Nemetschek Group – the AECO software developer whose brands include Graphisoft, Vectorworks, Allplan and Bluebeam – and Takenaka, one of Japan’s largest construction companies, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to advance digital transformation and AI-driven solutions in the construction sector.

The MoU initiates a strategic partnership to develop and pilot AI-assisted, cloud-based, and open digital platforms that streamline and enhance collaborative workflows across planning, design, construction, and operation processes.

“This partnership with Takenaka, a true leader with deep expertise in the construction industry, is a pivotal step,” said Marc Nezet, chief strategy officer at the Nemetschek Group. “By combining their extensive, practical know-how with our advanced digital and AI capabilities, we are co-creating a more efficient, sustainable, and data-driven future for the entire AEC/O industry.

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“We believe in empowering our partners and customers to combine human-centric AI innovations with sustainability across the building lifecycle.”

Key areas outlined within the agreement include a commitment to best practice exchange through regular knowledge-sharing sessions, methodologies, and operational insights.

Nemetschek and Takenaka will also focus on joint AI and digital platform innovation, working together to identify, prioritise, and develop cloud-based digital and AI solutions for the AECO sector.

Secure data sharing and validation form another cornerstone of the agreement, with governance models and technical safeguards established to enable data-driven transformation.

Finally, both parties reaffirm their commitment to data protection and compliance, ensuring adherence to privacy, security, and intellectual property standards in line with global best practices.

“This partnership embodies the forward-thinking spirit of our industry,” said Daniel Csillag, CEO of Graphisoft. “By partnering with Takenaka Corporation, we are laying the groundwork for truly collaborative, open, and data-driven workflows that benefit architects, engineers, and contractors worldwide. We are proud to contribute our expertise and technology towards this transformative journey, also building on an existing Enterprise Licensing and Service Agreement between Graphisoft and Takenaka Corporation.”

Nemetschek stated that the MoU serves as a foundation and guiding framework for future joint project-specific agreements. The agreement takes effect immediately and will remain in place for a period of five years.

Main image caption: From left to right: Mr Tetsuo Harada (Executive Managing Officer, Takenaka Corporation), Mr Daniel Csillag (CEO, Graphisoft), Mr Susumu Matsuo (General Manager, Digital Division Head Office, Takenaka Corporation).

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Vectorworks has undergone some big changes over the last couple of years, as it navigates the shift to a more subscription-based model for customers and, more recently, adapts to new leadership. With Jason Pletcher now at the company’s helm, there could be further transformation ahead.

Pletcher was announced as the new CEO of Vectorworks in February 2025, taking the reins from Dr Biplab Sarkar, who retired in March after an impressive 25-year tenure at the company.

Pletcher came to Vectorworks from another Nemetschek brand, GoCanvas, where he served as chief operating and financial officer and, according to Nemetschek executives, was instrumental in almost quadrupling GoCanvas’ business over a 5-year period.

Hopes are presumably high that he can pull off a similar trick at Vectorworks, improving its business and expanding its market reach.

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The new Vectorworks CEO has wasted no time in emphasising his conviction that design creativity should drive business results, rather than be hindered by software limitations. That’s an interesting statement, perhaps suggesting that Vectorworks might be readying itself to explore the world of cloud-based services, a market in which GoCanvas already operates as a provider of mobile field work management software.

Moving forward

One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is Vectorworks’ commitment to providing its customers with an annual refresh of product capabilities – with the additional flourish this year of declaring Vectorworks 2026 as its most “forward thinking software version yet”.

As Pletcher put it: “Designers are ambitious and Vectorworks 2026 offers the tools to transform their big ideas into reality. Our latest version allows designers to work more efficiently, break free from busy work, automate manual processes and unleash their design freedom, so their best work can move forward.”

The overarching themes of this version include integrating sustainability metrics, enhancing collaboration and reducing manual and repetitive tasks through smarter automation.

On that last point, various updates across the portfolio – which includes the Architect, Landmark, Spotlight and Design Suite products – are engineered to automate routine adjustments, increase productivity and give designers more time for exploration and design refinement.

For example, the automated Depth Cueing feature is designed to improve the clarity and spatial depth of drawings with minimal user intervention, dynamically adjusting the visual properties of objects based on their distance from the viewer in both Hidden Line and Shaded viewports.

This includes the automatic manipulation of line weights, tonal values and pixel transparency, causing objects farther away to appear lighter or fainter, while foreground elements remain prominent. This feature is most impactful for generating presentation-quality elevations and sections directly from a model, significantly improving the graphical output for design review and client communication.

With Worksheet User Interface and Slicing, meanwhile, customers will see a new ribbon-style toolbar that provides them with a more intuitive interface for worksheet operations. The new slicing capability allows users to split large, complex reports into smaller, linked sections – particularly useful for controlling page layouts, as it ensures data fits neatly within specified print areas without manual reformatting. The interface now supports pinned headers that remain visible during scrolling. These updates make creating complex reports and documents more manageable, according to Vectorworks executives.

