New PowerCADD screenshot!

[morrieg]

There doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency with this update process.

I don't see any evidence that there is a lack of urgency. As a retired software engineer, I completely understand the challenges in a project like this. Initial estimates for how long something like this will take are almost always way optimistic.

But I agree that more frequent communication with the user base could be better, to help ease our fears. Companies are loathe to publish progress of a project before it's released, but in this case, because of the existing user base, some snippets of occasional reassurance, with some concrete details to back it up, would be nice. Surely, with the initial estimates missed, there must be an internal schedule, or at a least goal, that could be communicated. Before more of us are forced to jump ship because of aging hardware, it would be nice to know how much longer we might have to hold out.

[Charles Freeborn]

Eerily quiet... I think this alliance may well fizzle. Too bad. I was hoping to get just a few more years out of PC before I retire. Not looking forward to buying another program (Vector), and the drafting module in F•Z is terrible. Sigh...

[joseph]

After many years of waiting an announced update, we were announced that PowerCADD was a discontinued product. After months, we were announced that PowerCADD and Form-Z were going on together. Now here we are, in the dark, in a web site not updated in the last ten years. Sad situation.

[chip.clark]

Some time ago I instigated a topic for transitioning to another CAD platform. Myself and another employee went through some very reasonable efforts and expense to try a transition to Archicad, going through numerous hours of online training, one-on-one consultation with Archicad staff (they were fantastic, BTW), and attempted to run a few office projects through the Archicad platform to build a "report" back to the office. Ultimately, we found the learning curve steep (but not insurmountable by any means) and were unpleasantly surprised by the amount of traditional 2D drafting work we still needed to do overtop of "BIM" data that was not bi-directional. That was infuriating... and after all that, the output could not reasonably match our office graphic standards, and we felt the cost and complexity was not justified for our office workflow. Then the FormZ partnership announcement happened, and that solidified our decision to NOT pursue a new platform. We decided to wait it out, ecstatic and patient.

But here we are, and now I am again looking for alternatives. Vectorworks is now in my sights (same parent as Archicad, but clearly a different animal).

We are a 95% 2D office (we don't chase work with BIM requirements), supplemented with Sketchup for exterior modeling to get 2D pictures primarily for AHJ Plan Review processes. That being said, I am still an active Rhino user (started on v1 my freshman year of architecture school), myself and everyone younger than me in the office have working knowledge of AutoCAD/Revit from school, so we are not averse to other platforms. We have just all come to appreciate and prefer the elegance and speed of PowerCADD!

Keith Renton - I would be most grateful to connect with you (and any others that have transitioned from PC to Vectorworks) to help me gauge if the jump makes sense for our office.

[mlsherrod]

Chip, we moved our office to Archicad. The teamwork function and rendering right into twin motion has been fantastic. It's a very good BIM product, and our 2D is actually much more limited once we figured out the system. I miss PC, though. We will prob get at one license to use as there is no better 2D software available

[Alfred Scott]

An important benefit of going to 64-bit is that we can then be compatible with programming with Form Z, SketchUp and many other programs. I still have the programming for SketchUp here for reading, writing files, Paste, etc.

PowerCADD 10 is running now on macOS Ventura.

Nothing ever happens exactly when you would like.

Alfred

[joseph]

An important benefit of going to 64-bit is that we can then be compatible with programming with Form Z, SketchUp and many other programs. I still have the programming for SketchUp here for reading, writing files, Paste, etc.

PowerCADD 10 is running now on macOS Ventura.

Nothing ever happens exactly when you would like.

Alfred

That’ok. 64-bit is ten years ago, by the way.

[joseph]

I correct myself. Tiger was the first os with 64bit support (2005), Snow Leopard the first full 64bit os (2009). Now we are in 2022, 13 years “late”.

[johncruet48]

Keith Renton - I would be most grateful to connect with you (and any others that have transitioned from PC to Vectorworks) to help me gauge if the jump makes sense for our office.

My office has VectorWorks. it is a robust 2D-3D BIM program that builds models and does a nice job rendering, although I haven't gotten too 'photorealistic" with my renderings, preferring these to look like fine water color renderings produced by various architects of my generation. But, after the design phase, I found myself porting 2D material via DWG to PowerCadd to get the visual graphic 2D results I wanted. I still haven't figured out VectorWorks' "sheet layer" and "viewport" setups. I'm still stuck on design layers, classes, and set up sheets using the Set up View commands. I will be interested to find out how it is that Form-Z works with PowerCadd.

[revival architecture]

We invested in Vectorworks about three years ago and I am still disappointed with the significant investment of time it takes to really learn it well enough to take full advantage of all it can do. Simple exercises, unfortunately, are not simple. This is especially frustrating as I know it can be done in PCADD very quickly. I bought two licensed versions--and subscribe to annual updates and service. Vectorworks, however, is dropping purchase of individual license and is going all in on renting only. I have decided to bet on PCADD (Im just as much of a fool as all of you), and NOT subscribe to the update in Vectorworks, so I can continue to use the versions I own until its no longer supported or compatible. Meanwhile, I am still hoping PCADD comes through, in which case I will drop VWorks altogether and have my intern learn PCADD--making us 100% PCADD. We can always hire out the sophisticated renderings that our clients sometimes request. I am hoping, HOPING, PCADD comes through.