to yet come across another cad software producing nice drawings as Vectorworks. So far only exporting dwg files to adobe illustrator has resultated in something better for me. So far Vectorworks has been our multitool for all kinds of use cases, from massing models to diagrams to booklets and construction drawings.

Non the less I feel that VW Inc. and its german reseller need to ramp up the development. I hope each one of us that is actively participating here is using the oportunity next week to ask questions about the future development. They need to feel the urgency of the situation for us.

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I confide in Computerworks to push our needs affecting the core application.

Rest assured that they don't listen to us, meaning you, meaning me, but they will listen to Computerworks as representative of a collective need.

 

DACH.

Who's loosing [edit: historical, long term] users because the core doesn't reflect our basic needs.

Edited by _c_
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True, if the local distributor indicates a need then it is usually listened to, that is my experience as well. Despite that I still voice my opinions/needs here as well.

 

The key to have a chance to get something changed or implemented is to build a use case with examples etc. where there is a need for missing functionality or things not working as they should and suggest what the improvements could be. Just complaining it is useless isn't going to work. Even then it can take few years before something is fully implemented and working properly if it is a somewhat complex matter.

 

As I said before VW is still a good CAD program but it could be much better if they would finally fix all those long standing issues with the standard tools that quite a few users are complaining about, or at least communicate what the problem is that makes it take so long to fix those issues. I do realise that VW has limited resources compared to a.g. Autodesk and that things have to be prioritised but better communication would certainly not hurt them.

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I just checked. I filed 169 wish reports since 2007, whereby many were bugs alright. I filed them as wish for politeness. Go figure.

Of those 169, 14 are resolved, and not because I wished it, rather for other indirect reasons, such as tool dropped altogether.

This year I saw a wish from 2008 being finally fixed (again indirectly): worksheet criteria access is back. I don't think that they fixed it because I asked.

 

I filed 1523 reports since 2007.

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I'm not saying things get fixed because one person is asking, though it could happen, but providing input here and to the local distributor with details will increase the chance for changes to happen. When it comes from the local distributor the head office will usually not know who made the request/suggestions. The more people do it here and through the local distributor the more chance there is something will change/move.

 

It's like advertising, it works because of repetition, so the more often an issue is brought up, the more chance for change.😁

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2 minutes ago, Art V said:

 

It's like advertising, it works because of repetition, so the more often an issue is brought up, the more chance for change.😁

 

LOL! In my dark past I developed a bot to read up fast infos from the Developer wiki.

I should do one now for filing every day the same things to Computerworks.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I'm sorry I didn't find this thread and weigh in earlier. 

 

On 9/15/2020 at 6:33 PM, Tom Klaber said:

Material currently seems to controls fill and texture.  Material should also control cut fill. 

Because of the million years of how people expect Plan view to work in VW, applying solid fills to things has always meant surface color, and hatch fills has always meant cut appearance. So the material's Fill is its cut appearance.  Surface appearance comes from the Texture and the texture's Surface Hatch if any.

 

On 9/18/2020 at 10:54 AM, Tom Klaber said:

With Materials - we solve that problem where the object can be in A_MILLWORK but then have the material be controlled by a separate centrally controlled resource.  I see no reason why this resources could not control cut hatch, above + below, plan hatch, and render texture.  I think this new resource is a great foundation but needs to be expanded.  I am glad that it is making the classes needed smaller.

Materials work perfectly fine with sections and horizontal sections. In fact, nothing has really changed here. The material provides the hatches instead of the class, but it is still the viewport deciding how it is cutting objects (cut, not, above/beyond) according to all the usual settings, and provides the pen in the usual ways. 

 

On 9/29/2020 at 1:58 AM, _c_ said:

Given that there should be the option NOT to have attributes coerced into the Material, should a cut plane interface be developed, please mind that in many parts of the world architects use semantical cuts and not a thick surrounding line as is the praxis in USA.

 

So we need the pen being set by the Materials, not being somewhere else.

We think the pen is due to the context and purpose of the drawing and object. Very few places does the pen depend on the specific material ('concrete'); instead it's almost always the purpose ('component-structural').  This is how we were able to shrink the component classes down to 4-5 representing component's function, and why pen is not in the material itself.

 

For overrides, classes can still override the pen.  Or the rest of the appearance if materials are set to use objects' class.  DataVis can also be used to override appearance of materials and classes, and you can combine DV and class overrides in a single viewport. Or stack viewports, or whatever your workflow is.  We tried not to take anything away (except too many classes!) and give you more tools.

 

C, I know Matt and Chris talked with you about trying to make Plan look like horizontal sections. If that must be your workflow, I think your best bet is making materials that are set to use objects' class attributes (or to not use materials).  A simple script can zip thru and change all their fills/textures to by-class. You won't benefit from the simplified class structure, but I believe it will be the same result as the old fully class-based system, and you'll still be able to do material reporting without it affecting appearance at all.

