Download - Vico Office R5.2 Readme F1 - Vico Softwaresupport.vicosoftware.com/FlareFiles/Content/Release Notes/R5.2/Vico...Vico Office R5.2 Readme July Æ Ä Å É These notes include detailed

VicoOfficeR5.2Readme

July

These notes include detailed insight for

users moving onto Vico Office R5.2.

Inside you will find details about new

functions, fixed functions, known issues

and best practices for using the

program. This document should be read

and understood by all users of Vico

Vico Office R5.2 ‐ Readme Notes Page 1 of 28 July 2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The ‘golden rule of upgrades’ ........................................................................................................................................ 4

backup all existing projects ...................................................................................................................................... 4

1. General .................................................................................................................................................................. 4

1.1. Previous version files ................................................................................................................................... 4

1.2. Disk cleanup precautions ............................................................................................................................. 4

1.3. Anti‐virus software ....................................................................................................................................... 4

1.4. Display settings ............................................................................................................................................ 4

2. installation ............................................................................................................................................................. 5

2.1. Networking ................................................................................................................................................... 5

2.2. Administrative rights .................................................................................................................................... 5

2.3. The versant database ................................................................................................................................... 5

2.4. BIM connections .......................................................................................................................................... 6

3. R5.2 Feature Additions .......................................................................................................................................... 6

3.1. 3D ................................................................................................................................................................. 6

3.2. 4D Player ...................................................................................................................................................... 8

3.3. Compare and Update ................................................................................................................................... 8

3.4. Cost Planner ................................................................................................................................................. 8

3.5. Document Controller ................................................................................................................................... 8

3.6. Publishers ..................................................................................................................................................... 8

3.7. Report Editor ................................................................................................................................................ 9

3.8. Schedule Planner .......................................................................................................................................... 9

3.9. Takeoff Manager ........................................................................................................................................ 10

3.10. Cico Office Client ........................................................................................................................................ 10

3.11. Vico Office Project Server .......................................................................................................................... 11

3.12. Vico Office Web Services ............................................................................................................................ 11

4. R5.2 Defect Resolutions ....................................................................................................................................... 11

4.1. 3D View ...................................................................................................................................................... 11

4.2. 4D Player .................................................................................................................................................... 11

4.3. Compare & Update .................................................................................................................................... 11

4.4. Cost Explorer .............................................................................................................................................. 11


4.5. Cost Planner ............................................................................................................................................... 12

4.6. Document Controller ................................................................................................................................. 12

4.7. Excel importer ............................................................................................................................................ 13

4.8. Installer ...................................................................................................................................................... 13

4.9. LBS Manager .............................................................................................................................................. 13

4.10. Model register ............................................................................................................................................ 13

4.11. Publisher(s)/Importer(s) ............................................................................................................................. 13

4.12. Report Editor .............................................................................................................................................. 14

4.13. Running Mode ............................................................................................................................................ 14

4.14. Schedule Planner ........................................................................................................................................ 14

4.15. Takeoff Manager ........................................................................................................................................ 14

4.16. Takeoff Pad ................................................................................................................................................ 15

4.17. Vico Office client ........................................................................................................................................ 15

4.18. Vico Project Server ..................................................................................................................................... 15

4.19. WinEst Integration ..................................................................................................................................... 16

5. 5.2 Known Issues ................................................................................................................................................. 16

5.1. 3D View ...................................................................................................................................................... 16

5.2. Cost planner ............................................................................................................................................... 16


5.4. LBS Manager .............................................................................................................................................. 16

5.5. Publishers ................................................................................................................................................... 17

5.6. Schedule Planner ........................................................................................................................................ 18

5.7. Takeoff Manager ........................................................................................................................................ 19

5.8. Takeoff Pad ................................................................................................................................................ 19

5.9. Vico Project Server (VPS) ............................................................................................................................ 20

5.10. WinEst integration ..................................................................................................................................... 20

6. General Best Practices ......................................................................................................................................... 20

6.1. Cost Explorer .............................................................................................................................................. 20


6.3. lBS Manager ............................................................................................................................................... 20

6.4. Publishers ................................................................................................................................................... 23


6.5. Takeoff Manager ........................................................................................................................................ 23

6.6. Cico Office Client ........................................................................................................................................ 27

7. Database Troubleshooting .................................................................................................................................. 27

7.1. Troubleshooting ......................................................................................................................................... 27


THE ‘GOLDEN RULE OF UPGRADES’

BACKUP ALL EXISTING PROJECTS

It is fundamentally important that all existing projects get backed up before upgrading to a new installation of

Vico Office. Deployment environments can vary greatly and the safest way to mitigate any data loss occurring

during an upgrade is to backup all of your projects before any new installation of Vico Office!

1. GENERAL

1.1. PREVIOUS VERSION FILES

All models that are part of projects that were created prior to Vico Office R4.0 have been deactivated to apply a

quantity calculation improvement. This applies to all projects located on the Vico Project Server. Models created

in these earlier versions of Vico Office need to be reactivated after opening the project for the first time.

1.2. DISK CLEANUP PRECAUTIONS

When running standard Windows Disk Cleanup, or other similar applications to free up disk space, it is almost

certain that all .log files will be deleted from your system. While most Windows .log files are expendable, the

Versant database logs are not!

Permanently deleting them from your system will destroy your Vico Office projects.

1.3. ANTI‐VIRUS SOFTWARE

Some Anti‐Virus software blocks or slows down the communication between Vico Office and the Vico Project

Server. Exceptions should be added to the Anti‐Virus software settings to prevent this – see page 18 of the Vico

Office Installation Guide for these settings.

