"Forces" simulation plugin from Autodesk

[TMA_80]

Hi,

We hoped for a 'little' structural plugin for ArchiCad , Autodesk is going even further with revit. Actually, it's not an analysis tool but a simulation one for what Autodesk calls : a " Form-finding" tool for the conceptual massing tool.

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/nucleus/

Project Nucleus can simulate a wide range of physical phenomena in real time, like wind, gravity, constraints, and collisions. These forces can help architects generate free-form shapes, many of which would be impossible to model by hand.

[Anonymous]

This technology is also available in the new Vasari 1.1 available next week. . I also like the new interactive wind rose. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_3zz35jDkU&feature=player_embedded

For what it's worth, Vasari is free as SketchUP. So Archicad users can use it too as they use SU.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

blobmeister wrote:
This technology is also available in the new Vasari 1.1 available next week. . I also like the new interactive wind rose. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_3zz35jDkU&feature=player_embedded

For what it's worth, Vasari is free as SketchUP. So Archicad users can use it too as they use SU.

Vasari may be as free as Sketchup, but the user experience is nothing close to related to what you have in Sketchup. Despite the fact that Autodesk is developing it as a conceptual modeling tool to take on Sketchup's popularity.

Basically Vasari is a stripped down version of Revit, with none of the documentation and parametric engine capabilities of the more well known bigger brother. They threw in a couple of environmental analysis tools (mined from their acquisition of Ecotect a few years ago) and the physics simulation tool looks to me like some Catenary and Tensile membrane structure calculating algorithm I saw a few years ago that some MIT grad students had developed. I guess they got hired by Autodesk.

It's basically Revit in everything but name and insofar as the interface and workflow is concerned.

So unless you enjoy using Revit for design and conceptual modeling (and I don't even know any Revit users who can confess to enjoying working with it in this way), then you're unlikely to enjoy using Vasari in the same vein.

Sorry, this is not meant as a knock against you by any stretch of imagination. It's just that having tested and used Vasari, and being familiar with Revit, it gets annoying watching Autodesk trying to twist and manipulate reality with their carefully manicured marketing messages by trying to create some sort of false equivalence between Vasari and Sketchup when the 2 programs couldn't be any more different - other than the fact that they are both free, for now anyway. (kinda like how they did years back when they created this false synonymity between Revit and the term "BIM").
Even the image they use in Vasari's splash screen is of a model that was NOT created in Vasari but rather in other programs (I know for a FACT that that Voronoi mesh that drapes around that form was not created in Vasari, yet they try to make it seem like you can create such a form int he program. False advertising - par for the course for Autodesk).

Given the vast difference in the ease of use in creating forms and generally modeling between this and Sketchup, it's doubtful that they will ever be able to make a dent in Sketchup's popularity despite Autodesk's marketing prowess. And this is their second notable attempt at developing a program to go head-to-head with Sketchup with their last one being the aborted Sketchpad (I think it was called) from years ago, or Autosketch or something, I can't remember exactly, but it didn't work out too well for them then, and I doubt this will neither.

In my opinion a program that would be a more fair comparison to Sketchup would be Autodesys' Bonzai (the makers of FormZ.) But Vasari is not it.

However you still have to applaud the fact that Autodesk is actively looking to address those modeling needs, despite their clumsy efforts.

[TMA_80]

Hi,

I Would agree with you on 80% of your arguments Bricklyne, there is indeed a free sketchup plugin that could simulate, apparently, almost the same thing:
http://www.tensile-structures.de/

Sketchup is far beyond in ease of use comparing to the the conceptual part of revit, if we consider them to be comparable.

However there is A big difference between the two that made them playing in different feilds ( hence the in-intuitiveness of the Vasari UI and ease of use) : PARAMETRICITY.

Vasari has an interated parametric engine while sketchup doesn't , that's a big difference; Obviousely it wasn't easy to combine with the autodesk purpose of "competing" with sketchup.

Bonzai seems to be comparable to sketchup ( into certain extent ) as it is not parametric and has added some missing modeling tools ( the nurbs for instance )...

[Anonymous]

I always enjoyed the anti Autodesk sentiment here. And when visiting a BIM or AEC congress, the Graphisoft people seem to be very focused on what Revit can't do. Which is why i was quite surprised to see Archicad 14 to be all about the collaboration with Revit. You would expect them to be focused on other things considering that Revit is a horrible product and no one seems to enjoy using it anyway, right?

The reality is that Archicad users are very frustrated that Autodesk has the lion's share of the Marketshare. Which is why an unbiased conversation with Archicad users is virtually impossible. Anything Autodesk puts out on the Market (good or bad) is viewed very negatively here. What has Graphisoft done lately?

[Bricklyne Clarence]

blobmeister wrote:
I always enjoyed the anti Autodesk sentiment here. And when visiting a BIM or AEC congress, the Graphisoft people seem to be very focused on what Revit can't do. Which is why i was quite surprised to see Archicad 14 to be all about the collaboration with Revit. You would expect them to be focused on other things considering that Revit is a horrible product and no one seems to enjoy using it anyway, right?

The reality is that Archicad users are very frustrated that Autodesk has the lion's share of the Marketshare. Which is why an unbiased conversation with Archicad users is virtually impossible. Anything Autodesk puts out on the Market (good or bad) is viewed very negatively here. What has Graphisoft done lately?

