Landscape Architecture for Landscape Architects › Forums › TECHNOLOGY › VizTerra
- This topic has 1 reply, 3 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 4 months ago by Jason T. Radice.
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June 10, 2011 at 4:21 am #162263Andrew SpieringParticipant
I have been thinking about integrating VizTerra into the studio for a few months now. I downloaded the trial version and thought it was quick to pick up, but wanted some outside perspectives before we take the plunge in purchasing the subscription. I did find some helpful insights in this discussion but wanted some fresh opinions.
First off, is anyone using VizTerra? For those that are, what do you think are the greatest strengths of the software? What are the drawbacks? How well does it fit into your work flow?
Also, it seems like all software companies are moving to some type of a subscription model. Have you found the free training, support, and updates from VT a good value?
For anyone that hasn’t tried it, I would be curious to know your thoughts as well. You can download a free demo version here – http://www.structurestudios.com/website/vizterra/demoCenter.html
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
June 10, 2011 at 6:26 am #162265Jason T. RadiceParticipantLooks great, but I can’t stand subscription only services. That is an instant deal breaker for me and won’t even consider a software package that uses that business model. I know they are a sponsor and everything, but I know a bunch of firms and their IT guys who feel the same way.
Since it checks for subscription status/updates on start-up, one glitch with permissions/network and you are out of business. If the net/network goes down, you can still work with a licensed purchase. Need to work where there is no net, say, an airplaine, restaurant, or client’s house, you are SOL. With owning the license, you can upgrade it when YOU want if at all. I recall when a firm I worked for upgraded to ACAD 2009, it sucked so bad and was so unreliable, us powerusers downgraded back to 2008 until 2010 came along. Hard to do with a subscription and automatic updates as you cannot roll back the upgrade easily. At the same time, we switched to floating licenses hosted on the main server. Well, our satellite office had an internet outage and could not get to the main server for their license, so that office lost an entire days worth of work. The next week, they had their own license server. We had issues as well with when the server went down. We used to be able to work locally off ther hard drive, but not with shared licenses. It only takes one small glitch and you are out of business, losing time, losing money.
As far as constantly upgrading, I know some smaller firms still using ACAD 2008…they don’t need to upgrade and have saved a ton of money by not. A good rule of thumb is to upgrade every other release. That’s why subscritptions are bad…m’kay?
June 10, 2011 at 1:38 pm #162264Thomas J. JohnsonParticipantI’ve played with VizTerra a bit… The finished product looks nice but if you’re using AutoCAD then you’ve got some redundancy. I never figured out how to import a CAD drawing without having to redraw a bunch of stuff (stairs/walls) or modify the way I draw them in CAD.
What would be really nice, would be a product that allows you to draw plans in 2D and then extrude them in 3D with minimal effort.
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