1.4. DISPLAY SETTINGS

The 3D View bar appears as “floating” and other parts of the UI may be hidden when changing the size of text

through the Windows Display Settings icons in the Control Panel; use the default Smaller ‐ 100% setting to

prevent this from happening.


2. INSTALLATION

2.1. NETWORKING

VERY IMPORTANT: When you use Vico Office in a configuration with separate server and client, make sure that

both server and client(s) systems are updated to the latest version of Vico Office.

2.2. ADMINISTRATIVE RIGHTS

Installation of Vico Office requires administrator rights and elevated access rights in cases where User Account

Controls (UAC) are enabled; UACs may need to be modified, or turned off, via the Control Panel.

When installing Vico Office while connected to a network domain, the UAC settings may be different from an

offline profile, which can result in changed hardware identification characteristics. The changed hardware

characteristics may result in a “no valid license found” message. Reinstalling your license will solve this issue.

2.3. THE VERSANT DATABASE

Versant is the backend database used to store and interact with information inside of the Vico Project Server

(VPS). Most local installations of Vico Office will see a folder for the c:\Versant directory stored onto their machine

for project storage. The project server can also be installed across a LAN for communal project access. See the

installation guide for more details.


2.4. BIM CONNECTIONS

In some cases, the installer is unable to detect the folder in which ArchiCad, AutoCAD, Revit and Tekla was

installed on your computer. If this happens, the Office installer allows for selecting the folder manually. All

required files will be copied to the specified folder.

3. R5.2 FEATURE ADDITIONS

3.1. 3D

[New] Show/hide button has been added to the model register. This option works similar to standard 3D

filtering, however it is a global setting and can only be toggled from the register. The benefit of this option is that

users can leave 3D models active for quantification but can avoid having to load them each time the 3D view is

rebuilt. This will be a big time saver for users with large projects, especially models with very high element counts!

[New] 3D rendering settings dialog has been added to the UI to help users adapt to the various types of inputs

coming into the system. The dialog box can be found in the upper right corner of the program, in between the

help file icon and the short cut keys icon. Selecting the rendering settings will allow the user to adjust their view

mode (graphics driver) along with the 3D frame rate, double precision loading and camera transitions.

Users must run the Vico Office application as the administrator to be able to make changes using this dialog, or

they must allow full permissions for Vico Office to be able to edit the registry. To enable full permissions for the

registry, run the ‘regedit’ command and navigate to: “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Vico Software" and

select “Permissions” then check Full Control for your user.


Note: Users are not advised to change these settings without intent; the settings have been exposed to the UI

because some inputs, both 2D and 3D, have unique requirements that are better displayed with these varied

controls. However, these controls are not beneficial for all cases and should only be implemented if content is not

performing as excepted and/or when advised by technical support.

View Mode: This option allows users to toggle between OpenGL and DirectX viewing modes. The default

mode for Vico Office is OpenGL, however in some cases it does not display all of the necessary content

coming in from PDF drawings. If a drawing appears blank and/or missing text and geometry, the toggle

can be set to DirectX to see if the display is corrected. If the display of the drawing is not corrected using

this settings, please report the case to technical support.

Frame Rate Mode: 3D view frame rate has a direct correlation to interaction fluidity; this means that a

balance must be struck (within the system) as to how much time is spent rendering an individual view, as

compared to allocating machine resources onto rendering the next view. This balance becomes

increasingly more important for larger models and/or machines with limited computing power. Changing

this toggle in the rendering settings allows a method for ensuring a good balance between application responsiveness and visual integrity but should only be done when our technical support team helps to identify a reproducible crash resulting from the Vico Office viewer.

Frame Rate Value: In cases where fixed frame rate is causing too much burden to the system, a user

could go in and set the values equal to target frame rates. A lower value in the frame rate will make the

3D view choppier but reduces the demand on the system and allows interaction with large models while

not burdening the system too heavily. Higher frame rate values will increase the fluidity of the display but

will have a draining impact on the computing resources.

Lock Frame Rate: Selecting this option will remove the viewing engines ability to adapt the view as it sees

fit to improve viewing performance but at the risk of instability. Using this option will allow display views

to occur in at a consistent rate but at the expense of limiting the users’ interaction with the model until

each frame is completely rebuilt.

Smooth Camera Transition: Is checked by default and controls how the view would zoom into a scene

using the zoom window command. Leaving it checked will provide a fluid transition into the zoomed area.

Unchecking this option may speed up interaction but the transition into a zoomed area would not be a

fluid experience.

Enable Double Precision: This setting has to do with the amount of data that is loaded into, and

subsequently calculated, within each interaction of the 3D view. Enabling double precision may be

necessary for projects using real world coordinate systems. However, using this feature does double the

amount of data that would have to be loaded and calculated for each and every interaction and may have

an adverse effect on interaction if it is applied when not necessary.


3.2. 4D PLAYER

[New] Time line banner and increment controls are now shown directly in the 4D playback area; this allows users

the slide the playback across the dates according to their own preferences and without accessing the calendar in a

secondary palette. (Note the calendar is still available in the palette format, if desired) Additionally, users can

change the increment setting and duration directly from this band.

Additional increment settings have also been added, including: 1, 3, 7, 14, 30 day options

3.3. COMPARE AND UPDATE

[New] Presets for takeoff pads to simplify copying default formulas, TOQs, graphics settings and visibility over to

new projects

3.4. COST PLANNER

[New] Notes field in properties palette to increase the amount of information available to the user

[New] Support for CUF XML to automate the integration of VPS data with other third‐party systems

[Improved] Support for sbXML to automate the integration of VPS data with other third‐party systems

3.5. DOCUMENT CONTROLLER

[New] Align & Scale persists into ‘Highlight’ and ‘Overlay’ mode now. This functionality will allow users to align

2D PDF drawings that do not align on the paper space across multiple print releases. To use this functionality,

select any two drawings from the Document Register (press and hold the Ctrl key to select multiple drawings) and

enter into any comparison mode; the ‘Align & Scale’ function will now be available from the ribbon toolbar.

