!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.

[TomWaltz]

~/archiben wrote:

william235711 wrote:
Sketchup, which isn't a BIM program ...

but equally, i don't think they're far off: with a back end database you could argue that they would be there. don't be put off by the front end simplicity

By that logic, if you put a modeling engine into MS Access, it could be a BIM program too!

[__archiben]

TomWaltz wrote:

~/archiben wrote:

william235711 wrote:
Sketchup, which isn't a BIM program ...

but equally, i don't think they're far off: with a back end database you could argue that they would be there. don't be put off by the front end simplicity

By that logic, if you put a modeling engine into MS Access, it could be a BIM program too!

apologies . . . i should have said: a back end database and an open mind.

[Anonymous]

Vw has an impresive native library, based on intelligents objects, too.

You know, I have Vectorworks and the library isn't good enough. I want everything, not 5% of what's out there. I don't have the latest version of VW but it isn't BIM. It's vaporware (as BIM) until they prove otherwise.

It used to be that Archicad offered something Autodesk did not. That's not true anymore. If 95% of the off the shelf/manufacturers libraries from windows to coolers doors to whatever is made for Revit and has the BIM information inside them, what advantage does Archicad give me? same question for Vectorworks. If I want to do serious 3-d work sans BIM, I am using Rhino. The scripting and plugins for Rhino are incredible.

If I want to integrate structural and mechanical, my choices lead me in one direction.

Revit is like Windows 95 to Archicad's Mac OS 7.5. These numbers lead to industry standards in terms of parts and having a pool of trained users. This gives Autodesk an incredible advantage with potential new users.

I don't see how Graphisoft can compete in the USA. Studios saw the writing on the wall and left for Revit. Studios sees themselves as being these very tech savvy bunch so that says something about their relationship with Graphisoft. They had the keys to the kingdom with an unprotected version of Archicad and direct support. I don't know the particulars of what happened.

Now if they made one program that took the strengths from Allplan, Vectorworks and Archicad then maybe they can compete. They would save some money and have more clout. I don't know but I am not holding my breath. I have work to do! 😉

[Anonymous]

Archicad, Vectorworks and Allplan survived being autocad everything you said. Things doesn't happens in one direction...

[TomWaltz]

~/archiben wrote:

TomWaltz wrote:

~/archiben wrote:
but equally, i don't think they're far off: with a back end database you could argue that they would be there. don't be put off by the front end simplicity

By that logic, if you put a modeling engine into MS Access, it could be a BIM program too!

apologies . . . i should have said: a back end database and an open mind.

Heck, if you have an open enough mind a pen and mylar make a BIM tool. We're talking about reality here, though.

Your forgetting a whole set of documentation and exporting tools. SketchUp is a nice program for what it does, but it's a long way from being a serious BIM tool.

It's still largely a modeler, no different from Rhino or Cinema 4D. It's got a couple cool additions, like its links to Google Maps, but that's not enough to say it's almost a BIM tool.

[Djordje]

Mr. wrote:
Right know, I think Vectorworks is the first program, of the three, with and option to import sketch up files from Google Warehouse. From now, almost three years!

Hm? Google plugin for ArchiCAD anyone? OK, not on the Mac ...

[Djordje]

william235711 wrote:
I don't see how Graphisoft can compete in the USA. Studios saw the writing on the wall and left for Revit.

So that they can keep on doing 2D in Revit?

Bad example. While they did use ArchiCAD, they did not utilize it.

[Anonymous]

SketchUp isn't BIM -- it's a surface modeler. You can't get volumetric quantities AFAIK from a surface modeler.

This is why VW is making all this noise about how great Parasolid is -- they're pumped about being that much closer to the "big BIM" apps. So good on them -- they've got that, and Parasolid is a great kernel, and it's a standard in the CAD world.

But you need more than that: you need an immensely scalable database, and you need to drive changes through the design like AC and Revit do. This parametric change engine is the heart of "Total BIM". And if VW goes single-file and gets its own change engine, then they've really stepped up to the plate. We shall see.

Importing GE files into VW does not advance the cause of BIM that much; it just means you can populate their drawings with SketchUp's notoriously imprecise and messy data. And for chairs and such, that's probably OK.

[Anonymous]

Meta,

You're right. My point about Sketchup is that it is the only leading app on the Mac. It benefits from a giant network of users that dwarf anything else on the Mac side. It is NOT a cad app, neither is it a BIM app. It's for quick visualization.

And for Archicad, I wish I could I sell it to the school where I teach but Revit has taken the mantle of the Microsoft Office of BIM. They don't want the "me too" app. I could have done it 6 or 7 years ago (before I was there) because it was a new paradigm compared to Autocad. Revit copied it and stole its mantle.

As for Djorge, Studios, as I heard on the street, didn't use Archicad properly because it was too awkward in 3-d and there was a memory leak in the build they were using at the time. They were one of Graphisoft's shining stars at the time and they jumped ship.

What's Archicad's plan?

That's my point.

[Aaron Bourgoin]

OK, I'm going partisan on this one. Since GS doesn't have anywhere near the marketing budget of ADESK or APPL, they have really worked hard to develop programs for students and institutions - in North America, especially.

ArchiCAD need not supplant Revit at the School you speak of or any educational institution. The cost of an ArchiCAD school lab is free and the cost to students for ArchiCAD, the Cadimage Libraries and Art*Lantis is zip, zilch, nada, gratis. Why not simply offer it as a choice?

Beyond that Graphisoft have a very good program for Educators and Students as well.

This includes a person working full time in the Education Market, curriculum material for BIM-challenged instructors, a forum for students using ArchiCAD and a referral/mentorship/networking group who put firms and BIM-savvy students together.

Finally, for the recent graduate, ArchiCAD makes its product line available to qualifying grads and interns at reduced cost.

William, you would have to do very little. Let Graphisoft do some of the lifting. That's why they've got Charlie.