Hey JQL,
Thanks for your comments. I have answered below in blue.
What if a building derives from a custom shape and not vertical walls and horizontal slabs?
There is no problem here. You can use the tools however you like. There is no set workflow (eg. you have to draw walls first, or slab first, or anything else).
What if all the walls of a building are of varying thicknesses from start to end?
No problem at all. You can control the thickness and construction type of each individual wall. You can then detail the different connections, as PlusSpec highlights this.
What if construction methodology is not about wooden structures but other structures like concrete or masonry?
No problem. PlusSpec has masonry wall types (double masonry, single masonry) and a solid wall type (concrete, rammed earth, etc).
What if a roof isn't as the examples you show, but it's a concrete slab instead with a lot of insulation and waterproofing details or an horizontal green roof?
No problem. Technically green roofs shouldn't be thought of as a 'roof' with building components. They are actually built up using the concrete slab tool, or the joist tool (timber/lumber or steel). You can then add the different insulation/waterproofing details as appropriate with the floor surface tool. LOD (Level of Detail) is very important to understand though. On the Lite page roof GIF you will see a very quick example of a flat roof.
I haven't seen examples of those kind of buildings in your tutorials and I'm certainly not going to build as the buildings I see on your typical examples and that's why I can't justify Plusspec.
I know that with Revit I can model a mass study in either Revit and Sketchup and have it's surfaces converted into building elements automatically. I can work on them using certain parametric features (I haven't dealt with Revit for long so I don't know how well this as developed so far). In your case it seems that I would need to use the BIM tool and design those elements without parametrics and then use the PS tools for secondary stuff.
Revit is very limited here. PlusSpec has a similar workflow. You can change surfaces into flooring and roofing. We are also working on vertical surfaces (but this is much more complicated due to openings, etc). Most of our users simply trace the vertical surfaces with the wall types they want to use. It's still very quick.
For people like me who don't deal with that kind of standard construction methodology you show at the site, who work well with sketchup and who would eventually choose a BIM package for more complex projects, Plusspec doesn't seem to fit.
Could you send me an example project showcasing the type of work you do?
Maybe it's a problem of the software's objective that doesn't fit mine, maybe it's only a marketing issue where the examples shown are not what I'm looking for. If the later is true then why not show us examples on how to achieve these kind of projects. I'd be happy with seeing how you achieved the Ronchamp model in the site, and how much of it is parametric and how those parametric walls deal with the custom roof, or how those parametric windows that have custom angled openings are worked.
Unlike other BIM software, we suit Architects, Designers, Builders/Contractors and Estimators. Therefore, we do keep things simple when demonstrating. That being said, we will be creating more Architectural examples in the future.
What I imagine is that is built with Sketchup tools and you use the PS tool to create attributes on it, but that's exactly what I do right now too but I'd be very happy to read it's not.
TThere are several workflows used, depending on the complexity. For the Lite version, it would most definitely be the latter.
Best regards, sorry for insisting and thanks for your patience. It's just that I know that I will need to transition to BIM eventually in the future and I'm trying to figure out which are my best options.