Selecting the command will make the first selected drawing green and ask the user to choose two points – next the

second drawing will appear green and the user is asked to select the two corresponding points of that drawing.

Upon selecting all four points, the second selected drawing will shift to align with the first.

3.6. PUBLISHERS

[New] Support for Tekla 20.1 and 21 is included within the R5.2 release. Users of Tekla should install the latest

release of Tekla on their machine first and should install Vico Office afterwards; doing so will update to the latest

publisher and will provide a ‘Publish to Vico Office’ icon within the Tekla UI. Note that there is no need to uninstall

previous versions of either program for this update to work.


[New] Removed the requirement for an IFC importer license and made it a part of the Vico Office ‘client license’

to take better advantage of IFC file prevalence.

[New] SketchUp importer support for ‘visible elements’ only has been added to this release in support of users

who leverage layer and display properties to control the visibility of elements within their model.

[New] Support for ADSK 2016 products is included within the R5.2 release. Users of Revit 2015 should install the

latest release of Revit on their machine first and should install Vico Office afterwards; doing so will update to the

latest publisher and will provide a ‘Publish to Vico Office’ icon under the Revit add‐ins button on the ribbon. Note

that there is no need to uninstall previous versions of either program for this update to work.

[Update] The supported publishers as of R5.2 include:

ArchiCAD – Version 17 & 18

AutoCAD Architecture – Versions 2015 & 2016

AutoCAD MEP – Versions 2015 & 2016

Bentley AECOSim Building Designer – Version V8i (SS5)

Revit – Versions 2015 & 2016

Tekla Structures – Version 20, 20.1, and 21

[Update] The supported importers as of R5.2 include:

CAD‐Duct – via XML

IFC – Versions IFC2x3 and IFC4

SketchUp: Versions 8, 2013, 2014 and 2015

Trimble Connect

3.7. REPORT EDITOR

[New] Exposed ‘Note’ fields to report editor so that users of Takeoff Manager (TOM) and Cost Planner (CP) have

the ability to communicate their notes in output reports coming from Vico Office.

3.8. SCHEDULE PLANNER

[New] Made program a 64bit application in support of larger projects with high memory utilization. The update is

available for both standalone installations of Schedule Planner, as well as Vico Office integrated Schedule Planner.

Performance gains will be recognized on projects with a lot of activities and a lot of completion information. It will

not, however, change the performance for the average user on small/medium projects.

[New] Updated the completion report calculations to take advantage of the latest and greatest formulas when

calculating Production Control information. The changes will impact the way that some existing completion

information is calculated within the system, as well as being applied to all newly entered calculations. Additionally,

new increments of completion information can now be entered into the system.


[New] Updated the Interactive Training Guide (ITG) that can be found when opening up the application. Selecting

the ITG for Schedule Planner or Production Controller now opens up the latest training content from the Trimble

Services team.

3.9. TAKEOFF MANAGER

[New] Intelligent activation has been added to the program to reduce the overall amount of time required to

execute the Vico Office workflow. This performance enhancement will be recognized each time a model

reactivation takes place – previously, Vico Office calculated all quantities for all elements each time a reactivation

was done. Now a flag has been added to the system so that it knows to only calculate the quantity of those

elements which have been modified since the last activation/reactivation.

It is important to note that this change is primarily focused towards saving time while a user works inside of a file

and makes standard/small LBS change. In those cases, the gains will be very significant. When users are starting

out with new models or new files, the performance will be the same as previous releases.

The performance gain recognized through this change will be proportional to the amount of change that takes

place in between each activation. This is to say: If a user creates a new LBS in between activations, that change will

impact nearly all elements in the project and the performance gain would be negligible. If, however, the user only

modifies some parts of the LBS or even just some manually assigned elements, the reduction in overall activation

time would be significant.

Users will not feel the performance gain in cases where an entire model is deactivated and then reactivated; this is

because all of the quantities are removed from the system during deactivation and so subsequently must be

recalculated when a new activation takes place.

[New] Added delineation for three types of tonnage calculation

‘T(S)’ is Short ton (imperial) = 907.185kg or 2,000 lbs

‘T(M)’ is Metric ton, otherwise known as ‘Tonne’ = 1,000kg 2,204 lbs

‘T(L)’ is Long ton (British) = 1016.05kg or 2,240 lbs

3.10. VICO OFFICE CLIENT

[New] Added 3‐way custom view option to the available view set combinations


3.11. VICO OFFICE PROJECT SERVER

[New] Termination of unused DB processes has been added in this release to avoid accumulation of memory build

up that could occur on the VPS over time. The termination will take place after a complete hour of non‐activity for

a given project on the server. No data will be lost! Reconnecting at a later moment may require a few additional

seconds at startup but the advantage of maximized memory utilization on the server will be gained in the long‐run.

3.12. VICO OFFICE WEB SERVICES

[New] Exposed WPM data to VOWS for reporting purposes. This allows package information to be integrated with

other third‐party systems, such as procurement and ERP systems.

