Virtual Building Explorer for ArchiCAD 13

[Tibor Szolnoki]

Dear Talkers,

I’m glad to announce that the English version of Virtual Building Explorer for ArchiCAD 13 is available from today. Further language versions are coming in the following weeks.

This new release introduces Virtual Building Explorer to our Macintosh users as well. Supported operating systems now are Mac OSX 10.5, 10.6, Windows XP and Vista 32-64-bit. The Windows 7 version is currently under testing. First results indicate that performance on Win 7 highly depends on the driver of the graphics card so compatibility check before purchase is highly recommended.

New features of VBE for AC13 include:

• Option to save self-running application cross platform (Win/Mac) project files
• Option to measure distances in imperial or metric units
• New Ray-tracing rendering engine (“Headlight”) with optional sun shadows (F3)
• New rendering styles (“Goraud” and “Metal”) for quick navigation in larger models
• New Background Options: Sky, Black, Gradient
• Option to display the Sun Flare during navigation

The upgrade for VBE for AC13 is free for all VBE for AC12 customers. VBE for AC13 is downloadable from the VBE website:
http://www.graphisoft.com/products/virtual-building-explorer/.
VBE for AC12 customers can use the same license serial number and password to run VBE for AC13 but first they have to deactivate their VBE for AC12.

The 7-days trial version and the updated sample project files are also available on the VBE website.

For pricing information and order please contact your local ArchiCAD reseller:
http://www.graphisoft.com/purchase/

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the mac version. I also am thankful for the trial versions of this, Eco Designer and MEP. Good to play with them before purchase.

[Anonymous]

I couldn't wait to check out the Mac version so I downloaded the three sample VBE buildings. And found two bugs on my original MacBook Pro (CoreDuo 2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1600 256 MB, 10.6.1).

1. The program did not respond to an external mouse (usb or bluetooth - only worked with the built-in trackpad).
2. The responsiveness of the mouse in the VBE menu system was horrible, to track across the three lines of menus would take five to ten swipes across the trackpad.

Hopefully these minor issues can be corrected because I think this is a great tool for client visualizations (but clients will be even less inclined to overcome interface issues.)

[Karl Ottenstein]

I'm happy to have the Mac version - and that each version exports a runable viewer for either Mac or Windows. So, the workflow is good in terms of one-step export and then file creation for either platform.

Pictures / images in the model using the picture object in the library (with frame) or the parapicture object (image on a plane) work fine. The alpha channel in images is ignored though - so no chain link fence / etc. That needs to be fixed.

VBE still has a tremendous flaw in its programming that prevents me from really recommending it. When you run VBE, it takes over your input devices and you are not able to switch to any other application at all until you exit VBE. Not even cmd-tab (Mac) or alt-tab (Windows) will let you switch to another application. I saw this with VBE 1 under Windows, but just assumed it was a version 1 flaw that would be immediately fixed.

This might be considered a minor inconvenience for the base VBE product. But for the VBE-G with global illumination, it is a deal breaker for several reasons. I'm on an 8 core MacPro. While VBE-G computes the global illumination solution, I cannot do any other work... and it estimates literally hours to complete. Worse, VBE-G does not even use more than one core ... and in fact it only uses about 60% of one core! So, my machine is basically sitting idle, the process will take forever, and I cannot do any other work. This is just plain stupid and unacceptable. There should be a background Global Illumination computation process that can run on its own ... and it should be multithreaded to use all available cores.

After being used to Artlantis using 100% of all 8 of my cores ... in the background and in a low priority way that lets me continue to use my machine for all kinds of other work while renderings are generated, VBE feels absolutely like going back to DOS. I could scream over dashed hopes for this product.

The Global Illumination view gives such a superior sense of space than the other views in VBE, that this must be fixed.

Karl

[Anonymous]

Karl wrote:
But, VBE still has a tremendous flaw in its programming that prevents me from really recommending it. When you run VBE, it takes over your input devices and you are not able to switch to any other application at all until you exit VBE. Not even cmd-tab (Mac) or alt-tab (Windows) will let you switch to another application. I saw this with VBE 1 under Windows, but just assumed it was a version 1 flaw that would be immediately fixed.