Elsewhere, File Health Checker is a new palette designed to maintain project performance and stability, but only available to subscription customers. This diagnostic tool proactively scans active documents for issues likely to degrade performance (such as hidden geometry or resource inefficiencies, for example). The workflow presents users with smart suggestions to resolve these problems, many of which can be executed with a single click. The aim here is to tackle a common pain point in collaborative projects, where imported third-party files can introduce performance-degrading data and even lead to file corruption.

When it comes to Vectorworks’ own graphical scripting tool, Marionette, key updates have been introduced to streamline the process of creating custom parametric objects and workflows. Marionette supports Python-powered nodes, making execution faster, and also has expanded Python library support, supporting access to a large ecosystem of existing Python libraries for complex data manipulation, geometric calculations and interoperability tasks. Vectorworks executives hope this streamlining will make Marionette a more direct competitor to McNeel Grasshopper and Autodesk Dynamo.

Finally, 3D modelling gets a new Offset Face mode within the Push/Pull tool, to enable simultaneous offsetting of multiple planar and non-planar faces on a 3D model. Users can adjust multiple surfaces at one time, without having to recreate dependent features such as fillets. The tool also provides a real-time preview and allows for on-the-fly parameter adjustments.

Architect-specific enhancements

In the Vectorworks Architect 2026 product, updates focus on advanced BIM workflows and integrated sustainability analysis. For example, there are now tools to assist in designing in line with certifications such as LEED and BREEAM and in compliance with regulations such as the UK’s Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) law.

A new sustainability dashboard provides a number of environmental analysis tools via one interface. It provides real-time monitoring of sustainability metrics as a design evolves, tracking specific data points including embodied carbon calculations, urban greening scores, biomass density and BNG.

A door and window assembly tool supports the creation of complex architectural openings, enabling users to combine elements such as doors, windows, symbols and panels, into single, unified assembly objects. (Previously, this was an error-prone process that often omitted data from schedules and quantity take-offs). This new tool replaces manual workarounds with fully parametric and data-rich objects.

New detailing capabilities for 2D graphical representation of walls, doors, and windows, allows for the customisation of 2D graphics at multiple detail levels, ensuring construction documents appear exactly as intended. By automating the creation of high-quality, standards-compliant drawings, the tool helps maintain consistency and accuracy across document sets while saving time.

Vectorworks’ cloud services can process Revit and IFC file imports, offloading the processing of large files, so that workstations aren’t locked up for 30 minutes

Data Manager, meanwhile, now has an enhanced focus on accelerating and simplifying BIM workflows. The tool’s primary role is to automate data standards compliance. This version streamlines Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) data, mapping across different versions and driving data compliance with project-specific or industry-wide BIM standards.

Landmark for landscaping

Vectorworks is the industry’s only BIM tool with a dedicated ‘flavour’ for landscaping design. In this release, there’s a new Plant Style Manager, a spreadsheetstyle tool that helps users to build, manage and customise a dedicated plant library. It supports batch editing, importing data from nursery partners and plant placement. Since it’s based on a centralised system, this capability drives data consistency from design through to procurement.

The existing Tree tool is improved to support the creation of more realistic and data-rich tree models for regulation-compliant landscape design. The most significant enhancements are support for Maxon Plant Geometry, image props and 3D symbols. Existing trees can be integrated with geographic information system (GIS) data.

Grade Objects have been enhanced and can be created using curves and polylines in both 2D and 3D views. The tool integrates with data tags, allowing for instant labelling of elevations and streamlined reporting of site grading information.

Finally, the Massing Model tool has been updated to accommodate the planning of mixed-use structures. The tool now allows designers to define unique heights, classes and usages for individual floors within a single massing model object.

Spotlight for entertainment

The one market in which Vectorworks stands alone is in providing CAD/BIM capabilities for entertainment design, particularly stage and theatre design, covering everything from lighting and mixing desks to stage elements.

The updates in Spotlight 2026 focus on streamlining the design of advanced A/V equipment and on improving collaborative workflows for live events and installations.

There’s a new LED Wall creation tool, which can create walls of virtually any shape, including flat, curved and three dimensional forms. The tool supports the ability to calculate technical specifications, such as power and data requirements, overall size and weight, and pixel resolution.

A new, dedicated tool for common rigging hardware (specifically clamps and side arms) has been added, replacing the previous method of using generic symbols or complex grouped objects, which often lead to inaccurate inventory counts and imprecise geometry in rigging plots, requiring significant manual verification.

Spotlight now supports the MVRxchange Protocol, which powers a local network protocol allowing users to instantly share, commit and request My Virtual Rig (MVR) files with other connected applications, such as lighting consoles or pre-visualisation software.

The Showcase feature for real-time visualisation has had several enhancements including animated fog for creating atmospheric effects, false colour rendering for technical lighting analysis and DMX-driven control of lighting devices. There are also user interface enhancements for tuning the output.

Future directions

Vectorworks is fleshing out its formative cloud services offering. In this release, it aims to offload some of the processing work from the desktop to the cloud. There’s a new ‘Cloud Status’ widget integrated directly into the Vectorworks view bar, which provides real-time updates on the progress of cloud processing jobs and direct access to results without leaving the desktop application.