[New] Support for CUF XML to automate the integration of VPS data with other third‐party systems

[Improved] Support for sbXML to automate the integration of VPS data with other third‐party systems

4. R5.2 DEFECT RESOLUTIONS

4.1. 3D VIEW

[TSR: 791538 + 787340 + 791538 – D‐10205] Manual Take‐off Model can't be turned off with a filter is resolved

[TSR: 789569 – D‐09855] Fixed crashing relating to 3D view

[TSR: 834044 – D‐10968] Fixed problems with 'Outline Mode' and how it was behaving during 3D viewing

4.2. 4D PLAYER

[TSR: 816475 – D‐10738] Fixed inexplicable Red color with Revit models during simulation

[TSR: 780655 – D‐09591] Fixed simulation that worked well in R4.7 but not R5.0

[TSR: 85935 – D‐09714] Fixed Inconsistent color and sequence behavior

4.3. COMPARE & UPDATE

[TSR: 797443 – D‐10150] Fixed Manual LBS assignments which were not being carried over when transferring data

using C&U. Note that a user must first copy the LBS information into the new project using C&U before the

element data can be brought over.

4.4. COST EXPLORER

[TSR: 766459 – D‐09289] Resolved hierarchy closing unexpectedly in cost explorer


4.5. COST PLANNER

[Fixed] Cost Planner automatically locks when WinEst estimate is imported while view is open

[TSR: 744238 – D‐09126] Fixed formula editor multiplication glitch

[TSR: 791407 – D‐10528] Fixed Issue at Cost Ranges


[TSR: 813832 – D‐10620] Removed dots that were appearing when doing document comparison

[TSR: 788887 – D‐10532] Made reference plane palette columns adjustable

[TSR: 07131 – D‐07928] Addressed PDF file which were only being shown partially

[TSR: 07510 – D‐08546] Fixed clouds that would not stay in place when zooming or panning in Highlight mode

[TSR: 805054 – D‐10444] Reduced file sizes for projects that were growing disproportionately to PDF input size

[TSR: 809883 – D‐10489] 'Align and Scale' should work for all comparison modes

[TSR: 791896 – D‐10511] Clouds placed in 'Slider Mode' are not printed

[TSR: 811493 – D‐10533] 3D Document Comparison was fixed in case where tolerances would not apply correctly

[TSR: 805054 – D‐10632] Adding PDF files increases the project size significantly

[TSR: 828233 + 828233 – D‐10825] Customer files appear blank in build (see 3D Enhancement section)

[TSR: 841954 – D‐11166] Fixed Print Preview/Print prints a small image, and places it off‐center

[TSR: 841955 – D‐11167] Addressed text placement shifted within Vico

[TSR: 839157 – D‐11175] Fixed flipped logos that appear in drawing title block

[TSR: 778637 – D‐10120] PDF Display Issue was resolved in case with significant hatch patterns

[TSR: 809998 + 809998 – D‐10508] Resolved text that was disappearing when using Highlight mode

[TSR: 833292 – D‐10951] Client PDFs that were showing up blank was resolved (see 3D Enhancement section)

[TSR: 797110 – D‐10983] Customer file does not display text (see 3D Enhancement section)

[TSR: 836315 – D‐10987] Fixed customer issue where files were showing up blank (see 3D Enhancement section)

[TSR: 841979 – D‐11200] Highlight mode makes documents disappear (see 3D Enhancement section)


4.7. EXCEL IMPORTER

[TSR: 822063 – D‐10923] Fixed source quantity field’s ability to handle ‘.’ In Dutch version of application

4.8. INSTALLER

[TSR: 815258 + 828572 – D‐10630] Incorrect Revit installation path detected

4.9. LBS MANAGER

[TSR: 826759 + 826759– D‐10863] Resolved issues where slabs were not splitting quants correctly from ArchiCAD.

[TSR: 820295 – D‐10711] Resolved poor 3D/LBS performance that was occurring on large project with Running

Modes turned on. Performance changes have been made but users are advised to turn off running modes in cases

where large projects are being rendered multiple times.

4.10. MODEL REGISTER

[TSR: 826131 – D‐10784] Resolved IFC geometry that was being imported and calculated incorrectly

[TSR: 832689 – D‐10910] Resolved error that was occurring when importing DDS IFC file

[TSR: 822035 – D‐10741] Resolved activation that failed when another process lock the database

[TSR: 800728 + 791877 + 801059 – D‐09921] Fake exclamation marks at activating were removed

[TSR: 819220 – D‐10688] 'Save' button serves no purpose in activation options and has been removed

[TSR: 842261 – D‐11198] ArchiCAD IFC file doesn't look right in Vico, unless first passed through Revit

4.11. PUBLISHER(S)/IMPORTER(S)

[TSR: 745317 – D‐09131] IFC Model ‐ Missing Elements and strange graphics has been resolved

[TSR: 745407 – D‐09132] Fixed IFC Model floor importation that was not working correctly

[TSR: 768594 – D‐09332] Fixed ArchiCAD IFC activation parameters that did not come in correct

[TSR: 745317 – D‐10622] Fixed IFC model importation that was missing elements and locations

[TSR: 824184 – D‐10752] Fixed publish from Revit that was failing because of elements with missing geometry

[TSR: 826803 + 829762– D‐10809] Fixed Revit Publish error that was failing because of elements with missing

geometry that were being pushed through during publish – a log has been added, which allows the program to

finish the publish and tells the user about which elements are missing geometry

[TSR: 826767 + 826767 – D‐10822] Fixed AC17 and AC18 files that were exhibiting different behavior in VO


4.12. REPORT EDITOR

[TSR: 784814 – D‐09717] Fixed frequent crashes that were occurring on users machine when using reports in R4.7

[TSR: 795423 – D‐10057] Circular field list in reporting engine has been resolved

[TSR: 827258 – D‐10810] Cost Variance field list was added to some projects that could not see this category

[TSR: 829676 – D‐10952] Report Designer custom consumption calculation was added to support unique inquiries

4.13. RUNNING MODE

[TSR: 819311 + 819311 – D‐10731] Snapping failure at LBS Manager has been resolved


[TSR: 769673 – D‐09308] Tasks that contain multiple cost plan items recalculate incorrectly when SP is closed

