Project Sharing Data Control

[_James]

OnShape have a great system for managing changes and reviewing versions of shared files - more info here

It would be great for Vectorworks to have some form of version history such as this so that one can look back on the file/project and the path it has taken to reach the current state.

 

I guess this wouldn't just be limited to project sharing files, but having richer version information would be a big improvement. Presently we just have files distinguished by file name "xxx-option 1" etc. Having these linked together to see the trajectory of the project over time makes it easier to go back to earlier versions, incorporate changes from others (in project sharing" and crucially - visualise the amount of times the client has required changes to the drawings!

 

I mentioned this to the project sharing team on the Vectorworks OpenHouse a few years ago - it would be great for project sharing to deal with changes like pull requests (or at least my basic understanding of them) in software development so that data isn't just overwritten or deleted but the file is forked in another direction but one can look back on where it came from.

[Matt Overton]

That looks to basically the same Versioning system software engineers use to manage complex projects larger and small.

I'm very envious of the those tools and how useful they could be to BIM projects. 

 

Would dearly love to see a GIT based IFC federation system that worked with Multiple venders and lots of useful tools.

No more file formate worries or dealing with contract boundaries stopping co-ordination. As Blame and CodeOwners could really help streamline a single model being worked on by multiple companies.

[_James]

Absolutely @Matt Overton.

 

Additionally it could change the way in which project sharing happens for the better (in my opinion). 

Rather than the constant saving and committing and clashes that come with it, changes are incorporated more slowly and deliberately by being "pulled in" by the administrator/project leader once they have been checked and compared against the current situation.

 

Whilst I know there is a log in vectorworks to see what has been saved and committed, we find that save and commits are so frequent that it's difficult to unpick relevant changes from minor ones and a big issue is that no one fills in the box describing what they have changed!