For subscribers only, Vectorworks’ cloud services can process Revit and IFC file imports, offloading the processing of large files, so that workstations aren’t locked up for 30 minutes. Users can work on, uninterrupted.

For now, there seems to be a pretty good spread of features for all users in the various disciplines that Vectorworks targets. There is a clear drive to assist with automation and reporting, increasing documented accuracy and productivity.

Those features that are limited to subscribers, we would suggest, are highly desirable and fit well with the company’s drive to get customers onto subscription contracts.

With a new CEO on board – and one recruited from a SaaS provider – we anticipate an increasing effort to convert the customer base to subscription payments over the coming years, along with greater cloud integration.

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Vectorworks 2025 Update 5, the latest release of the CAD and BIM software, features a preview of AI Assistant, a new tool designed to give users ‘instant and accurate’ answers to their Vectorworks-related questions.

Available through the Help menu and the Vectorworks Home Screen, the built-in AI assistant is designed to give customers quick, context-aware answers to their questions helping them learn new features or seek guidance.

“The AI Assistant (Preview) is your partner in learning and productivity and is a significant advancement in the Vectorworks experience,” said Vectorworks vice president of product management Vlado Stanev. “It’s an intelligent tool designed to meet designers at their level, whether they’re new to the software or seasoned pros. This is just the beginning of our vision for how AI can support our users.”

The AI Assistant (Preview) represents the first phase of Vectorworks’ AI learning integration, laying the foundation for deeper AI integration across the platform. Vectorworks states that future plans include leveraging the Nemetschek AI Layer to deliver even smarter, more efficient, and increasingly adaptive solutions to address designers’ evolving needs and unique design workflows.

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Maxon, the developer of Cinema 4D, is aiming to put its rendering technology into the hands of more architects and designers with a new ‘real-time’ visualisation plug-in for Vectorworks.

“We’re giving architects a powerful yet intuitive tool that elevates their work visually, without adding complexity, so their designs can be expressed as intended with clarity and emotion,” said David McGavran, CEO of Maxon.

Users of the new rendering solution will get access to ‘intuitive controls’ seamlessly integrated within the Vectorworks BIM environment, along with smart asset libraries.

Architects and designers will then be able to move from real-time previews to final renders with ‘seamless’ export to Cinema 4D and GPU renderer, Redshift.

According to Maxon, this will allow them to create more advanced architectural visualisations, including procedural animations and simulations.

“Our new partnership with Maxon addresses a significant challenge faced by AEC professionals: the need for a real-time rendering solution that seamlessly integrates with Vectorworks and evolves alongside it,” said Vectorworks senior director of rendering, Dave Donley.

“By developing this integration with direct input from our users and ensuring feature parity for both Mac and Windows from the outset, we are providing our customers with a reliable and future-ready solution.

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The Nemetschek Group, whose brands include Allplan, Graphisoft, Solibri, Bluebeam, and Vectorworks, has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) layer to be embedded in all of the Group’s major solutions from 2025.

The AI layer is modular and uses ‘secure cloud technology’ to process user requests. It can understand natural language, enabling ‘fast and accurate responses’ while optimising the way users work with Nemetschek products.

The AI layer will support a large range of use cases, from design ideation to task automation

Intelligent automation plays a central role by offering automated task execution, and adaptive project management.

Insight-driven decision-making is achieved through AI-powered data insights, which guide design processes and optimise decision-making.

Additionally, design augmentation allows AI to assist in design iterations, pattern creation, and scenario simulations, enabling more innovative and creative project outcomes.

The modular AI layer will also include collaboration tools that drive more effective communication between parties in the construction lifecycle

 “As a leading software provider in the AEC/O industry, we are dedicated to ensuring that our AI technologies are developed ethically, prioritising transparency, fairness, and accountability. We are committed to creating AI systems that are explainable and free from bias, promoting inclusivity for all users. Privacy and data security are at the core of our AI initiatives, and we implement strong safeguards to protect sensitive information”, said Charlie Sheridan, chief AI and data officer, Nemetschek Group.

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AEC Magazine: How would you define the overarching theme for the 2025 release? (there seem to be a lot of features aimed at simplification of tasks)

Biplab Sarkar: Vectorworks 2025 unleashes a new world of visual understanding and communication for designers. This latest release introduces new workflows and tools that empower designers to bring their visions to life easily, saving time and enhancing efficiency throughout every design phase. Top features like Onscreen View Control provide easy, instant access to all views of a model, along with a click-dragging functionality that simplifies the process of orbiting models, making design adjustments more fluid and intuitive. The Two-Point Perspective feature allows users to create traditional architectural compositions and professional photography perspectives with a single click. Additionally, the Object Level Visibility feature gives users the power to manage the visibility of specific objects within a design, offering options to show, ghost, hide, or isolate individual objects, thus providing greater control over complex projects. The Vectorworks Cloud Document Reviewer further enhances collaboration by allowing customers to view and comment on documents from anywhere, streamlining the review and design process.

