I used it at my former firm. It works well for 2D stuff. I never used it for 3D. It was simple to apply loads and seemed to flow pretty well overall. No major complaints that I can remember.
I was just checking it out. I have used STAAD for a long time and have a friend who uses it.
I did have a boss at one point that used "visual analysis"...in all his arrogance could simply look at my beams and columns and say "change that to a W24x55...etc"
I've used Visual Analysis since 2001 for both 2D and 3D projects with my two previous employers. I also had previous experience with STAAD, and some more recent experience RISA, and some SAP. After using the latter two, I requested VA in this job as I was not productive on RISA or SAP. But that is just me. Others on our staff have moved onto ETABS. We also have two younger engineers that float between ETABS and VA.
I am not that computer literate - so staying with what I already know suits me best.
For the most part it does what I need it to do. It is easy to create models by connecting the dots and/or copy/paste existing elements.
However I have not had any success with their Direct Analysis Method. It supposedly adds in the notional loads automatically, but I have not gotten it to work yet.
They have been having on-line training courses that I am following and I am learning new features every week.
It was better than when I used it nine years ago (very crash-prone).
I had a lot of concerns with the steel beam stuff but it seemed to give results that made sense. (I had FL uplifts and different top chord braces from bottom chord braces, so I was watching Cb pretty closely, the uplift was overpowering the roof dead load and that was a new situation for me. Most of the roofs I'd worked with before that were (a) ballasted and (b) 90 mph. So I was watching it pretty closely.)
I like it better than Staad. I'm just not technical enough for Staad. It seems to be a lot like EnerCalc, anybody can get results, but it takes attention to get correct results that feel correct.
VA is great in my opinion for smaller things. It has a very easy to use interface. The thing about RISA and ETABS and those other big programs is that you have to spend alot of time doing input while with VA it is fast to put in a simple frame or truss or beam and get results fast.
I have used both VA, RISA, SAP. I prefer RISA, although like everyone has mentioned, VA is good for smaller stuff, not that RISA is poor at that by any means.
I do not have experience in STAAD, so I cannot compare for you.
I use STAAD now, but in the not too far past I used visual analysis.
I don't see much in STAAD that is better or more advanced than Visual Analysis.
The user interface in VA is much better (or not so 1990's ish). It's capabilities are fine for most everything. I'm not sure about the time history or non-linear pushover type stuff, but I think it has those capabilities. One of the main plusses in my book is customer service. The IES people listen to suggestions, and you may find your suggestion implemented in the next update (their updates are much more frequent than Bentley's). The design reports have much more informational than STAAD's.
Like any analysis and design software, garbage in/garbage out. You have to get your settings right in Visual Analysis, but I think that may be easier than in STAAD.
STAAD has the brand name recognition and is the "World's #1 Structural Analysis and Design Software" or some such thing. It's interface is more than a little dated. It seems that Bentley has put it's development on the low-low burner. Not much new coming out of the STAAD front (The upcoming refresh to STAAD(X) notwithstanding).
I forced myself to switch to STAAD with hopes for BIM compatibility with Microstation and RAM. No such luck yet.
I downloaded a trial version of VA to check it out and I personally thought the interface was cumbersome, but I have been using STAAD for a long time now.
I find these things can be tough to transition to if you haven't colleagues around who have knowledge with the software. I learned a lot about STAAD from co-workers with experience.
I'd really have to spend some time in order to get comfortable with VA, but, like I said, I noticed some things in VA that looked better than STAAD, namely the reports.
I have used VA in 4 different employers and agree with most of the statements above. We currently have SAP2000, ETABS, and VA at our office and I prefer VA for most of our smaller jobs. For pipe bridges, small buildings and plate mesh analysis, I enjoy the simple interface as compared to ETABS or STAAD.
For a large building (we just completed a large food storage / processing facility in the South), ETABS is probably better since it auto-generates sesimic for you. With ETABS and SAP, it just seems so cumbersome to get the software to model and then even optimize the steel shapes (I have never been able to get ETABS to tell me the shapes that are more "economical") and in VA it is very simple.
With that said, VA will generate wind loads for you, but I prefer to do it myself anyways (same with ETABS). I still find that the fast results and flexibility of VA keeps me coming back. I can get a basic model into the software and have results in a day or less typically. Granted, I have also had problems with their DAM implementation, but I hope they improve it in future versions.
