Now I have to say that my first thought is that the yearly releases should be done closer to Christmas as it seems that the elves at Nemeschek-land work all year long fulfilling the wishes of all the good little boys and girls in the real design world. Really, 100 improvements and a bunch of new features, what more could one ask Santa to bring us? Well they do charge for these presents so one still has to ask whether or not they are worth the added expense.
In this review I am not able to address all of the improvements, added features, etc. There are too many. I am just going to sort of randomly pick out a few and comment on some that stand out at first glance. The best way to see them all is to go to this site. And you will notice that my comments are directed mostly towards the use of the features by an architect, because that is what I know best.
Working Planes: Handwriting is on the Wall
The first new feature that I noticed with affection is the ability to select a working plane by just clicking on it and then being able to work directly on it, adding text, cut outs, new parts and so on. (see image 01) I have up to now been too lazy to really use working planes choosing instead to sort of work around them. This is a great new feature. But on my computer at least I have noticed a bit of a time lag as the changes get updated in 3D. This is one of the many issues that come up as a program gets more complicated. Older computers have a harder time keeping up.
The handwriting in on the wall, that is if you select the working plan then type some text it will be on the wall or plane selected in 3D, this I believe could be done before but now it’s much easier. Also dimensions can be added in a 3D view so it is much easier to show the height of an object for example.
Pushing and Pulling
This is not really new from 2011, but by easily selecting the working plane it also becomes easier. One thing I thought would be fun and useful was to draw a curved line on a working plan in 3D and then pull it up to a height and turn it into a wall by extruding it. That didn’t work. Then I tried to change my curved object by offsetting it. That didn’t work either. What does work is to draw any shape in 2D then offset it using the close open curves (also works with straight lines) mode then use the push pull tool to stretch it up to whatever height you want. It could also just be extruded at that point. The thing that makes this interesting is the ability to easily create curvilinear shapes that can become walls or maybe areas of glass. (see image 01)
The Push Pull tool gains efficiencies despite it being fundamentally different because you simply do not have to select the working plane on an object now. That can be done in automatic mode, saving you many steps. You can also toggle that automatic mode off, a handy feature at times.
01 – Offsets and shape making in Vectorworks 2012. Note that text can be easily added to any plane by selecting it by just clicking on the plane, thereby making it the working plane and then typing text (see text on blue section, as well as imported image).
You gotta love the ability to change the size and angle of tiles and hatches on the fly; wow this one is cool. It’s great for anyone who does layouts of paving for example. I almost made myself crazy doing this a few versions back working on the design of a small piazza in Italy.
next page: Collaboration
Collaboration
Collaboration is one of the complaints I’ve seen often about Vectorworks…that it is not the greatest program for larger offices with several people working on the same project. Of course there are many large offices using the program and it is fairly easy to coordinate several designers working together on a project using viewport referencing and a federated file system arrangement. But in this release there are no significant new features or improvements in this area. IFC support is the linchpin by which extensive collaboration takes shape. And the company has not added structural, MEP or energy modules to its family of products, which could allow engineers and consultants to flush out a naturally collaborative BIM platform around their technology.
Since I do most of my designing in 3D all of the improvements to this area are more than welcome. The revised stair tools come to mind here. In the past, in order to have stairs show up on both 2D and 3D views one had to fiddle around with the stairs. I would generally put the stairs in a separate layer that could be turned on or off. Now that stairs know what floor they are on that won’t be necessary. They also adjust themselves to the height between floors, so if we change floor heights the stairs change as well. The only problem is adjusting the floor plan for the added horizontal space required, but at least it will be obvious that a change in the floor plan may be needed. This is something that might be forgotten otherwise.
Many Roles
Vectorowrks still remains a “multipurpose” tool. That is, it is not just designed for architects, so one might find that it is not as automated as some other programs. We can’t have our cake and eat it too. If we want a tool that allows tremendous flexibility then we have to accept the fact that it is not going to do everything automatically. However, Vectorworks 2012 does do a pretty good job in this area and with some tweaking an office that does a lot of repetitive design, apartments, production housing and so on…can really set up the program so that anything that is used more than once can be part of the office standards. The improved standard notes, easier to find symbols, scalable and save-able hatches and tiles, Renderworks styles that can be modified and saved, and improvements to worksheets among other improvements all make for added efficiency.
One problem is that whereas a final renderworks render can take just a few minutes some of the styles as they come preloaded can take hours to finish and as you can see below they don’t always produce useable results. (see image 02) Of course this depends a lot on the computer being used. Sometimes I think programmers should be made to spend a week using their programs on at least 5 year old computers, with little memory and a slow graphics card. In this economy there are many out there running their offices on aging machines.
02 – This simple image shows a Final Quality Renderworks rendering, no odd visual defects are present.
The two examples above are the exact same image the first rendered with final quality renderworks and the second with the pre-set artistic renderworks exterior setting. As you can see the second one isn’t really useful with those odd spots on the floor. Where they came from I don’t know. It could probably be fixed with some setting changes. The glass wall is cool. I made it by offsetting a polyline and extruding it then applying a clear glass texture. It worked fine on this fairly simple polyline.
03 – This image was made with the Pre-Set Artistic Renderworks Exterior Setting.