Overall, Vectorworks 2025 redefines the design software experience by simplifying tasks and fostering better collaboration. While tasks are simplified, this release also adds significant depth to existing functionality, such as the management of room finishes and countertops, as well as to new features like persistent Two-Point Perspective and data visualisation that supports object visibility. These enhancements enable designers to work more efficiently and creatively in a way that truly mirrors their needs and expectations.

AEC Magazine: Collaboration comes in for a major update, easing working with Revit data, DWG/ DXF and project share capabilities. Could you outline these advances?

Biplab Sarkar: Vectorworks 2025 includes improved Revit and DXF/DWG collaboration. With these improvements, users can conveniently process Revit file exports in Vectorworks Cloud, including support for older Revit formats, without interrupting their workflow. Additionally, you can save time with continuously high-quality DXF/DWG collaboration, offering detailed and flexible control of incoming and outgoing file structure and graphics to achieve accurate delivery the first time.

Project Sharing enhancements allow for better convenience and efficiency. With direct setup options, you can choose whether to use cloud-, network-, or server-based sharing and begin your work. Shared project files can be worked on and stored on any cloud service, and backups are automatically saved as offline files.

These collaboration advances enhance the overall efficiency of working within multidisciplinary teams, supporting a more integrated and cohesive design process, saving time, and improving project outcomes.

AEC Magazine: The AEC industry is still working in traditional file-based workflows, but there are now moves to cloudbased granular workflows. Could you enlighten us on how you think this could be done better / when we can expect to see something from Vectorworks?

Biplab Sarkar: The shift from traditional file-based workflows to cloud-based granular workflows is a pivotal change in the design industry. It is driven by the need for real-time collaboration, better data accessibility, and streamlined project management across teams.

Vectorworks embraces this transition by developing advanced cloud-based solutions that facilitate more interconnected and accessible project environments. Enhancing these workflows involves enabling real-time, multi-user collaboration with instant updates, implementing granular access controls for secure role-based interactions, and ensuring seamless integration with existing tools and processes.

Many BIM platforms promote openness but can still restrict data exchange and favour their own ecosystems, leading to partial interoperability

We are already making strides with cloud offerings, such as Vectorworks Cloud Services, the Vectorworks Nomad mobile app, and the newly released Cloud Document Reviewer, which lay the groundwork for more robust cloud capabilities. We have also been focused on processing different file formats in Vectorworks Cloud Services. In Vectorworks 2025, we introduced the ability to process all RVT exports via Vectorworks Cloud Services. We will be working to expand this capability to other file formats such as DWG, IFC, USD, etc. Supporting file formats for both import and export will lay the foundation for a cloud-based collaboration workflow.

As cloud adoption grows, users can expect Vectorworks to expand its cloud capabilities further, providing comprehensive solutions that enable more granular, accessible, and collaborative workflows.

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AEC Magazine: There’s a lot of talk about auto-drawings, with firms like Graphisoft, Graebert, Autodesk, Bentley and SWAPP all now trying to apply AI to deliver productivity enhancements. Is Vectorworks looking at this area and what other applications of AI can users expect to see?

Biplab Sarkar: We are keenly aware of the growing interest and advancements in auto drawings and the application of AI to enhance productivity within the design and construction industries. We are actively exploring this area and evaluating how AI-driven technologies can be integrated into our software to streamline workflows and improve efficiency. The potential of AI to automate drawing tasks, predict design outcomes, and facilitate more intuitive interactions holds great promise for enhancing our users’ experience.

In addition to the AI Visualizer, we are looking to expand AI capabilities in our software to allow users to search Vectorworks learning resources using natural language for faster support.

AEC Magazine: There has recently been an uptick in the promotion of Vectorworks Landmark. it’s an area in which Vectorworks has little specialised competition. As Vectorworks expands collaboration capabilities with other BIM tools like Revit, how is landscape industry adoption changing and what capabilities enable this?

Biplab Sarkar: Vectorworks Landmark is uniquely positioned in the industry as the preferred BIM solution for landscape architecture and design professionals. Specifically created for landscape professionals, Landmark’s adoption is growing as Vectorworks expands its collaboration capabilities with other BIM tools like Revit. Landmark’s robust site planning, terrain modeling, and planting design tools allow landscape professionals to seamlessly manage complex 2D and 3D workflows from pre-design to documentation, enhancing their participation in multidisciplinary BIM projects.

Key capabilities driving this adoption include enhanced interoperability through IFC support, direct file exchange, and referencing with Revit, facilitating smoother collaboration with architects and engineers. Landmark 2025 introduces a precise 3D tool for curbs, edging, and borders and the Survey Point tool to cater specifically to landscape needs. We’re also expanding on our sustainable site design offerings with new permeability and sustainability settings for objects like the hardscape and landscape areas. As Landmark continues to integrate with other BIM platforms, its specialized tools and streamlined workflows make it increasingly attractive to landscape professionals looking to enhance their role in collaborative design projects.