[TSR: 824389 + 824389 – D‐10767] Resolved Schedule Planner crashing when modifying Dependency

[TSR: 821419 – D‐10733] Addressed frequent crashes with client project (see SP Enhancement section)

[TSR: 07009 – D‐07839] Display error in gantt view has been resolved

[TSR: 07235 – D‐08098] Clarification of "Degree of Completion" calculation (see SP Enhancement section)

[TSR: 07372 – D‐08544] Resource histogram does not show/hide holidays and weekends correctly is fixed

[TSR: 04892 – D‐08788] Tasks are moved in schedule ('Current time' check box)

[TSR: 06362 – D‐08843] Completion report showing incorrect hours (see SP Enhancement section)

[TSR: 10488 – D‐809723] Gantt chart doesn’t respond to changes in shift length (see SP Enhancement section)

[TSR: 06362 – D‐10621] Completion report showing incorrect hours (see SP Enhancement section)

[TSR: 771908 – D‐10706] Calendar Error message/crash in Control mode has been resolved

[TSR: 829164 – D‐10857] Change Task Defaults to 'As early as possible' in UK install

[TSR: 834946 – D‐11013] Crash in Network view has been fixed

[TSR: 827285 – D‐10826] Resolved a case where opening SP changes some task driver values


[TSR: 791885 – D‐10199] Disappearing notes at Takeoff Manager has been fixed

[TSR: 812853 – D‐10645] Fixed TOIs that were disappearing when re‐opening VO


[TSR: 796385 – D‐10648] Window/Door 'Width', 'Height' and 'Perimeter' are zero has been resolved

[TSR: 821297 + 821297 – D‐10853] Fixed Column "U" type / 'Top Surface Area' that was being doubled

4.16. TAKEOFF PAD

[Fixed] The default value for manually created TOQs now starts at zero instead of one

[Fixed] Only one 2D document can be used per TOI component, so new components must be added if users

require similar takeoffs across multiple drawing sheets

[TSR: 813397 + 813397 – D‐10984] Location based 2D Takeoff Problems is now behaving as‐expected


[TSR: 795273 – D‐10053] Resolved Project data is blocked by one user (E2902: SM_LOCK_DEADLOCK)

[TSR: 809147 + 809147 – D‐10547] Updated client‐Server performance problem related to 3D view

[TSR: 745373 – D‐09133] Fixed new project creation error

[TSR: 788716 – D‐09833] Fixed Cost Planner/Project Update ‐ CXX_CLASS_SIGNATURE error

[TSR: 789356 – D‐09878] Fixed freeze when searching in help menu

[TSR: 791821 – D‐10200] Fixed fatal error when creating project with existing 'Code'

[TSR: 805263 – D‐10377] Fixed R5.0 MR2 fail to Unpack/update a R4.6 .vico project

[TSR: 813722 – D‐10561] Fixed Vico Office getting hung on sch2db.exe

[TSR: 832489 – D‐10929] Schedule Planner license usage has been revised to not take a Production Control license

with each opening of the application – the license is only taken when opening up the Production Control module

4.18. VICO PROJECT SERVER

[TSR: 804678 – D‐10680] Resolved slow performance issues

[TSR: 798879 – D‐10720] Addressed poor remote VPS performance

[TSR: 780377 – D‐09574] Fixed an error that could now allow update of projects after upgrading to R5.0

[TSR: 798879 – D‐10149] Fixed poor remote VPS performance

[TSR: 804678 – D‐10348] Fixed poor VPS performance

[TSR: 809785 + 809785 – D‐10475] Fixed unpack memory leak

[TSR: 815292 + 815292 – D‐10631] Fixed a specific user can't connect to the VPS (everyone else can).


[TSR: 841623 – D‐11134] Fixed database issue (Receive Failed)

4.19. WINEST INTEGRATION

[TSR: 799882 – D‐10164] installer does not appear to update any layout files other than the US one

5. 5.2 KNOWN ISSUES

5.1. 3D VIEW

[Known] Models coming in with real world coordinate values, especially very large values, are not currently

handled well within the system. ‘Double Precision’ support has been added to help address this issue; see the 3D

Rendering Settings dialog that was added to the 3D enhancement section to turn this on.

Users can expect to encounter challenges when trying to create locations and/or layout points from such models

when Double Precision (DP) is not turned on. However, users should be aware that turning DP on loads a lot of

information into the 3D view and can have an adverse impact on performance. To avoid this performance drop,

users can also suspend coordinate values before publishing them into Vico Office via the ‘Suspend Coordinate

Values’ checkbox that is included in the Revit publisher.

[Known] Running Modes have not been extended to every module within the program, yet. 4D Groups, Layout

Manager, Target Cost Editor and Task Manager do not yet support this functionality.

[Known] Derived elements are not always displaying perfectly when interacting with Running Modes. Derived

elements exist when project locations are added and a new representation of a partial element is needed to

display the location based portion of an element.

5.2. COST PLANNER

[Known] ‘Margins’ Preset occasionally resets itself to the default after adding new Markup type or switches the

column order; data is correct but may require selecting the preset again.


[Known] Some PDF font types may appear strangely when imported into Document Controller. Our product team

has developed and tested according to the most common font types, however some outliers may still exist.

Evidence of this occurrence may appear as incorrect character spacing, missing characters, or replaced characters

– We ask that you report such occurrences to our Technical Support team so that we can add support for any

problematic font types into the program.

5.4. LBS MANAGER

[Known] Derived elements may not always appear correctly within LBS manager. Derived elements exist when

project locations are added and a new representation of a partial element is needed to display the location based

portion of an element. Characteristics of this problem may include: elements that don’t appear in the expected


location, or elements with strange face displays that may not be selectable – please contact Technical Support if

you experience this problem!