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
On 9/19/2020 at 1:08 PM, rDesign said:

I am really confused by this as well: In the Concrete Reinforced Precast MT (UK, also US) posted above, the Steel Rebar % is at 100% of the Material volume, equal to the volume of Concrete. An equal ratio of Concrete to Rebar seems a little high to me...

This was a content bug, and it's been reduced (I think to 2%).

 

On 9/23/2020 at 1:48 AM, _c_ said:

BTW, the employed hatch in all concrete materials (Concrete Precast Reinforced and derivates) is far too large for 1:5

I'll make sure there's a bug for this.

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On 9/19/2020 at 9:31 AM, Art V said:

But it could also be 20/20/20 making a total of 60% or 100/100/100 making a total of 300%. Or it could be that it recalculates the values in proportional percentages relative to the listed percentages, e.g. keeping all 3 materials at 100% would equal into 33.3333 %  part in the compound material.

 

What bothers me about this lack of information is that without trial and error I have no idea how the mass of a compound material will be calculated if the total of the composing materials is not 100%.

Part of this gets at the old dilemma of how do you model, and how much do you model. 

 

For things like concrete and reinforcing steel, we wanted to keep them independent from each other volume-wise so that if you were happy with the concrete report, you wouldn't have to risk messing it up to get the steel report correct.  Like you would if it was 98% + 2%, had to total to 100, and you were forced to adjust one to adjust the other.  It's not terribly realistic for multiple 100% volumes, but we want to stay out of your way to do what you need to do.

 

Area-based is more interesting.  Consider something like insulation-backed siding. You could model this as a compound where both the insulation and the siding are both 100% of the surface area, and this makes complete sense. Or you could model them as separate insulation and siding wall components, each with a single simple material. It's fully in your control to do either.  Again, the compounds give you the ability to throw additional reportable bits in later without screwing up any of your visuals or existing reports.

 

 

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Oh, and nothing says you can't use a simple material to represent something more complex.  In the insulated-siding case, the Component approach will put both appearances in your drawing.  The Compound will not.  In some ways using a simple material might better model a manufacturer's product: siding that happens to have the right lambda for the insulation.

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1 hour ago, Rick Berge said:

 

For things like concrete and reinforcing steel, we wanted to keep them independent from each other volume-wise

 

1 hour ago, Rick Berge said:

Area-based is more interesting.

 

This is exactly what causes the confusion, because it is totally not clear what the percentages represent, volume or area as per your reply. What if one assumes it is volume while the other means area.

 

If it is volume of e.g. concrete with rebar then what is the volume of rebar based on, the actual material volume of the bars themselves or the volume of its cage/bounding box? How do the different volumes interact?

 

The same with area, area of which relative to what? A percentage of the largest area of the compound material? I.e. the largest area is 100% and any material occupying less area is expressed as a percentage of the material with the largest area? Or if the largest area is not 100% of its own area but a percentage of a larger area in which it resides, then how are the other area percentages defines, as a percentage of the containing area or as a percentage of the area of the material that has the largest area within the compound material? e.g. if the rebar does not have the same length and width as the concrete area wise.

 

The issue is not that there are multiple percentages but that virtually no "ordinary user" has any clue how to interpret this. That is what needs clarification in the help file and then we can discuss the implementation of this, whether it is useful or needs improvement.

 

Edited by Art V
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It's not all that complex. Remember this is all about the object (or component) to which the material is applied. 100% is that whole object.  If you report on something volume-based, it's 100% of the volume the object claims to have. If you report on something area-based, it's 100% of the relevant surface/sectional area the object claims to have.  These are the same as what you'd see in worksheets for the object, e.g. =volume. 

 

If this is a wall component, area is essentially the surface area of the wall component's face, or the top surface area of a slab or hardscape's component. 100% is that whole surface. If you say some material is 50%, we don't care what half you mean. That could be 50/50 alternating brick colors in a pattern, or left half paved/right half metaled. Volume could be a mix (like concrete and rebar) or some sort of striping (concrete in steel decking pans?).

 

We're not modeling the "framing" of how the rebar is installed and calculating linear feet * cross section.  This is googling 'percentage of steel in concrete' and getting an estimate. You can adjust the estimate until you get what you want, and you might very well need to do that based on the size or nature of the steel (#3 - #5 rebar, mesh guage, etc) and what's being reinforced (slab, column).

 

You can set a material to report as area-based, volume-based, or both. Often only one will make sense. E.g. surface area of insulation board or batts to calculate BOM. 