How many of us are really into BIM or even really working in 3D? Not that many but that is the future. What will make it work is being able to coordinate the architect’s drawings with all the others involved in a project. The IFC export-import option is what will make this work. And Vectorworks is pushing ahead of many others in this area. The real power of this comes when even a small firm can tie together all the various parts of a building project into are true building information model. Often the whole modeling concept is one which the client is not all that excited to pay extra for, but as the process becomes easier it will become just part of the work not really requiring a lot of extra input or time spent.
next page: Space Planning
Space Planning
The space planning set of tools are really useful and a feature that I think is sometimes overlooked. It has been around for years but is now getting more attention and has been improved. Now the spaces, for example, are defined as polylines so they can be easily changed and they can be any shape including curves. With this tool you can roughly layout the spaces you need in a new design, push them around manually to come up with the best arrangement, or use the matrix tool to define relationships and the tool arranges the spaces for you. Then when satisfied with the layout use the walls from polyline tool to create walls. Add windows and doors, use automatic dimensioning and you have at least a pretty good preliminary floor plan which also has room labels and areas listed and is if you set up your model properly already a 3D model. (see image 04-05) One thing I noticed is that the create wall tool is not smart enough to know that walls already exist so if you change the layout after making walls the tool just creates a whole new set of walls. You can work around this by putting the new walls on a separate layer or erasing the old walls first. Also it seems to work best when setting the walls to center-line mode, otherwise some walls that ought to line up don’t.
04 – This image shows the use of the space planning tool, updated in Vectorworks 2012.
Above is a quick space layout done manually. The room labels can be changed to include sizes, area and room numbers. All of the spaces can easily be changed, moved around or new ones added.
Here is the space layout with polygons converted to walls and automatic exterior dimensions. Adding windows and doors would be the next step. Or what about rendering it with a sketch format so the client doesn’t get scared thinking it’s the final plan? Vectorworks 2012 Architect has all these capabilities offering flexibility in how an architect can approach his work.
05 – Here the space planning tool’s results have been automatically converted into walls.
And then a simple 3D with an automatically created roof and some texture added gets you to the image you see below. (see image 06)
06 – From here the model has been given a roof quickly with the Roof Tool.
One more feature I want to mention is the geo-referencing or GIS. We recently designed a 100kw photovoltaic plant on the ground. Being able to easily locate the site, on say Google Earth, would have been very handy as we had to produce aerial photos with our 3D model located on it. Of course location is the all important aspect of photovoltaic for shadow studies, sun angle, etc. This would have been much easier than the way we had to do it. Here the GIS aspect this project was another good example of the universal uses to which Vectorworks 2012 can be put. Panels were made into symbols, as were the pieces of the frame work to enable us to easily create an overall model of the project as well as all the plans required. We did it with version 2011 but this is also an example of how version 2012 would have probably paid for itself in one project.
Closing Comments
I guess I could go on about features, but that would take a small book; hopefully this gives you a taste and inspires you to read more on the Vectorworks 2012 website. But I have to also conclude by saying that Vectorworks has really become a fantastic design tool that gets better and better. It is–as I have written in previous reviews–a one stop shop…that architects and designers can use to design just about anything. It remains intuitive and easy to learn. For architects and other designers it is the tool that lets them focus their attention on “design” while at the same time not forcing them to turn the CAD work over to CAD operators. It is a tool that feels comfortable and fits easily into the hand, like the classic cabinet makers tools that only got better with age.
Finally, are the improvements and added features worth the cost to upgrade. If you are not into 3D at all and are using the program in a kind of old fashioned drafting sort of way then maybe it’s not worth the move. You have to decide if the 2D improvements are going to save you time. I think they will if you use them. If you are into 3D, want to get going with BIM integration into the broader community then it’s a must to keep up with the technology, buy it and spend some time learning all the new features as well as the old ones you never learned how to use. Actually I think all designers should be designing in 3D. After all, what we design is not only two dimensional and being able to see it in 3D in other than our minds is a big advantage unless of course you don’t want your client to really understand what it looks like until it’s built. — JOHN HELM, NCARB
Pros: New automatic working plane makes working in 3D easier, nicer experience using Push-Pull tool; New floor-to-floor linking, stories and wall join improvements are all very beneficial; OpenGL shadow improvements; faster viewport updates add significant speed-up over past versions; new hatch from customized hatch; improvements to space planning tools; 2D X-ray mode and more…
Cons: 3D navigation in our opinion could still be improved (AutoCAD’s nifty 3D cube is a model example), the keyboard shortcuts for example for various axo views can often mis-align with where your model actually is within the model space; no big improvements to collaboration in this release; still no SE, MEP or energy modules. And finally, no iOS device or cloud support.
Advice: Vectorworks Architect 2012 has gotten better in this release with many good BIM features, despite lacking new substantial collaboration capabilities. Architects interested in BIM will enjoy this CAD/BIM software’s flexibility with both 2D/3D workflows. And with its RenderWorks add-on package users gain the famed Maxon Cinema 4D rendering engine directly into the package. This remains a small to mid-size firm top choice contender for your BIM platform.
Cost: Vectorworks 2012 comes in many versions. In this review we focused on Architect. Vectorworks Architect 2012 is 2,395.USD for a new single license and 503.USD for an upgrade for current 2011 users.
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