AEC Magazine: Cloud is an increasingly important platform, especially for collaboration. With many start-ups now promoting the Figma pure-cloud play (in browser or thin client), how do you see the future of desktop applications and are there advantages to desktop apps vs cloud-based ones?

Biplab Sarkar: As cloud technology continues to evolve, its role in fostering collaboration and enabling remote work has become increasingly significant. The rise of cloud-based platforms, such as Figma, underscores the growing preference for flexible and accessible solutions. However, the future of desktop applications remains relevant and valuable. Desktop applications offer certain advantages that cloud-based solutions may only partially replicate. They often provide more robust performance, enhanced security, and the ability to work offline, which can be crucial for users in environments with limited or unreliable internet access.

Desktop apps also typically offer more comprehensive features and customisations that can be tailored to specific workflows and user preferences.

In the coming years, a hybrid approach will likely become the norm, where the strengths of both desktop and cloud-based applications are leveraged to meet diverse user needs. This approach allows cloud collaboration flexibility while retaining desktop software’s robust capabilities and offline reliability. Integrating both platforms will enable users to benefit from a seamless and efficient workflow that maximises productivity and collaboration.

AEC Magazine: AI and ML promises much but needs to be trained. In developing these tools, what kind of data will you train on? Customer data obviously has IP issues, as well as possibility of errors. Do you think there will be generic AI and ML tools, individual customercentric AIs, or both?

Biplab Sarkar: We envision a dual approach regarding the future of AI and ML in our field. On the one hand, generic AI and ML tools will provide broad capabilities applicable across various use cases, offering solutions that can be widely implemented and adapted. On the other hand, we recognise the value of developing customer-centric AI solutions tailored to individual clients’ unique needs and challenges. Additionally, with customer consent, Vectorworks can leverage anonymous session log files containing usage data to predict customer usage patterns, enabling a predictive design system. By balancing both generic and bespoke AI tools, we aim to deliver comprehensive and practical solutions catering to diverse requirements, ultimately enhancing overall user experience and satisfaction.

AEC Magazine: Vectorworks has been very advanced in working with intelligent reality capture tools, like Apple’s AR Toolkit. How well do you think adoption of this technology has gone and where do you think it will be going with rapidly evolving ‘meta’ tookits?

Biplab Sarkar: Vectorworks has been at the forefront of integrating advanced reality capture tools, including Apple’s AR Toolkit. Our commitment to leveraging these technologies has enhanced how our users interact with and visualise their projects.

The adoption of these tools has been quite promising. They have significantly improved data capture and integration accuracy and efficiency, providing our users with more immersive and precise project experiences. As a result, we’ve seen more professionals embracing AR to streamline workflows and make more informed design decisions.

The evolution of ‘meta’ toolkits and augmented reality technologies presents exciting opportunities. These technologies will transform how projects are conceptualized, designed, and executed as they advance. Integrating advanced AR capabilities with BIM and other intelligent technologies, along with support for platforms like Nvidia Omniverse, will likely lead to even greater levels of interaction and visualisation, driving innovation in the AEC industries.

AEC Magazine: Openness is something that is talked about a lot today. With your extensive experience in the market, on a technology level, are today’s leading BIM developers truly open with their data, toolkits and APIs? The days of reverse engineering file formats may be coming to an end, but will we have interoperability without dumbing data down to lowest common denominator industry formats?

Biplab Sarkar: Despite progress toward better data exchange and interoperability, openness remains a significant challenge in the industry. Although industry standards like IFC and BCF are becoming more common, achieving seamless integration with compromising data quality remains challenging.

Many BIM platforms promote openness but can still restrict data exchange and favour their own ecosystems, leading to partial interoperability. This often results in data being simplified to the lowest common denominator, which can reduce the richness and detail of the information shared across platforms. For true interoperability, developers must fully embrace open data standards and interoperable APIs, allowing for more accurate and integrated workflows without losing critical data. The industry must move towards this level of openness to enable more efficient and effective multi-platform collaboration.

Vectorworks supports international openBIM standards, enabling seamless collaboration across BIM software products. It has been certified by buildingSMART International (bSI) for its IFC4 import capabilities, ensuring high-quality IFC models for accurate and credible work throughout the project lifecycle. This is crucial for multi-disciplinary projects using different software tools, as Vectorworks maintains data exchange standards, reducing errors and misunderstandings.

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AEC Magazine: Since moving to subscription, how have things changed and what have you developed for subsequent releases of Vectorworks? There seem to be more ‘bread and butter’ features and less brand-new capabilities.

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: Going to subscription has changed a few things for us. First, we have more updates for our customers throughout the year. Second, quality and performance have become the main features of every release and update. Lastly, more and more of the updates consist of new functionality in addition to quality improvements of the existing features.

So, this latest release, Vectorworks 2024, represents a significant move forward in integrating our tools into specific design workflows. We are taking a holistic and high-level approach, working hard to ensure that our software aligns seamlessly with the natural processes of designers. From ideation to final execution, this latest version has been carefully crafted to provide both new tools and existing features, working together harmoniously to diminish disruptions and enhance productivity. Thus, in many cases, the new capabilities are related to the existing workflows.

