I just installed ACAD 2012 32-bit (licensed) on my drafting machine at work.
I opened it, let it migrate my settings from 2009.
I opened a .dxf delftship user model of a containership, applied a lofted surface between 3 stations and BAM! Crashed it, hehehe. I'm laughing, but sighing at the same time. I said to a programmer next to me, "I just crashed this $4,000 program with a simple hull model." He replied that there are $25,000 programs that crash.
I restarted ACAD (i did not let the report to to adesk). Reapplied a lofted surface, and due to the settings or the programming, it showed a DENSE and at-first-glance USELESS mesh of lines. Why does a surface look like a window screen? I don't have Spidey vision and don't want to see the background when I feel I should be seeing a surface.
I applied thickness to see what the hull would look like. Thickened, but at the command line it would not take "15mm". INT WTH???? $300 ViaCAD PRO lets me input feet and mm and inches and meters as if they are not a sweat. I just jabbed in .015. All I wanted to see was thickness. It threw the thickness inboard, toward the model's middle. I got dizzy. Could not imagine what it would take to "flip" the direction as easily as it is in ViaCAD Pro.
Wanting to see the surface and solid rendered, I hit a button for rendering. Got this ugly gray background with black for the steel. I gave up and discarded the few minutes of work, and I shut down the program.
An architect and the IT manager walked by and i put the 64-bit/32-bit disks into his hand and lamented to him, "I would NEVER use this program in my hobby modeling."
It's NOT that I want adesk to slash and burn competitors. Fortunately, for me, and for many of us, ViaCAD exists, and "seeks PEACEFUL co-EXISTENCE", and I will continue modeling in VCP or - when I can afford it one day -- Shark. It is easy to draw along for months on end and grouse about what VCP lacks. Thanks to VCP, for me, skinning the surface of my ship models is a BREEZE.
Now, to be fair to AutoCAD 2012, I will as one of the senior drafters how HE would approach the model if it were his task to skin the hull, draw surfaces between sideshell, thicken them to be deckplates, and then trim them. I wonder if he could do it as fast as I can in VCP.
Also, to be fair to AutoCAD 2012, it is possible that I SHOULD attempt this in Inventor. I will never convince my office to use VCP or Shark for various things that it probably OUGHT to use VCP and Shark for, but unfortunately, I have little to no clout when it comes to suggesting CAD tools. If only my mind were clearer so that I could work faster at my own hobby, i could make money and transition my life to my next stage.
People who swear by ACAD can continue to do so. I thank the stars that VCP exists. If I owned a company based on my hobby, VCP or Shark would be the 3D modelings tool of choice even though they lack command lines, multi-key shortcuts, and more robust layering (though, VCP's layering interface and select filters are great; I'd have a heart attack if they vanished) and other things on my 48-items-and-growing wish list, I think VCP would be best. To avoid insurrection in my own future shop, I'd have to hire only those who would not sneak in as the main tools that I could not mentally embrace as my main tool. ACAD is a powerful tool, but VCP is MY tool.
I REALLY, REALLY wish the drafters gave me advance notice and allowed me to crimp the product demoers before we plunked down HUGE dollars. Then again, it might have insulted the produce demoers to see $300 VCP in rapid action making a hull and managing it in minutes (well, it took me a few years of playing around to get into a rhythm...)