So let me see if I get this correctly; you came onto a Graphisoft forum touting an Autodesk product, and expected people (ostensibly ArchiCAD users) to sing praises and shout hosannas about it?
Is that how it works, or rather used to work in the AUGI forums?

I've actually used Vasari, and I am more than casually familiar with Sketchup, ArchiCAD and Revit; so I actually do know what I'm talking about when I give an opinion about it in comparison to the other products.
I'll call a spade a spade, and if it's Autodesk's false or misleading advertising, then sure enough I'll call it for what it is.

Furthermore, if you were familiar with my posts and posting history to any degree on this forum, then you would know that I bash Graphisoft for ArchiCAD's shortcomings and deficiencies with far more frequency here than I do Autodesk (probably because this is a Graphisoft forum and not an Autodesk forum). I also do give Autodesk their due (on occasion) when they deserve it, just as I do for GS and GS products. So to try and paint me as just another biased irrational ArchiCAD user or Graphisoft fanboy, would only serve to illustrate just how little you know of what you speak.

[Scott Davis]

Bricklyne wrote:
...looks to me like some Catenary and Tensile membrane structure calculating algorithm I saw a few years ago that some MIT grad students had developed. I guess they got hired by Autodesk...Even the image they use in Vasari's splash screen is of a model that was NOT created in Vasari but rather in other programs (I know for a FACT that that Voronoi mesh that drapes around that form was not created in Vasari, yet they try to make it seem like you can create such a form int he program. False advertising - par for the course for Autodesk)

Hello again...I haven't posted here in nearly 4 years, although I'm an active reader. In this case, I couldn't help but clarify a few inaccuracies.

The Nucleus simulation engine is from Autodesk Maya. The Solar Radiation tools and others are from Autodesk Ecotect. The Energy Analysis tools are from Green Building Studio. The Vasari Splash screen (seen in the image at the top of the web page http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/vasari/ ) was absolutely 100% created in Vasari. Creating such a form is quite within the capabiliites of Vasari and Revit which share the same parametric conceptual modeling engine.

[Anonymous]

Bricklyne wrote:

blobmeister wrote:
I always enjoyed the anti Autodesk sentiment here. And when visiting a BIM or AEC congress, the Graphisoft people seem to be very focused on what Revit can't do. Which is why i was quite surprised to see Archicad 14 to be all about the collaboration with Revit. You would expect them to be focused on other things considering that Revit is a horrible product and no one seems to enjoy using it anyway, right?

The reality is that Archicad users are very frustrated that Autodesk has the lion's share of the Marketshare. Which is why an unbiased conversation with Archicad users is virtually impossible. Anything Autodesk puts out on the Market (good or bad) is viewed very negatively here. What has Graphisoft done lately?

So let me see if I get this correctly; you came onto a Graphisoft forum touting an Autodesk product, and expected people (ostensibly ArchiCAD users) to sing praises and shout hosannas about it?
Is that how it works, or rather used to work in the AUGI forums?

I've actually used Vasari, and I am more than casually familiar with Sketchup, ArchiCAD and Revit; so I actually do know what I'm talking about when I give an opinion about it in comparison to the other products.
I'll call a spade a spade, and if it's Autodesk's false or misleading advertising, then sure enough I'll call it for what it is.

Furthermore, if you were familiar with my posts and posting history to any degree on this forum, then you would know that I bash Graphisoft for ArchiCAD's shortcomings and deficiencies with far more frequency here than I do Autodesk (probably because this is a Graphisoft forum and not an Autodesk forum). I also do give Autodesk their due (on occasion) when they deserve it, just as I do for GS and GS products. So to try and paint me as just another biased irrational ArchiCAD user or Graphisoft fanboy, would only serve to illustrate just how little you know of what you speak.

Apparently you are as misinformed as I am, unless Scott Davis is lying . And if I recall, Graphisoft is promoting buildings done in Archicad, while in reality that is not always the case either. I know for a fact that Rojking Arquitectos uses Maya, Rhino and Solidworks to do most of their crazy buildings, while Graphisoft promotes them as a full Archicad office.

I didn't come here to start a war. As a matter of fact my post wasn't even geared towards you personally. As I said, I'm always amazed by the reaction of people here, when a new release or product comes out. And that I think is the big difference between Revit users and AC user. Revit user are always on the look out for new Archicad features. Many new Revit features comes from Archicad, because Revit users, requests these good features from AC. Gradient background comes from AC, realistic views comes from AC, Photorealistic render engine build into the software comes from AC. BIM server comes from AC, wall decompose tool comes from AC and will probably be implemented in Revit 2012. An automated windows legend creator like Archicad is also a big wishlist item. Would any of these features be available in Revit if the users didn't care what Archicad did?


When Revit 2010 came out with it's conceptual and new curtain wall tools, many AC users find these features useless to to implement in Archicad. Archicad curtain wall tool is good enough and as a few said, no one is going to build those blobby building anyway. When Revit got it's adaptive components, the initial reactions was, “who needs that”. When Vasari came out a few months ago, it was viewed as a huge ego mistake from Autodesk. And that SketchUp is far better. Yes, SketchUp is far more intuitive, but is SU from Graphisoft? Can you import SU nativity in Archicad as Vasari can in Revit? Does SU have any parametrics? Can you script SU to work like Grasshopper as Vasari can?

Come on guys, Sure Autodesk has it's corporate issues with it, but lets look at the good things they own and try to implement a better version of them in Archicad. And while Vasari is far from perfect, lets make sure that AC gets something similar but better.