5.5. PUBLISHERS

[Known] ArchiCAD composite elements do not always quantify as expected and may not provide the TOI

breakdown expected. This is because composite walls in ArchiCAD actually include and recognize void spaces as a

potential layer, however Vico Office cannot run quantifications on such a void. Provisions have been made to

deploy the best possible results via the current API availability. If quantities and/or TOI composition is not

desirable when coming in from AC, users are advised to work out custom formulas (via TOM/TOP/CP) to come up

with their own calculations that reflect their preferred takeoff of such composite elements.

[Known] Bentley’s AECOsim platform is capable of reading many file formats, including many which are not native

to AECOsim. This means that ‘proxy objects’ may be created by AECOsim to represent elements from other

programs. Such proxy objects are often represented using ‘smart solids’ which are not read well by Vico Office.

Our algorithms are not currently capable of categorizing or quantifying these elements well and they may appear

visually strange in the 3D display.

Users will most commonly run into this challenge when using AECOsim to read .dgn‐based files coming from

Microstation, Open Plant, MXROAD and other infrastructure centric platforms. The list of limitations is not

exclusive the above mentioned list, however these are the platforms that we’ve currently experienced limitations

with. We do apologize for this inconvenience, however the integration is not intended for support of all .dgn files.

The Bentley AECOsim publisher has been designed to support content that is created natively in AECOsim. If a user

experience undesirable results from a file that is read by AECOsim, rather than created by, we will advise the user

to author the content natively in AECOsim. We will work to resolve this limitation over time, however Bentley’s

extensive authoring tool capabilities make this long‐term endeavor. Support for new element sources and types

will be prioritized on customer feedback, so let us know if you encounter problems, however no timelines or

guarantees for support can be offered!


[Known] Revit ‘linked models’ do not always export content to Vico Office in an ideal manner. Users are advised

to unlink models and publish them to Vico Office individually to ensure that all properties are read and all

elements get categorized / quantified as expected. Failing to unlink models can result in inaccurate quantities

and/or parameters that do not make it across in the publish!

[Known] SketchUp does not store reference information in the same way as some other BIM authoring

applications, making it harder for Vico Office to provide some quantity types coming from SkethcUp. Also, some

element type classification are not currently being read well. The new Onscreen Takeoff tools should help to

supplement any occurrences of missing quantities and element types can be manually reassigned in TOM to

address this. We are working with the SketchUp team on a regular basis to resolve this.

[Known] Tekla content created and managed in the latest release using the ‘organizer’ tool will not be read

correctly by Vico Office. When this happens, users may find that the element type recognition in TOM does not

behave as expected. To resolve this, users can go into TOM and change the elements to the desired type inside of

Vico Office, or they can manage the classifications manually in Tekla.

Please contact our technical support team if you wish to classify the elements manually inside of Tekla. When

doing so, they will provide you with the ‘object.inp’ file that can be dropped into your Tekla dataset; doing so will

automate the creation of ‘Vico 01, 02, 03 and Vico object type’ inside of the Tekla classification tool.


[Known] More granularity and accuracy has been introduced into the way that the program calculates completions

based upon the actual information being entered during production control. With these changes comes the

probability that some completion percentages will appear different when upgrading to the latest version. This is

because the list of actuals now reflects the actual man inside of the calculation. Through this update, actual man‐

hours are reflected by the list of actuals only until the last day having completion percentage data; actuals are

changed by evolution only if there were user‐defined man‐hours entered in 5.1 or earlier


[Known] If a user changes the input quantity value for a task that already has completion calculations associated

with it, it is probably that the percentage complete will read higher than 100%. This is because the percentage

complete calculation is based on the initial quantity value in place when the first actual is entered. Subsequent

completion entries drive the program to believe that more units than were necessary have been put into place.

This anomaly falls outside of the standard workflow and will be addressed in a future release of Vico Office.


[Known] The first activation in a new build will take longer when measured against the activation time in a

previous build. This is because we reprocess all of the TOIs to ensure that they are properly categorized by the

system according to the latest updates. Subsequent activations would not take as long because the initial results

remain valid for all reactivations within the release.

Note that: This increased time of activation is different from the Intelligent Activation mentioned above.

Intelligent activation refers specifically to the quantification that is applied to each element – this note

pertains to the classification that must take place first. Again, this is a onetime analysis that must take

place for each new project that is upgraded and activated in the latest release.

[Known] Each release of Vico Office brings with it improved quantity calculations, as well as support for new CAD

applications. As such, the calculated values for takeoff quantities (TOQs) can change from release to release. The

changes can be a result of how elements are quantified by Vico, how locations are derived by Vico, or how bodies

are generated by the authoring application. Vico Office does not force the reactivation of models with each new

release, however it is strongly advised the users reactivate in each new release to take full advantage of the latest

and greatest calculation methods.

5.8. TAKEOFF PAD

[Known] In certain circumstances polygons drawn in a hybrid section mode are only visible on the upper side of

the section (flipped view). Data is correct but it is preferable to use a filtered location view for creation and full

visibility of those takeoff items.


5.9. VICO PROJECT SERVER (VPS)

[Known] Projects that are restored using only the VPSA backup command, rather than the packing functionality,

cannot be properly updated into newer (R5.0) versions of Vico Office. To avoid this problem, users should rely on

the packing functionality to preserve their historical projects, rather than simply replying on the VPSA backups.

5.10. WINEST INTEGRATION

[Known] The WinEst Integration utility must be reinstalled after Vico Office. This is because VO may overwrite the

default layout.xml information and the integration becomes unusable. A simple reinstallation of the connector will

rectify the problem.

6. GENERAL BEST PRACTICES

6.1. COST EXPLORER

[Note] Only elements from the active model versions will be isolated or highlighted in the 3D View when selecting

a node representation of a Cost Version within the Cost Explorer view.


