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kentuckyfried · Feb 26, 2003, 01:32 PM

Any major, 70+ employee outfits in California or nearby states that use this software?

I currently work for a huge aerospace company doing...really boring work unrelated to my major, for the most part, and would to take a second chance at doing some building design work, and using a mac to the drawing and design work. But so far, I've never heard of engineering firms using macs other than the occasional mac enthusiast or architectural firms (I'm a civil btw, no arch firm's going to hire me without an arch license).

Please submit whatever input you have.

Timo · Feb 26, 2003, 02:14 PM

I use it, but...
I'm not major
I'm not in California

VW claims 150,000 worldwide users -- maybe some in California? However, it seems to appeal mostly to small shops. Almost every engineering firm I've run into does AutoCAD.

kentuckyfried · Feb 26, 2003, 04:11 PM

^ do you use it for work or school?

Yeah, for something that sounds so good and got sparkling reviews, I've rarely ever heard of it being used except at this one place I volunteered for many summers ago, and the outfit was a tiny engineering office headed up by a mac freak. Autocad's still the standard.

Timo · Feb 26, 2003, 04:17 PM

work.

I use VW for 3D stuff, to show clients.

I use AutoCAD for drafting and file exchange with the engineers.

cowerd · Feb 27, 2003, 04:12 PM

Many smaller architecture firms and a couple of ID firms I know use it. Licensing is less than half of ACAD, and apart from not dealing with Xrefs (yikes) its way easier to learn and use.

Most firms (arch) using ACAD barely run 1/10 of the features. And if it weren't for file exchange with CEs and others ACAD would die a horrible death it deserves.

PSU uses it as a standard in their arch and la programs.

kentuckyfried · Feb 27, 2003, 05:47 PM

^ I haven't had a chance to use vectorworks myself, how is the compatibility with Acad? Maybe one day Acad will be supplanted entirely by Vectorworks if compatibility isn't an issue.

poocat · Feb 27, 2003, 11:15 PM

vw is actually kinda great.
i used it in school for 3d modeling of lighting designs for the theater, and i know it gets used by people for that, but i don't know how many companies use it regularly.

autocad is EXPENSIVE.

pc.

Timo · Feb 27, 2003, 11:54 PM

Originally posted by kentuckyfried:
^ I haven't had a chance to use vectorworks myself, how is the compatibility with Acad? Maybe one day Acad will be supplanted entirely by Vectorworks if compatibility isn't an issue.

Eh. Acad files are imported OK (with paper space stuff imported on a seperate layer), but I'm not at all sure they survive the round trip back into AutoCad...I tend to keep Acad and Vw files completely seperate.

AutoCad's .dwg files are of course proprietary, with vectorworks programmers (and programmers of other CAD programs) constantly trying to reverse-engineer the format. The so-called exchange format, .dxf, suffers from serious file bloat and the lack of all information actually making it from one program to another.

I for one like AutoCad's paper space/model space set up, and like xref's too. Older versions of vectorworks (like minicad) didn't feel as accurate as AutoCad, but now later versions do.

There's no question Vectorwork's 3D stuff, with its parametric objects, is much better than AutoCad's confused and klooged-on 3D interface ? even with Architectural Desktop. Still, I find AutoCad to be tremendously fast to draft (2D) in ? because of its command line ?while Vectorworks has me constantly hunting for buttons.

It's like OS X: power users can get out Terminal and command line stuff, and if you know what your doing it's much faster.

Sam Venning · Feb 28, 2003, 01:15 AM

We use VectorWorks. We had 8 licenses of VectorWorks 8.5 and have just upgraded to two licenses of VectorWorks 10. We haven't really used VectorWorks 10 yet... but it looks nice running on Mac OS 10. We are also really excited that we can take VectorWorks 10 documents and use them in Cinema4D R8. VectorWorks is a great program. We use VectorWorks to draw up plans for our staging events. We are an event company operating in Australia and South East Asia.

Sam

BKMaggert · Feb 28, 2003, 01:32 AM

I own a structural engineering firm in Colorado, and we've been using VectorWorks for many years for all our CAD work. Best program I've seen for engineers. Anyone doing much 3D work can't go wrong with this App. Smartest move we ever made was switching from AutoCrap. And VW is about 1/5 the cost of AC.

kentuckyfried · Feb 28, 2003, 03:41 AM

Are either of the previous two posters hiring?

kentuckyfried · 08:36 PM

heh...thread is still alive.

Anyhow...

To the people who use VW on a regular basis:

1) What's your degree background and history?
2) Do you like your job? Why?
3) How much of your job involves tedious work not related to architecture or engineering? This is kind of a diffculty question to refine.

Here's the story in the past 1.5 years:

I got a transfer to a group that does analysis. I've been here just over a year...and it's been ups and downs I guess. Some of the time I like it, but more of the time, I am bored and unfulfilled. I'm starting to wonder if I'm better off doing something other than engineering, hence the same old questions dating back to early 2003.

The thing I have noticed about engineering (especially this particular job) is the amount of research that goes into solving a problem outside of just doing the calculations. It's the research that's killing me...I absolutely hate it. If architecture/jobs involving VW involves this kind of labor, please let me know!!

David Bertrand · Aug 27, 2004, 02:50 PM

kentuckyfried:

It's not necessary to have a license to work in architecture. But there's a lot of tedium involved. Architects are always researching materials from catalogs and spend a lot of time on the phone, talking to salesmen, inquiring about materials for their buildings.

Imagine laying out a toilet room. You have to know the dimensions of all the fixtures, and then make everything fit to satisfy the code. Same with kitchen equipment, doors and windows.

Also, if you're doing remodeling, you'll have to go out into the field and take measurements of an existing building and then try to get everything to close on the drawings. Maybe you'd enjoy that.

I found that working for a structural engineer was easier on the nerves because the engineers did most of the research, at least in the company I worked for.

I worked with autocad from 1985 until I retired last year. It was a great 2D program because of the speedy CLI, but 3D was pretty awful. We did nearly 100% 2D.

good luck

cpac · Aug 27, 2004, 03:06 PM

Originally posted by David Bertrand:
It's not necessary to have a license to work in architecture.

That depends on the state.

kentuckyfried · Aug 27, 2004, 04:59 PM

Thanks David.

I'll probably have to go intern somewhere before I make any decisions about committing myself to any sort of degree program.

Originally posted by David Bertrand:
kentuckyfried:

It's not necessary to have a license to work in architecture. But there's a lot of tedium involved. Architects are always researching materials from catalogs and spend a lot of time on the phone, talking to salesmen, inquiring about materials for their buildings.

Imagine laying out a toilet room. You have to know the dimensions of all the fixtures, and then make everything fit to satisfy the code. Same with kitchen equipment, doors and windows.

Also, if you're doing remodeling, you'll have to go out into the field and take measurements of an existing building and then try to get everything to close on the drawings. Maybe you'd enjoy that.

I found that working for a structural engineer was easier on the nerves because the engineers did most of the research, at least in the company I worked for.

I worked with autocad from 1985 until I retired last year. It was a great 2D program because of the speedy CLI, but 3D was pretty awful. We did nearly 100% 2D.

good luck