The future of CAD-systems; Sean Flaherty, CEO of Nemetschek

[Anonymous]

http://www.detail.de/artikel_vectorworks-software_25800_En.htm

[Anonymous]

At the top level we've all agreed on a few key strategies that apply to all the products. The IFC push is one big example. The teams meet to exchange IFC information and best practices, and work very closely on making sure that there is an open standard for the marketplace.

hence what we see in AC14...

..We, for example, are working closely with the Maxon and Scia (structural engineering software) R&D teams and have a number of initiatives to exchange information and proof compatibility between the products because we see some clear customer workflows supported by those group products...

VW only or AC as well?

..We have been able to interact with some teams in India and China and have formed Nemetschek Bulgaria. It is a much more open relationship, since we're all reporting to the same people. This lowers our R&D costs and is a much more efficient way for us to develop.

one can only wonder what these guys are up to as it sounds bigger than VW..

The Parasolid-based engine is a major internal change. We used the best modeling kernel in the world for our software solution. Parasolid comes from the aerospace and automobile industry and is now part of the BIM world. This version has a great deal of added functionality. I think the market is still debating where BIM fits in, which firms will use it, and for which types of projects. I think people are unsure, including our customers. They're asking themselves, 'Will this 3D-focus really benefit me if I don't design buildings that are free-form-shapes?' I'm really looking forward to doing 3D-modeling and having a more efficient practice. And the increased investment in advanced 3D-technologies is slowly paying off. We have been steadily making more and more architectural modeling Parasolid-based, with the 3D flexibility getting more powerful with each version. On top of that, the other big feature we're working on is a kind of 3D-editing environment.

wouldn't it be nice if ArchiCAD got parasolid too?- I wish...read on and you will see the tremendous potential it offers...linking back to first quote - wouldn't it be great if it was one of the

few key strategies that apply to all the products

[TMA_80]

What lies ahead for Vectorworks? In which direction will the company be heading?

I think the next big thing will be what I talked about the beginning: horizontal integration. We really want to stick with a design-based product, and for me the future lies in establishing and maintaining our lead as the provider of the best 3D solution on the market. A lot of architects use our products to design constructions never built before. Architects such as Daniel Libeskind, who is a long-time customer of ours, Peter Zumthor, who's just won the Pritzker Price. These types of architects, i.e. design-focused architects, are really interesting to us. They have a need for extreme flexibility, because a wall or roof on some of these buildings is essentially an abstract term, for example when folded.

[Anonymous]

Sean is one of the nicest guys I've ever met. They have quite bold plans for Vectorworks, and I think the platform has a bright future, if they can begin to accrue the "big BIM" features of Revit and ArchiCAD. It's a better modeler than either already, in terms of free-form geometry.

Its future may actually be brighter than ArchiCAD's, though to quote Yoda: "clouded the future is"

Out here on the wet coast of Canada, Revit is going gangbusters. "There is much to be learned" however -- all apps come with a huge pricetag in terms of learning the software's functionality and quirks.

VW is also big out here: though I don't know if there's much switching going on. Most VW users are just using it for CAD and don't really do BIM with it, though there are notable exceptions to that rule.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

rwallis wrote:
..........
wouldn't it be nice if ArchiCAD got parasolid too?- I wish...read on and you will see the tremendous potential it offers...linking back to first quote - wouldn't it be great if it was one of the

few key strategies that apply to all the products

......and not to sound like a broken record or beat on a dead horse, but wouldn't it be nice if the Graphisoft decision makers and powers-that-be were this open, frank and candid (not to mention lucid) about their future plans for ArchiCAD along with a well-thought out road-map and strategy to keep the software competitive.

One would never know that both Vectoworks and ArchiCAD (under Graphisoft) are owned by the same company (Nemetschek) from the way they respectively approach customer relations, PR and marketing.

Someone actually made a point in a seperate thread about the differences in corporate culture between North American and European (or Eastern European to be more specific) business mentality that leads the likes of the Autodesk and Nemetschek North America CEO's be front and center when it comes to representing their products and being pro-active about customer relations versus the same with the people over at GSHQ for example.