AEC Magazine: In the BIM market in general, despite applications being mature, there is a lot of concentration around the development of conceptual capabilities. Why do you think conceptual is getting focused on now and what kinds of capabilities are you adding to Vectorworks in that area?

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: We think the reason why conceptual modelling is getting more focus now is because, for a while, all that the BIM applications provided was design coordination and drawing production. In many ways, these applications were documentation tools. With the advent of technologies like AI/ML, drawing production could become automated so that the designers and architects can then focus more on the ideation and therefore, you need conceptual modelling capabilities.

Vectorworks strives to be the design tool for designers by providing maximum freedom to model anything they want. Many of the firms use Vectorworks in the competition phase of the design process just because of its modelling, rendering, and presentation capabilities. In addition to parametric modelling (which is where the focus of other BIM software has been), we have Parasolid-based NURBS and a solid modelling engine; we also support Sub-Division and mesh modelling — and they all add up to a highly flexible approach to modelling.

AEC Magazine: Your support for photogrammetry and handheld point clouds from iPhones is really impressive. As point clouds can be huge, what kinds of changes have you had to make to display them. And do iPhone scans offer high enough accuracy for real world use?

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: Given that we are one of the few BIM software solutions that supports Windows and Mac, we take advantage of the unique performance benefits of each platform. Mac offers superior performance relating to its adoption of photogrammetry and point clouds. It’s a technology that we are committed to because it offers a lowcost entry point and is fast developing. In terms of tolerance, it’s all about the user’s level of information need. iPhone and iPad-based scanning provides a quick, easily accessible method for capturing site data with devices that many people already have. The accuracy of these lidars is about 2-3cm (about 1.2 in), which is fine for scanning a site or a room for interior renovations.

The display of the point clouds is handled by the graphics engine developed over the last several years called the Vectorworks Graphics Module (VGM). VGM provides a very fast and fluid experience if used on capable hardware.

With the advent of technologies like AI/ML, drawing production could become automated so that the designers and architects can then focus more on the ideation and therefore, you need conceptual modelling capabilities -Dr. Biplab Sarkar, CEO Vectorworks

AEC Magazine: Sustainability and retrofit are two areas we hear are becoming increasingly important to users. What capabilities have you recently added to assist this and what do you think you need to add to Vectorworks to help your customers?

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: The Vectorworks Embodied Carbon Calculator (VECC) is our most recent addition that can aid the sustainable architecture design workflow. This is in addition to our existing Energos tool, which helps assess a building’s operational emissions through primary energy consumption (kWh/m2/ year). The VECC is a custom worksheet that’s pre-formatted to help calculate the embodied carbon levels of a project and combines accurate material volumes from our BIM models with industrystandard methodology and calculations to provide a comprehensive set of values. Plus, it’s applicable during the early as well as later stages of BIM development.

We can help our customers in several different ways: (a) by adding more data to our Material resources that would help in calculating operational carbon calculations, (b) by creating connections to other carbon calculators that provide a real-time dashboard, etc.

AEC Magazine: Collaboration is also a hot topic. Vectorworks is file-based, but this latest release, with cloud-services and file linking/synchronising seems to point in a direction which could lead to database-driven sessions. How do you envision a database-centric workflow would be enabled? It seems Vectorworks can now be everywhere.

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: It can be argued that Vectorworks has always been databasecentric. It is built on capturing data from the model and drawings, reporting said data, and making it accessible for collaboration. The data difference we bring to our architecture customers is vast in how data can be accessed and managed. Our next steps will be to look at ways to leverage this part of our DNA and the strides we are making with what we can offer with Vectorworks Cloud Services. While we are conscious of an end goal of a holistic, cloud-based, common data-sharing environment, we also have short-term goals that customers can use immediately. For example, we are working on leveraging Cloud Services to process Revit file export. This offloads a memory-intensive task from a local machine to the cloud, allowing us to support multiple .rvt file formats for more open collaboration. Additionally, we are working towards a viewer that will not only show the 3D geometry of the model but also allow for access and viewing of the data associated with the model. This will lay the foundation needed for more cloud-based sharing among project stakeholders.

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AEC Magazine: Digital Twins has become increasingly name-checked by BIM software developers and Nemetschek has recently launched its own standalone brand. How does Vectorworks fit into this picture, and will you integrate/leverage Nemetschek’s new product?

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: Nemetschek’s dTwin product was developed in collaboration with a number of the brands within the Group, including Vectorworks.

We can send data/information to dTwin both with the IFC file format and any reality capture that Vectorworks supports, such as point cloud data. There is continued development planned to begin supporting native file formats of the three main BIM authoring tools in the Group — Vectorworks, Archicad, and Allplan — this will create a direct integration with dTwin. It’s also important to note that as a digital asset management tool, dTwin supports GIS information, which is also important for landscape architecture and urban planning customers working with technology partners such as Esri, which Vectorworks also supports. This makes integration with a tool like dTwin even more valuable for those working on large-scale projects that will benefit from access to this type of Building Lifecycle Intelligence.