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16 hours ago, Rick Berge said:

C, I know Matt and Chris talked with you about trying to make Plan look like horizontal sections. If that must be your workflow, I think your best bet is making materials that are set to use objects' class attributes (or to not use materials).  A simple script can zip thru and change all their fills/textures to by-class. You won't benefit from the simplified class structure, but I believe it will be the same result as the old fully class-based system, and you'll still be able to do material reporting without it affecting appearance at all.

 

 

@Rick Berge 

 

I am a practical person. As most here, I go for a healthy balance of disadvantages and advantages.

For the moment I can

  • generate nearly perfect plans in 1 click using classic top-plan viewports
  • transfer the attributes across all files I need, simply importing the class attributes, 3-4 clicks, since I need various files with different outputs
  • display this in any conceivable file through references. Crop it to needed size and scale and off you go.

To achieve the same in horizontal sections, I must

  • regenerate the section at each change, ??? clicks
  • add some extra stuff to every symbol I have, ??? clicks
  • add in annotation whatever is missing (loads of stuff), ?????? clicks
  • do that across all viewports (sync problems, obsolescence problems) , ?????? clicks
  • do that across files? ?????? clicks
  • somehow fight the wrong stacking I am seeing now, what is that, then? Because I admit that I touched horizontal sections once and shrugged them off as useless 5 minutes later, so I wanted to try them better now. Still no go.
  • .....

So I am all for new features when they bring me to more quality and/or more efficiency, but this achieves neither.

I see it as an entertaining exercise and for the moment I happily create 1 extra class, if that is what it takes.

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@_c_ That is a point that is rarly broad up here. Since a few versions we have now horizontal sections. And to me it is quiet unclear where VW Inc. is heading with that. The inconsistency in the tools does not give an indication. Will 2D plan view disappear completely and we work only in 3D and create our sections when needed, that end up on sheet layers? I hope not. I don't see that workflow happen for another 5 to 10 years in Germany. Maybe if section viewports become instantenous and I can work in them if needed. What we lack is a vision of how VW Inc. sees us professionals be doing our job in the future. Not necessarly what features will be developed but more of a general workflow approach to designing and building. Similar to how we as architects first show the overall concept of a building and the feelings we want to evoke with our design. And the next step than is flashing out how we want to achieve this. I am lacking the design phase 😉

Something like this:

 

Maybe next week would be a good time to do that, or ask questions about it.

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14 hours ago, elepp said:

@_c_ That is a point that is rarly broad up here. Since a few versions we have now horizontal sections. And to me it is quiet unclear where VW Inc. is heading with that. The inconsistency in the tools does not give an indication. Will 2D plan view disappear completely and we work only in 3D and create our sections when needed, that end up on sheet layers? I hope not. I don't see that workflow happen for another 5 to 10 years in Germany.

 

So there are millions of workflows, apparently, where a plan is not a plan (=Grundriss), therefore you know how high the Architect is in the target list for VW.

Somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd million?  I have no idea.

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On 10/2/2020 at 9:00 PM, Rick Berge said:

It's not all that complex. Remember this is all about the object (or component) to which the material is applied. 100% is that whole object.  If you report on something volume-based, it's 100% of the volume the object claims to have. If you report on something area-based, it's 100% of the relevant surface/sectional area the object claims to have.  These are the same as what you'd see in worksheets for the object, e.g. =volume. 

Thanks for the explanation attempt.

 

For area based reporting it does make sense as it is 100% of the area which can apply to each component of the material.

 

For volume based it still remains confusing, yes 100% of the total compound material is used for the volume makes sense as long as it is about reporting the volume of the compound material, but 100% of the volume for each compounding material still doesn't make any logical sense and that is what is causing the confusion  and what needs clarification.

 

I'm looking forward to the update of the help file for clarification as well an any possible other things (tutorials etc.) to show how to use/interpret compound materials and its settings.

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On 10/4/2020 at 5:44 AM, _c_ said:

So there are millions of workflows, apparently, where a plan is not a plan (=Grundriss), therefore you know how high the Architect is in the target list for VW.

From my experience teaching and consulting offices the last few years, I have to staunchly disagree with VW Inc. here. That's an old paradigm. Until a few years ago architects using Vectorworks scoft at predefined setting, when it came to their workflow. They wanted to define everything in terms of visual appearance of their drawings. Class structures where as unique as the offices. But now I get constantly asked if I can give them a predefined standard class structure, where they have to set up very little.

With the growing demand for little bim and big bim, people have less and less time focusing on plan production. A proper bim project involves lots of information management. And the time it consumes in your daily business is growing. The only way to solve this is a standarized workflow that produces drawings automatically with minimal manual input from the architect. So far I don't see the software heading in that way. But I am rambling on...

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