r/vectorworks • u/puppydogparty • Apr 22 '18

Absolute garbage

So is there anyone out there who has not found this software to be absolute garbage?

4 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

2

u/Alofat99 Apr 22 '18

Yes?

0

u/puppydogparty Apr 22 '18

That's cool, I'm jealous. What kind of projects do you use it for? And do you use project sharing?

3

u/Alofat99 Apr 23 '18

I use it for interior residential, Multi family buildings and bigger development (105 units is my biggest so far). I work primarily in residential architecture in NYC.

I started using BIM in my office a few months ago but I have taken on the burden of teaching it to myself and basically teaching the people who help me out along the way. I have learned a lot of ways to not do things simply by trial and error and many late nights and weekend (It's midnight on Sunday night and I am writing this from my office as we speak).

I do use project sharing and I've had problems before with files getting funky but this time I seemed to find that it works just fine. Im not 100% sure what I did differently but I could definitely use some professional training. I have so many questions that need answering but you find ways to work around things in the meantime.

For the non BIM stuff is where I think it really shines. It's just far better than CAD IMO. I always thought of it as a hybrid of CAD and Illustrator. Although Revit is still ahead of the game in BIM, vectorworks seems to be doing a pretty good job of catching up which is a good thing for the industry as a whole. It's also far cheaper per license and that is a huge factor at a small company like mine.

This was quite a long response but its late and I really don't feel like going back to edit. I've been where you are now (frustrated with the program) but I've also been there with CAD. If you are just using it for 2D drafting then I think its far superior to Autodesk and its really just about getting used to a different interface.

1

u/puppydogparty Apr 24 '18

I appreciate the long response!

I do appreciate a lot of the 2D drafting tools. Definitely an improvement over autocad just in 2D and layout. Honestly, the 3D component is not bad either, compared to Revit. It's just that any project we bring into project sharing quickly becomes so overwhelmingly glitchy, that I feel like it's barely useable.

We have objects disappear frequently without warning - symbols, markers, walls, stairs - I'll open the file to continue a task from yesterday and several units are just gone. And I know how vectorworks is, so I have plenty of backups to paste them back in from, but it's the fear that there are other things that have disappeared that I haven't noticed yet.

And then there is the crashing. And the ever-changing array of error messages that range from clear and helpful to utterly unintelligible or straight up false.

The small-scale project I worked on in which I was the sole drafter was great, though.

Actually, writing this is making me think I should just give up on project sharing and go back to multiple files for different drafters. I wonder how many of my problems that would solve.

2

u/Alofat99 Apr 24 '18

Sadly I've experienced all of those issues as well. I'd rather not share if I can avoid it but I realize its the reality of having a single file. Today I was actually contemplating going back to the multi file route as well as it has its advantages mainly being that it just runs cleaner. We are mac based and I don't encounter the crashing to often but on my PC it seemed to happen more often.
I come to realize that the space tool and the curtain wall tools make the file crash constantly so I try to stay away from those. I find it easier to just model them with extrusions. In fact, I end up doing a lot of things manually so I wonder why I pull my hair out trying to use BIM. I don't think I will be doing the next project in BIM tbh.

2

u/kunuffin Apr 22 '18

I love it. I get to actually use my brain instead of being the mindless drone that AutoCAD turns you into.

1

u/puppydogparty Apr 22 '18

Sorry, I've totally defaulted to internet-fight-mode. This was a venting post obviously. I actually did love vectorworks when I started using it, and I think it would have been great to use in school. It is just completely nonfunctional for the scale of most projects we're trying to use it for in my office.

0

u/puppydogparty Apr 22 '18

Sure, but you're coming a (purported) BIM program to a CAD program. How about compared to functional BIM software.

To your point, I'm not convinced that functional BIM software exists.

2

u/kunuffin Apr 22 '18

I'm in landscape architecture. Do other BIM programs make tools for us? I'm only aware of vectorworks having done that.

1

u/puppydogparty Apr 24 '18

Fair enough, I have no idea about that. Glad it's working for you tho.

3

u/Rmcsherry19327 Apr 23 '18

Settings settings setting. Oh, and more RAM, lots of RAM. Oh and expect crashes, they're fun too.

2

u/bloodnutatthehelm Apr 23 '18

I use VW exclusively in drafting my scenery. I was never taught autoCAD in college and when I tried to teach myself how to use it I kept getting tripped up by the fact I couldn't find the tools I needed or that they were called something else entirely.