We are working towards a viewer that will not only show the 3D geometry of the model but also allow for access and viewing of the data associated with the model. This will lay the foundation needed for more cloud-based sharing among project stakeholders

AEC Magazine: With the port to Mac Silicon how have customers reacted? Has it made any Wintel users switch? What are your thoughts on browser-based applications vs desktop – they seem to be merging now with desktops expanding to the cloud!

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: The reaction to Apple Silicon has been overwhelmingly positive. We saw the superior performance it offered from the very beginning. Vectorworks is the first major BIM application to run natively on Apple Silicon processors, and we were able to optimise our software performance by creating proper support for Metal in our graphics pipeline (VGM).

Regarding browser-based applications, we think these will be suitable for certain operations like collaboration using coviewing and co-markup or moderate editing of models and drawings. But in the short term, most of our users would still use desktop-based products for most of their design processes and use the cloud services to supplement their design process with rendering or presentation operations.

AEC Magazine: Rendering in Vectorworks has really stepped up in the last few releases. The section viewport speed is impressive. Has this been made possible with advances in GPU or general CPU speeds? In the future do you think BIM tools will always run in rendered views, like games?

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: It’s a mixture of things, both improved hardware and more intelligent handling of the sectioning code. We’ve shifted some of it to the background thread for calculations and reduced the amount of memory required, which puts less pressure on the hardware.

We do think that with the advent of real-time rendering engines making their marks in the AEC market, the days when BIM tools will run a rendered view are not too far off. CAD users are already working in the rendered environment, and we think AEC users will experience this soon.

AEC Magazine: With a bespoke application for landscapes and with some GISlike capabilities for sites, how do you see BIM and GIS playing out? How far into GIS will Vectorworks go? How has your partnership with Esri gone?

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: Creating an outdoor environment requires many stages. First, a thorough analysis of the site and its surroundings from many angles, such as biodiversity, light, water management, infrastructure, and protection of valuable natural resources, to mention a few, must be completed. At this stage, GIS is invaluable, and our Landmark users are already taking full advantage of our capabilities by adding Esri base maps and linking feature layers with this type of information to their Vectorworks documents. It is an integral part of an analysis-driven workflow.

It’s a natural step to connect this to BIM — placing your project in its correct environment to analyse the impact is excellent for the architect but even more beneficial for the broader group of stakeholders. It is an exceptional, interactive tool for communicating ideas and intent, and we’re working closely with some of our users to develop even more intimate workflows between the GIS expert and the landscape architect. This runs through the whole project, from the analysis and stakeholder buy-in to the audit of the finished project and through the asset’s lifespan. We aim to directly integrate as many GIS capabilities as possible into the Vectorworks environment.

The work we’ve done with Esri is valuable, and seeing the improvements in integrating GIS with CAD-based models is exciting. As BIM is based on collaboration, it’s essential to have a GIS environment where every project participant can interact. Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform has been a game changer for this. As IFC is the preferred format (schema) for BIM, a lot of effort is made from Esri’s side to ensure the exchange runs smoothly for files from various sources.

AEC Magazine: We can’t leave without mentioning AI. How do you see AI being developed within Vectorworks? Having good data to train on is key. Would you train on customers’ data or make that an opt in? Are customers more nervous thinking firms will steal design IP when it’s more about process and defining industry recipes?

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: We still see AI being full of potential, creating new opportunities to explore design and construction that we’ve never imagined. The most prominent place of impact we’ll see is in design discovery and exploration. At Vectorworks, we’re doing active research to deliver AI visualisation and image generation features at point of use. This would allow users to visualise their early Vectorworks designs using text-based prompts quickly and simply on their early 3D massing and concept models.

This will also allow the user to produce a compelling image of their design very early in the design process and without additional work or time spent on traditional rendering overheads of lighting, textures, backgrounds, finely detailed modelling, or render settings.

The customer data collected from the Vectorworks application is on an opt-in basis. The granularity of the data, as well as the quality of the data, determines whether it can be used for training predictive models. Also, the composition of the data is such that it is impossible to reconstitute and determine the design processes or recipes.

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Vectorworks 2024, the latest release of the Windows and Mac design tool, is said to feature substantial advancements to its core technology. The software includes a modernised UI, improved project sharing, Excel referencing, DWG Import/Export optimisations, and several new viewport and rendering enhancements.

Meanwhile the BIM-focused version, Vectorworks Architect 2024, focuses on features and tools to save time while designing, as well as helping reduce errors in the modelling and documentation process.

At the heart of Vectorworks, the reorganised View and Mode bars are designed to offer a wide range of tools for easy access and organisation. The new option to save custom viewport settings as styles are said to allow for easy transfer between viewports.

Improvements to shaded rendering help designers achieve higher levels of realism and assess their designs with better shadow casting and camera settings. The re-engineered section viewport rendering makes the generation of rendered sections and navigation of sectioned or clipped models faster.

