!Restored: Vectorworks 2009 BIM: Its Happening... Its Not Happening

[Aaron Bourgoin]

The press release and the white paper on this product are reminiscent of the American Presidential Election: casting doubt on the competition's experience and outlook.

"From a conceptual and philosophical perspective, BIM is a better way to design, construct, and manage buildings. It allows architects to design more efficiently, construction firms to better manage costs, and owners to stay on budget and control day-to-day operational costs. BIM fulfills the promise
of economic gain and also better business relations. Excessive change orders, resulting from communication errors or missing information, negatively reflect on owner’s perception of architects and construction firms. Architects and construction firms with a reputation for costly overruns tend to lose business.

"As the key technology shared between architects and construction firms, CAD applications have taken center stage in the movement to take BIM mainstream. CAD’s ability to capture and represent the geographic information, building geometry, component relationships, and quantities and
properties of building components is at the heart of BIM. Several CAD vendors tout their applications as central to the BIM process, capable of managing the complex 3D information model generated on a BIM project. But are they really? As BIM evolved, architectural intelligence was built on top of primitive foundations. Many BIM applications have limited functionality and key elements of the model cannot be represented in 3D; most do not have a modeling kernel reliable or fast enough to handle large, detailed 3D models. Without the efficiency of a purpose-built 3D modeling kernel, good visualization becomes an extremely time-consuming process.

"We have the answer to BIM’s technological problems: adopt the time-tested platform used by the MCAD industry to build the best architectural 3D CAD solution available. With a purpose-built 3D modeling kernel, Vectorworks 2009 manages building complexity which previously tested the limits of
most BIM applications."

But then, Boingo:

At the Nemetschek Press Event, Ralph Grabowski reports this about Jim Flaherty's keynote theme which is

"BIM Isn't Happening...

...because it costs architects to implement BIM [building information modeling], but they do not get paid more for using it. (In the row ahead of me, Ed Goldberg was vigorously nodding his head in agreement.) Architects want a payback for themselves; they care not if the owner saves money down the road with BIM, because architects don't get any of that savings paid back.

"The key strength of Vectorworks is its free-form modeling, which products like Revit can't do. Mr Flaherty is pleased that Autodesk helps out Vectorworks by marketing BIM and Revit -- but then ends up selling AutoCAD.

"For five years, the #1 selling point of Vectorworks has been its presentation graphics -- outputting good looking drawings with gradients, transparency, 2D Booleans, and non-photorealistic effects in 2D and 3D. All this generated within Vectorworks, again something competitors can't do.

"Now there is a new key mission: Design. Mr Flaherty segregates design into four steps:

I. 2D.
II. 3D Conceptualization or Visualization.
III. Integrated Design and Development.
IV. Model-centric BIM [building information modeling].

Most customers are at step II, 3D Conceptualization; he's trying to get users to the next step, Integrated Design.

Step IV? It's a long way off. Model-centric BIM is the future that everyone talks about today. But there are lots of holes in the process, such as legal issues. Today, BIM works only for owner-builder-operators, such as GM building its own plants.

So, what are some of the limitations of competitors -- Revit, in particular?

* Modeling limitation; freeform modeling is needed to design things like spline-shaped roof edges. Vectorworks is the only one with NURBS surfaces.
* 3D speed and robustness; purely parametric modelers can't handle the model size once details are added.
* Complex UI; users face varying user interfaces when they switch between 2D and 3D packages from the same vendor. Vectorworks has the same UI for all its software.
* BIM slows down design; users spend too much time wrestling with the system.
* Good visualization is hard to get; customers find they have a hard time reproducing the beautiful renderings pictured on the vendor's Web site.

Mr Flaherty sees BIM as something that excites accountants, but not architects, and thinks that paper drawings will be the preferred output method for his lifetime -- as opposed to exchanging drawings electronically."

see the whole article at Issue #572 : : Setpember 16, 2008
http://www.upfrontezine.com/2008/upf-572.htm

Seems Mr. Flaherty has a different idea of what BIM is. His approach seems to be to say, everyone else's ideas about BIM are wrong or wrong headed. And then to take BIM back to CAD circa 1993.

[Anonymous]

LINZ wrote:
I noticed that Vectorworks offers solid modelling AND nurbs modelling. I understand what nurbs modelling is from using C4D, but what is solid modelling?