GS may actually have big plans for the future of AC, given the changes that they have chosen to focus on in the last couple of releases and the upcoming one. But you would never know from the way they act. I remember a couple of years ago when Nemetschek (through Flaherty, in fact) made the announcement regarding their decision to completely re-vamp their modeling kernel and to go with the Parasolid kernel, as well as their reasons for doing so. Nothing behind closed doors; no take-it-or-leave-it attitude which we here have become so accustomed to, and all out in the open and ready to take questions regarding the implications of their decision on the software's development, and certainly a good deal of press and customer goodwill to go with it.

[Anonymous]

Sean strikes me as an incredibly accessible guy - he's on the forums a lot, as well as Robert Anderson, VP of Integrated Practice, and they are good people who genuinely care about their users. They're folksy and humble-pie: you gotta love that.

It's a good model ALL software companies could adopt.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't read too much in this interview about the future of AC. The last few releases of each company have shown that they are on their own paths, despite the same parent, and despite many people's wishes that we would see some sort of singular focused strategy coming out of germany.
I definitely think that corporate culture plays a HUGE role and I think Nemetschek would be a very different company if it were US-centric. Just think about it - NM had Allplan when it acquired VW in 2000, and then AC in 2007.Since then I bet Autodesk would have killed off or merged a couple or whatever, but one thing is for sure - we would be absolutely clear which product is the BIM 'champion' going forward.
(To further confuse things Nemetscheck North America isn't any more 'Nemetschek' than Graphisoft ... they changed their name to that from 'Diehl Graphsoft' - which is of course so similar to 'Graphisoft' that GS sued them in years gone by) .... simple things like these just seem to sum up the companies for me - a MESS.
Anyway for all the superior marketing and PR of VW, AC is still inherently a better product - which is why I left VW after 14 years.

[Anonymous]

That's true. Since the adoption of Revit, AutoCAD Architecture / ADT usage has dwindled and I would expect it to die within time, like Mechanical Desktop did with the advent of Inventor.

And I do grant that AC does much more than VW. But is the gap narrowing?

[Anonymous]

VW is a very good 3D modeler - not like a dedicated Cinema 4D or Rhino but very accomplished, and most important - VERY intuitive. When I first started playing with VW 3D years ago I just did what I thought should happen and it happened. Even before parasolid I could see how they could build on the tools they had and make it just better and better.
Ironically I think this is VW's weakness - in that the 3D is flexible but not 'intelligent' enough. For all the 3D ease of use I would not dream of attempting to build a 3D 'virtual building' that would be used to derive the rest of my information. I have never used Bentley BIM or Allplan but AC and Revit are definitely in the same space there. This is why, in my mind at least, VW does not cut it as a 'BIM' application. It is funny because autocad 2011 has gained some great 3D tools - which made me immediately think of VW. I believe autocad can export IFC (an oft repeated point by VW tech's on its BIM credentials) but that does not make it a virtual builder like AC and Revit.
Flaherty says "... So we need to make 3D-parametric-modelling just as efficient as 2D has always been, and somehow manage this without changing the 2D-environment, so that those who choose to continue to work with 2D can continue to do so." ... and then (I am sure he means AC) "I think you can see in other BIM solutions how the 2D-environment has become some kind of bastard-child in the sense of, "You can do it that way if you want to, but we don't really recommend it."
Well I think he has a paradox in the making - as soon as an object in a 2D view has to also know what it is in a 3D parametric form, interacting with other intelligent 3D objects you lose some flexibility; and the more rich you make the object the more flexibility goes out the window. If the VW crew solve this paradox they would have the holy grail. They can certainly think about how far to go down the road (think revit families vs AC GDL scripting)
I made the personal choice to lose a lot of flexibility. I have made it back up and more with add-on's and C4D - but at a cost of course.
What a shame having so much brain power at VW and AC but with a big wall in between