This might be considered a minor inconvenience for the base VBE product. But for the VBE-G with global illumination, it is a deal breaker for several reasons. I'm on an 8 core MacPro. While VBE-G computes the global illumination solution, I cannot do any other work... and it estimates literally hours to complete. Worse, VBE-G does not even use more than one core ... and in fact it only uses about 60% of one core! So, my machine is basically sitting idle, the process will take forever, and I cannot do any other work. This is just plain stupid and unacceptable. There should be a background Global Illumination computation process that can run on its own ... and it should be multithreaded to use all available cores.

Karl

I just found out that this is true. While I like the global illumination, the time element and not being able to switch away to another program is tough to swallow.

[Anonymous]

Thompson, wrote:
I couldn't wait to check out the Mac version so I downloaded the three sample VBE buildings. And found two bugs on my original MacBook Pro (CoreDuo 2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1600 256 MB, 10.6.1).

1. The program did not respond to an external mouse (usb or bluetooth - only worked with the built-in trackpad).
2. The responsiveness of the mouse in the VBE menu system was horrible, to track across the three lines of menus would take five to ten swipes across the trackpad.

Hopefully these minor issues can be corrected because I think this is a great tool for client visualizations (but clients will be even less inclined to overcome interface issues.)

I ran into this same problem with the mouse. For people like me who don't have an internal trackpad is there a way to make the mouse work on a Mac? For me it is not a minor issue, it makes this program pretty useless. Karl do you have the same mouse problems?

[Karl Ottenstein]

Michael wrote:
Karl do you have the same mouse problems?

No; mouse navigation completely fluid on my Mac Pro / 10.6.1 if I only have mice plugged in. (I tried with an extra mouse plugged in and switched between them.)

Aha. Yes, there is a bug in VBE and input devices. I plugged in my Wacom tablet and started VBE. My mouse worked normally- except that I could no longer look up and down while walking, only look left and right. I tried the Wacom, and I got the weird behavior you guys mention. I tried to switch back to my mouse and could not - the mouse cursor was stuck at the bottom of the screen. I could hit ESCape to get the VBE menus, but there are no shortcut keys to navigate the menus, so I had to force quit.

Apparently VBE is too dumb to detect multiple input devices that have different drivers. I'm guessing that the touchpad would have to be disabled from Preferences before running VBE for a mouse to work properly on a Mac laptop... I'd still call it a bug.

Karl

[Piotr Dobrowolski]

Remark on Windows 7 install - moreover - serializing!!!
It is important for running the licence manager app - as administrator (probably due to new UAC in w7 - maybe only 64 bit)
When the licence manager is run as normal user - even with admin credentials - the VBE is serialized - but not the Archicad addon - resulting error exporting model to VBE - displaying that VBE is not serialized.

Best Regards,
Piotr

PS OT:the same thing hapens when trying to serialize Artlantis on W7 - the first - serializing run must be done as administrator.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your input Karl.

Here's an update on mouse issues with VBE OSX. I have found a work around for the mouse problem. If I disable the drivers for my mouse (USB Overdrive in my case), the mouse works as it should in VBE. I had to disable the global setting, not the application setting, for it to work but there may be some tinkering that can be done to automate the process. Not thrilled about the extra steps I need to take every time I use this program but at least now it's usable.

[Ben Cohen]

Karl wrote:
Not even cmd-tab (Mac) or alt-tab (Windows) will let you switch to another application.Karl

Karl if you have two monitors you can switch applications (on PC anyway). But you can't switch on a single screen. Zermatt was the same. This makes is very hard to work on the computer but its kind of possible. re Artlantis - I am amazed at how well it uses system resources, you really don't need a dedicated rendering box anymore.

I am really happy to have a Mac version, the sample file seems to play with very little problem. The only problem I have found with VBE is it will not run on lower spec machines, so when sending a VBE file to a client you have no idea if the file will run.

VBE is a great tool and I sure it was no mean feat to port it to the mac. Prop's to GS.