Wikipedia defines it as "the unambiguous representation of the solid parts of an object, that is, models of solid objects suitable for computer processing."

(as opposed to surface modelling or wireframe modelling.)

I thought the models in ArchiCAD looked fairly 'solid' but clearly not enough to get a tick on their chart!? There is probably some subtle technical nuance that says it isn't.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

I think there are a number of tick marks missing from the chart. It is projected onto a vertical surface so perhaps some of them just fell on the floor.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

LINZ wrote:
I am currently exploring Cinema 4D as a tool to create organic architectural forms. I noticed that Vectorworks offers solid modelling AND nurbs modelling. I understand what nurbs modelling is from using C4D, but what is solid modelling? Don't we already have that in AC with SMO?

I may be wrong, but my understanding of it, and of what solid modeling tends to refer to, in the professional VIZ and CG modeling industry, they are probably referring to having some level or degree of Polygonal or Subdivision modeling capabilities.

ArchiCAD strictly speaking does not have Solid modeling per se; it is more of an "object" modeler. Which means that outside of SEO (and they are careful and right to call it Solid ELEMENT operations - SEO - as opposed to SMO) you can't perform modifications of construction elements outside their pre-defined allowable parametric operations wherein it still retains the object "parametric" intelligence.

In other words, you can't curve or bend a roof along the axes perpendicular to its reference line and still have it read as a roof. You also can't arbitrarily bend a column in its Z-axis and still have it read as a column, just as you can't stretch just one side of a wall so that it's slanted without the help of Boolean operations (roof trim or SEO) . SEO's and roof trims are a partial work around to this limitation even though the object still reads as a whole object in ArchiCAD with a section of it visually subtracted. This is probably also the reason why they still can't get objects that have undergone SEO operations to read or show correctly in plan because, in object modeling SEO is really just a"fake" operation. So is the Complex profile manager which is really just a tool for creating "pre-defined" modifications (with obvious limitations) to the respective ArchiCAD construction elements (walls, columns and beams; you might be able to work out from this why you can't use the Complex profile manager with slabs or roofs or meshes, and why that will not be happening any time soon)

Now with a true Polygonal or Sub-D modeler, (or even surface modelers like Rhino and Sketchup) you can simply select one edge of your object, pull it up and voila, slanted object. Revit also suffers, from effectively the same limitations - although I'm not entirely certain how their new sweptblend function compensates for this, while still retaining parametricity.


Another interesting thing to note is that Maxonform actually did allow Solid modeling operations on ArchiCAD elements, except of course, that they didn't read as ArchiCAD objects and elements anymore once they were brought back into ArchiCAD. Now you might have an idea why they eventually killed it.

ArchiCAD's current engine doesn't support pure NURBS-modeling, polygonal modeling or Sub-D modeling on any appreciable level or degree. Hence the reason they probably got no credit in the solid modeling category, and why as I've said many times before, they are simply going to have to completely overhaul the engine at some point to allow the program to take advantage of all these new tool-sets that were developed long after they first created the first iteration and version of the ArchiCAD engine. Which the present one is still largely based on.

[Link]

Very well explained Bricklyne.

Thanks,
Link.

[Dwight]

A perfect example of solid modeling is pattern making from a doubly curved surface - unwrapping a surface to be flat. Form- Z does this well.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

How does Solids modeling bring Vectorworks any closer to being a BIM tool? Is there any intelligence in the blob or is it just a blob?

For example, intelligence might mean parametric behaviour embedded in the object that Soild or NURBS-based modeling would do a better job of; or possibly the ability for another engine to do work on the object, like display one component of the assembly on a toggle (like composites in 12); or dis-assemble the blob - flatten it out on the floor?

Is that the advantage of Solid and NURBS based modeling over the apparently antiquated ArchiCAD GDL-based primitives (Walls, Slabs, Roofs)?

This isn't a lipstick on a pig thing is it?

[Dwight]

How can you talk about the future president that way?

[Aaron Bourgoin]

I'm just trying to keep the thread on topic. There seems to be a bit of a Nemetschek Reality Distortion Field active here. I still don't understand how the Parasolids engine brings it into the realm of BIM.

[Anonymous]

If you see the linked video then you can get an idea of what Vw is trying to achieve. There are already some good tools inside Vw, using things like the ones presented.

http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/campaigns/breakthrough/index.shtml

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Thanks, Mr, Gog. I will check this out.