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Experiance with Vector Works and AutoCadd...

caffeine junkie

I work for a guy who is talking about going to vectorworks, does anyone use it? Love it, hate it...The firm is really just one person, so its not a lot of seats to convert...but its a new piece of software to learn.

 
Jun 22, 05 12:48 pm
melivt

it took a while to get used to but i think it's more user friendly. also, the organisation is better. if you know acad, vectoroworks is easy enough to figure it out. if it's one person, though, why bother switching over?

Jun 22, 05 12:57 pm  · 
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caffeine junkie

yeah thats is what seems to be the case just wondering if there are any big pluses of minuses...
I guess the thought is he has one seat of 2004 ADT and wants to grow a bit. He is pretty sure that he doesnt want to stick with autodesk, at 3500 a seat I understand that....

Jun 22, 05 7:26 pm  · 
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le bossman

Hi

first of all, "AutoCAD" is spelled with one 'd.' god you people make me sick.

Jun 23, 05 11:21 am  · 
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207moak

In my opinion VW is the worst software package I've encountered (and I had the joy of learning 8 or so.) Seemed counter intuitive, hard to judge if it was really doing things accurately, crashed frequently, and organized the drawing in obscure ways. I'd vote for ArchiCAD.

Jun 23, 05 11:34 am  · 
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VW is not that bad. It took me all of 3 hours to learn to use and is hardly counter-intuitive. After working with paper space in Autocadddd it may seem odd to be drafting to a specific scale, and the distinction between layers and classes in VW takes a bit of thought. the accuracy isn't bang on either and as I recall dimensions can change over time, though barely noticeable. Not that it mattered when it came to dimensioning or construction but it was annoying enough. On the plus side VW is more WYSYWIG with the line weights and graphics feel a bit easier to deal with than in AC.

Both programs are piss poor when it comes to 3d, but either will do for 2d drafting. And of course when it comes to cost VW wins hands down.

Jun 23, 05 12:16 pm  · 
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whistler

Well I find that teh program rarely crashes, very stable in our experience. esy to use for experienced and inexperienced Architects. We use it on a Macintosh Platform of mostly G4's, G5's and Powerbooks.

Jun 23, 05 12:30 pm  · 
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caffeine junkie

boSman-thank you for correcting me. What skills dont you have?

And from what I have seen of Vectorworks it seems intuitive, and mentally more on line with adobe, which would be nice. Going from adobe software to AutoCad or viceversa is like using left handes sissors....

Jun 23, 05 1:38 pm  · 
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weave

we primarily use VW in our office and it took me a couple days to pick it up but now i really like it. Acad has become like typing to me by now, but there are a lot of things on VW that are superior. it's almost like a cross between illustrator and cad. site plans are a snap on VW...and it's great for presentation boards.

VW is also good for going straight from drawing to .pdf (no postscript stuff to worry about). i work in a small office and we send everything via .pdf to a printing/courier service. that comes in REAL handy when you need 10 CD sets printed or copied...

Jun 23, 05 2:20 pm  · 
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FOG Lite

I hate VW, setting up pages to plot and print is a nightmare, although maybe there is some obvious trick that I missed. VW doesn't seem to get referencing very well and I've also had trouble getting my fant size settings to stick. I would say it's not worth the trouble to switch.

Jun 23, 05 4:42 pm  · 
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ah but m. fog that is becasue you aren't paying for the licence, non?

small office? low budget? gor for VW, no worries.

Jun 23, 05 6:18 pm  · 
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