Hello everyone, I'm back! I haven't been around since 2006 I think. My computer died and family issues made me take a new path in life. But oh have I yearned to be back in this world.

What I'd like to do is work with architecture firms. They build buildings and such and I put it into a beautiful living world. I'm no modeller nor do I know how to use CAD. But I loved Vue and never got a chance to explore all this.

1. Is Vue the right software for this job? Which type other software might be needed.

2. Has anybody done or seen it used this way successfully?

3. what kind of beast machine would be needed to do this well.

Vue was always just a fun hobby but this is always the direction I wanted to go. Just wonder if it is feasible these days.

Thanks. -NV

E-on website has a page on their add-on package for architecture, I would include the link but my copy and paste skills on a tablet are not good. Look though the poster's comments in the studies at the bottom for an idea how the application performs.

First advice..... do research. Second advice, do a lot of research. I've seen Vue used by an architect not too far from my town. But..... yes with Vue there always is a huge but..... importing models into Vue can be tricky, cause trouble or even worse. Vue still has broken import features, so unless you know what you're doing, you could be facing issues.

E-Onsoftware also has a different software geared more towards this kind of thing, LumenRT, http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/lumenRT/

What do you need? A lot of cash. If you want to go this route, you need Vue Infinite to make sure you can communicate well with other 3D software. Then you need 2 computers, one for rendering and one for working, so you can keep on working. Better is a laptop that you can take to your clients and show them your work and one you can also do the initial work on, so it needs to be able to run Vue decently. Then you need a good computer for rendering, at least an i7 with 4 cores, but more cores is better.

I'd say your looking at $4000-5000 minimum. It is very feasible, but you need to know what you're doing. You need to know Vue inside out, know the market, know how to make contacts, set up a business (or know how to freelance), marketing & promotion, set up a professional website, accounting and so on. You can't turn up at an architectical office with some ideas, you need a plan before you go there. More importantly you need a portfolio and marketing materials that show your clients that you know what you're talking about.

in other words..... if you want this, there's a lot of work to be done. Before you can even approach one client, you need to invest a lot of money into equipment & training and have your plan and portfolio ready. That alone takes months.

So, again, do research and start by downloading Vue pioneer and see if you can even get some good work done with it. That's a start.

On a smaller budget, you could do worse than using Bryce. I've designed a kitchen and the proposed modifications to the interior of our local church with some success. Bryce is easy to get your head around and simple to use. Like all software packages, it takes some practice, but the results can be very pleasing and effective.

I'd say that Vue is primarily useful as a renderer. While I have created models within it, I would say this is not its primary function, because its modeling methodology is to assemble objects from primitives, boolean operations on primitives, and merging of primitives into meta objects. For my modeling needs I primarily use Blender, which lets me play with sheets of polygons and subsurface approximations, but I my feeling is that it is not the sort of program one would want to create architectual models. Don't get me wrong, Vue and Blender can be used to create quite complicated models, but I think that architectural modeling needs are very specific and it would be a struggle to meet those needs with Vue or Blender.

Anyway, modern architectural firms already employ cad software that meets their needs, nobody is drawing lines on paper anymore or making blueprints except out of nostolgia, though I suspect that Vue is a better renderer than the standard architectural cad package. If the cad software can dump models in a format that Vue can support, that's a starting point for sure. In my own "work" (I do this as a hobby), I import .obj format objects from Blender and Poser (when Vue doesn't support the particular version of Poser I happen to be using). Usually I have to do something about textures and that is the bulk of the work of the import process.

The latest versions of Vue have several price points, the lowest cost versions allow you to select modules for the functions that you want and it seems to me this is the way you would want to go unless you are wealthy enough to afford the top of the line (which primarily adds workflow integration with other professional grade software). For myself, I've given up on the Infinite version (which ceased being Infinite years ago) and moved to the "Complete" version which contains all the modules I need. Even then I don't upgrade on a yearly basis and during each upgrade I need to reconsider what I really need in the way of features.