[Note] Not all PDFs are created equally and not all fonts are read similarly. We have created and tested

Document Controller using the most common font types but atypical fonts may appear strangely if they have not

been tested yet – please let us know if you find this occurrence!

6.3. LBS MANAGER

[Note] Models must always be reactivated after adding or modifying LBS locations and/or nodes; doing so will

analyze the geometry through the new locations and provide proper quantities by location. Failing to do so will

result in quantities that are not calculated per the LBS.

Locations should be made with the fewest polylines possible in LBS manager to avoid “ghost” locations (see sketch

below). Overlapping polylines that are used to represent a single location may produce unpredictable results and

location creation during the model reactivation process.


Correct Method Incorrect Method

[Note] Location copying was added in R4.7 but requires a specific set of circumstances to work properly –

here is a list of conditions that must be met for location copying to work:

The source node (copy from) has to be a floor or location system node

o The source node cannot be a zone node

The source node (copy from) and destination (copy to) must be under the same parent node, which

refers to a floor split or a location system.

o For example: a zone breakdown from location system 1 cannot be copied across to the

corresponding floor split of location system 2 because each location system is considered to

be a different parent node.

The source node (copy from) may only contain zones under it – it cannot include any additional floor

splits under it.

The destination node (copy to) can only be a floor or location system node – it cannot be a zone node.

The destination node (copy to) cannot already have existing zone nodes below it.

[Note] Important to understand: Previous versions of Vico Office included a function that removed unnecessary

nodes from polylines but in some cases it could defect and also remove value‐added nodes. (see sketches). In R4.7

this was fixed and Vico Office now only removes the totally unnecessary nodes, which results in the old zone

definitions that do not match the new definitions – steps for resolving this are listed below the sketches:

Condition Sketch Location Definition

‘Original ‐ condition #1’

Location A, as defined by LBS: 1, 5, 7, 6 and 4 Location B, as defined by LBS: 2, 5, 7 and 8 Location C, as defined by LBS: 3, 6, 7 and 8


‘User refined ‐ condition #2’

(Polyline splitting B & C was removed – location B remains)

Location A, as defined by LBS: 1, 5, 7, 4 and 4 Location B, as defined by LBS: 2, 8, 3, 6, 7 and 5

‘Vico understood –condition #2b’

LBS manager no longer defines the location with the exact same nodes; it thinks it has two new locations. Here they are called Y & Z but they would be called ‘unnamed 1 & 2’ in the program – also, the previous locations of A & B would appear as empty (italicized) in the program. Schedule logic that is looking for location A & B logic would fail in this case.

‘New final ‐ condition #3’

To resolve this, users should ‘Paint LBS node’ of the Y ‐location to the (now empty) A‐location in LBS manager. Also, location Z should be painted to the (now empty) B‐location in LBS manager. Location Y & Z will appear as empty and can be deleted. Users must do this before opening the schedule to avoid undesired results.

[Note] A workflow summary for properly handling the above scenario would be:

Make sure Schedule Planner remains closed

Reactivate project models

Go to LBS manager and find all nodes which have lost their geometry

Use location painting to assign the (empty/italicized) nodes to the corresponding ‘Unnamed’ (bold) nodes

Delete the unneeded (now italicized) notes

Reactivate the models again (to generate correct quantities)


Open Schedule Planner

6.4. PUBLISHERS

[Note] Revit models that are linked together and published into Vico Office do not always behave predictably. In

some cases, linked models do not respect the filtering constraints that were put on the publishing view and can

result in undesired outputs and/or duplicate quantities. Users are advised to remove the link between files and

publish them separately.


Vico Office performs its own calculations on all of the elements coming into the system; it does not rely on the

quantities being provided by the CAD systems, as they sometimes do not match the needs of the construction

industry. Also, internal calculation is required in order for Vico Office to be able to split locations and subsequently

provide split quantity values.

When performing so many internal calculations, there is a possibility that some items may not get quantified as

expected. Warning icons have been added to the UI to help identify these cases. Here is what these icons mean:

Message: “The Takeoff item contains elements which have erroneous geometry. Quantity painting for these

elements will not change the surface quantities”

o Meaning: At least one element of the TOI has bad geometry. Possible causes: failed split or

publishing problem from CAD application.

Message: “This Takeoff item contains missing quantities”

o Meaning: At least one TOQ of the TOI has a 0 value on at least one location and this TOQ is not

allowed to have 0 values. This problem is most likely caused by the previous problem (bad geometry,

failed splits, etc.). The user can select from context menu the elements of the TOI with missing

quantities and check them in 3D view. They could assign manual values to the 0 TOQ values, but

that’s generally a poor solution; Issues should be escalated to our technical support team to allow our

developers to investigate the problem and solve the real cause of it.

Message: “The element splitting action has caused an overall quantity difference by more than ½% compared

to the original element”

o Meaning: This means that the safety check which compares the sum of derived element volumes to

the original element volume after the element was split has found higher than expected quantities.

In other words, the element splitting had an error.

Message: “Some of the associated Elements have no geometry data”

o Meaning: This means that at least one element of the TOI was published from the CAD without

geometry. This might be intentional or it might be a problem. User has to decide whether this is by

design or not. If not, it needs to be fixed on the CAD side.

o

Walls that contain window or door elements that span from bottom to top may result in incomplete quantities

in Vico Office, because the Vico Office calculation does not recognize both sides of the window or door

elements as part of the same side of the wall.


“Units of Measurement” should be defined in the Project Settings before inserting data. Changing the “Units

of Measurements” will not update the units of existing Takeoff quantities.

