VectorWorks Designer 2009 with Renderworks

 

and ServicePack 1

Reviewed by Robert Pritchett

Nemetschek North America Riverwood Drive Columbia, MD 21046 410-290-5114 FAX: 410-290-8050 Released: September 15, 2008 Service Pack 1 Updates Released November 19, 2008 $2495.00 USD for Vectorworks Designer, $2,895 with Renderworks, or the Upgrade Path.   Videos Features Renderworks Feature List What's New The Parasolid Advantage Feature Matrix Others: Wikipedia VectorWorks Delicious Vectorworks Bookmarks

Training Training CDs $100 each USD   Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later, QuickTime 7.2 or later, PowerPC G5 or later, DVD-ROM, 4 GB RAM, 10 GB hard drive space. For Windows – XP SP3 or later, QuickTime 7.2 or later, Pentium 2GHz or newer and same DVD-ROM and space requirements as Mac.   Comes with: DVD and Starting Guide   Strengths: Ease of Use, Documentation, Support, Forums, Training and way out in front of the competition.   Weaknesses: None found.   Community Gallery Useful Sites 3rd-Party Plugins Symbol Sets Textures Other Reviews  including our quote from our Nov. 2007 review. Earlier Reviews: Vectorworks Designer 2008 Installed on a 2.6 GHz MacBook Pro with Mac OS X 10..55 and 4 GB DDR2 SDRAM.

 

 

Introduction

 

For the designer who needs it all, Vectorworks Designer 2009 has it all. A brand new offering, VectorWorks Designer combines all the exclusive technology found in VectorWorks Architect, VectorWorks Landmark, VectorWorks Spotlight and VectorWorks Machine Design into one easy-to-use program. It's the ideal solution for multi-disciplinary firms and designers who do it all.

 

Install

 

The Service Pack 1 was released about 1 month after I received the much smaller package of Vectorworks, compared to the 2008 version. The package stores much more nicely than the older version. One DVD. And in my partucular case because it is a Not For Resale (NFR) version, a Dongle. I also receive two training DVDs for Architect and Landscape. Designer is the version that "has it all".

 

What I Learned

 

In two words; Parasolid 3D. This is an industry standard solid modeling tool for 3D design. It is the "heart" of Vectorworks 2009. By implementing it, Vectorworks has improved throughput by a factor of 5. It also combines NURBs with solids. Curved, smooth shapes can now be rendered.

 

In three words; Do more, period. This is a productivity tool like you've never seen before. It even plays nicer with others than before with the import and export features.

 

There are no less than 12 feature demos available online.

 

And yes, the 3Dconnexion device does work with it.

 

Have you heard of BIM? This version of Vectorworks 2009 integrates it seamlessly into projects, thus reducing any errors, offsets or conflicts between a various disciplines involved in facility design.

 

Get snapping. They took the drudge work out of Vectorworks 2009 by automating snap functions.

 

And you buy this for its 3D capability. In four words – robust, precision, reliability, speed. The 3D Power Pack tools are included.

 

Rendering is now fully integrated. Renderworks is no longer a separate program. Texturing has been made easy.

 

Training

 

The prices for the training packages dropped from $450 down to $100 each. Who else does that in this industry?

 

Also check these out -

Free Resources

Training Guides

 

With this much help, you know they want you to succeed!

 

Conclusion

Are you kidding me? If you are in the AEC industry, run, don't walk to get this version of Vectorworks. It puts the competition to shame!

 

If you don't believe me, read the info in the links, watch the videos and follow the tutorials.