When you select the quantity “Hole Surface Area” for slabs or “Opening Surface Area” for walls, no geometry

will be highlighted in the model but the opening area is correctly calculated.

Quantities for roof elements that have a hole, of which the sides are not perpendicular to the roof’s top and

bottom, may not be correct.

Figure 4 ‐ Roof element with hole edges not perpendicular

to the roof element's surface.

“Thickness” quantities are not currently calculated for Roof elements and Surface (or Mesh) elements.

When using Revit’s “Solid Element” operations to subtract a volume from a slab, the “Top Surface Area”

that is returned includes the “Top Surface Area” of the element that was used to subtract the volume.

Figure 5 ‐ Sample Slab element with solid

element operation applied to it.

Some predefined Door and Window families from Revit contain a “Height” property that does not match

the standard name for this property or a “Height” property value that equals “0.” As a consequence,

“Height” may be missing for instances of these specific Door Window families.

When publishing models from ArchiCAD, geometry of elements on Layers that are not visible at the

moment of publishing to Vico Office will be skipped during the publish operation and result in “Missing

Geometry” notifications in Takeoff Manager.

Slanted wall elements will not return correct surface areas.


When a wall element has been trimmed diagonally at its bottom, there is no bottom edge that is parallel

with the wall’s reference line. As a consequence, none of the sides will be classified as “Reference” or

“Opposite Reference” side. The result is that all vertical surfaces of the wall element are included in the

“Ends Surface Area” quantity.

Figure 6 ‐ Wall element trimmed along its base.

There may be instances where a distinction between a profiled or rectangular beam and column cannot

be made automatically so may not classify correctly in TOM. If you use element type to filter or sort your

TOIs then you can select the incorrectly classified TOI and override the element type so it is correct. The

calculations are identical for both types so your TOQs will still be correct whether you chose to correct or

leave as is.

The following quantities are missing for stair elements modeled in Revit: “Riser Surface Area,” “Side

Surface Area,” and “Bottom Surface Area.”

Column/Wall issue: when a column element is “embedded” in a wall element (due to a specific setting in

ArchiCAD), the quantities of the column can be incorrect – typically the quantities are larger than

expected.

The representation of certain Stair elements is different in Revit 2012 and Revit 2013. As a consequence,

calculated surface areas and volumes in Vico Office may differ.

When Vico Office detects geometry with nested inner loops, it marks the geometry as “incorrect”. This is

treated as partially bad geometry, which will not be able to supply any surface quantities. All the surface

quantities of such geometry will always be 0 and TOQ painting will not be able to change these surface

quantities. In the user interface, the surface TOQ’s that belong to such elements will all have 0 values and

will appear with red text and red exclamation mark.


Figure 7 ‐ "Nested Inner Loops" are created when the edge of an element intersects itself,

thus creating what appear to be holes in 3D.

When a single Slab element consists of multiple disconnected solid entities with one or more of the solids

fully enclosed in the other solid, and the enclosed solid’s base is on a higher level, the calculation rules will

fail to correctly return the Edge Perimeter.

Figure 8 – Element with multiple solids enclosed in it and base levels on different elevations.

In this example, “Z1” is lower than “Z2”, which will return only the perimeter of the element

on the “Z1” level.

Further information on Vico Office’s calculation rules is provided in the Help file and on our website, via

this link.



With some Revit models a dialog with an “Inconsistency detected” message appears during publishing of new

model versions; click the “No” button to bypass this message and complete the activation process. The new

version will be published to Vico Office as intended.

To make sure that Vico Office can correctly recognize the types of the elements in a CAD‐Duct model, your export

to IFCxml from CAD‐Duct should contain the following information:

a. Source (the element’s category)

b. Library (the element’s type)

c. Service (the MEP system)

If any of these properties are missing, elements will be imported as “Objects” in Vico Office and will only return the “Count” quantity. Additionally, before running the IFCE command use the IFCATTR command and verify that the “Use Default Format” option is selected.

7. DATABASE TROUBLESHOOTING

7.1. TROUBLESHOOTING

Problem Cause/Notes Resolution Test for ProblemVico Office cannot connect to local or network VPS (Versant database).

Antivirus or firewall blocks the connection. Note: Multiple firewalls/antivirus can be present on a machine Versant database is not installed properly/’versantd’ service is not running

Set exceptions for the following files:

C:\VERSANT\8\bin\versantd.exe (TCP/IP port 5019)

C:\VERSANT\8\bin\obe.exe (TCP/IP port range 6000‐6200)

C:\VERSANT\8\NotificationDaemon.exe (TCP/IP port 5088)

Reinstall VPS/start ‘versantd’ service

itest –v <SERVER_NAME> (DOS command line function) Check the Control Panel ‐> Administrative tools ‐> Services ‐> VersantD

Vico Office crashes during startup

TCP/IP networking is not set up properly (DNS name resolution). TCP is broken or there is no network adapter in the machine

Set up TCP/IP networking (ask your administrator)

ipconfig (DOS command line function)

Vico Office drops E7031 error during startup

User must have permissions to write Versant DB directory (usually c:\Versant\db)

Set proper rights on the Versant DB directory in Windows Explorer (C:\Versant\db)

Run the following commands in Command Prompt: makedb testdb createdb testdb


8. TRIMBLE GC/CM DIVISION, SUPPORT SERVICES

Trimble GC/CM Division Support Services is committed to offering timely, thorough, and efficient resolutions to

your installation and operation issues in accordance with your Trimble Support Contract. To receive the best

support possible, be sure to review the Trimble Support Services Handbook.

You can contact Trimble GC/CM Division, Support Services by:

Email: [email protected]

Internet: http://support.vicosoftware.com

Trimble SupportLink includes a technical knowledge base, answers to frequently asked questions, technical

documentation, and a form to submit specific support requests 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.