Meanwhile, Microsoft Excel referencing allows new references to be created in Vectorworks for automatic updates to referenced files. Alternatively, changes can be made in Vectorworks and the data pushed back to Excel. Finally, new optimisations for DWG import/export are designed to eliminate the tedious task of file cleanup.

For Vectorworks Architect, users will find increased detail and material specification levels for doors and windows, enhanced stair functionality, improved graphic legend capability and newly redefined parametric railing and cabinet objects.

Improvements to the Wall tool allow designers to ‘switch linear and curved wall modes seamlessly’ and apply multiple configurations of wall component returns to inserted objects.

Additional improvements to wall, slab and roof texturing are designed to make applying textures to these architectural objects simpler.

Finally, with new structural member improvements, designers have more control over 2D and 3D attributes, material, shape and size for styled and instance-based parameters.

Find this article plus many more in the September / October 2023 Edition of AEC Magazine

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Recent releases of Vectorworks have been both important and tricky. New features needed to be added to the core BIM tool, in Windows and Apple Intel. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, some major rearchitecting has been undertaken, not least with a whole new port to Apple Silicon.

In  Vectorworks 2023, the BIM feature updates continue. And, post-launch, Vectorworks has added two exciting new capabilities: first, Scan-to-BIM, supporting Apple’s brilliant mobile RoomPlan Technology; and second, quality checking via Solibri Inside.

But first, let’s look at the sales strategy for this product. Vectorworks comes in four flavours, all built on the same core technology. These are: Architect, Landmark (for landscapers), Spotlight (for media and entertainment/stage design), and Fundamentals (a basic version).

With Vectorworks 2023, new Vectorworks licences can only be bought by subscription — more on that later. Subscriptions for Architect, Landmark and Spotlight cost £123/month or £1,230 billed annually (which works out as £102/month). A Fundamentals subscription costs £88/month or £880 billed annually (£73/month).

When you compare these prices to a single licence of Revit — £2,940 yearly or £366 per month, according to the Autodesk website — then Vectorworks’ various professional flavours look like good value for money.

Top Vectorworks 2023 features

Moving on to features and functions, the Wall Tools command is now a combined wall tool. In other words, it supports the editing of curtain wall frames and walls with a single in-context tool. There are now additional options for wall insert of objects, which can be centrally located or locally overridden when needed. It’s also possible to align inserted components, even if they’re in different styles. Construction drawings have been improved with the inclusion of additional fields to the Profile offsets and Wall Closure Wrappings dialogue.

Push/ Pull modelling has been beefed up with a new Offset Edge tool, which lets you offset edges and edge loops from planar and non-planar faces. It also includes an automatic Push/Pull mode for nonplanar faces of 3D objects, reducing the steps to model unique 3D solid objects. This is very powerful. It will not only improve modelling times but also enable complex solids to be generated very easily, while maintaining a full history of the complex solid. This is the kind of capability seen in mechanical CAD systems.

The Shaded Render mode has been improved to support an unlimited number of light objects, glow textures, environmental lighting and reflections. This provides a real-time preview for a better understanding of a project while it’s being designed and helps predict the render output better. The new reflected textures and ‘lit fog’ support are really cool.

Section Viewports can be generated six times faster than in the previous release and using 80% less system memory, thanks to the Vectorworks Graphics Module. This moves calculations and processing to the background. Viewport updates are snappy and don’t lock up the application.

Cloud Presentations for clients have been enhanced to enable users to create and customise boards and virtual tours in Vectorworks Cloud Services. In virtual tours, there is increased compatibility with file types, such as 3D models, videos, images and PDFs, as well as the ability to create text and hyperlink-based pins.

Vectorworks 2023 now takes full advantage of Maxon’s Redshift Everywhere initiative, which supports Redshift render styles regardless of the type of hardware in use. Redshift is no longer limited to using just the GPU, but also the CPU for processing image work.

The new BCF Manager and interface is a lot quicker for loading, creating editing and managing issues during coordination. With powerful data filtering capabilities and support for BCF 3.0, Vectorworks now supports BCF exchange by file or web workflows using BCF web services.

A new elevation benchmark tool can be used for annotation as well as a design tool. It can be placed in the model space and used as a visual aid when modelling. Elevations can be placed on different design layers and reference the layer height above the ground plane or associated to storeys or different ground levels. Once included, they can also be used to change story heights. A number of styles can be applied, and there are lots of options for the way that the information is displayed.

Data Reporting, meanwhile, creates detailed reports and quantity take-offs for building objects, using a new set of reporting functions for walls, slabs, roofs and railing/fence objects and their defining components.

In terms of data exchange, Vectorworks now supports more Revit object types and provides better organisation of imported file data. You can also reference a Revit file directly.

IFC files give faster, more reliable results on import, with additional filters applied to objects upon import. They have access to class, storey and other criteria-based mapping for alignment with Vectorworks data.

DWG and DXF files, meanwhile, have also seen import/export improvements with a new, simplified export dialogue. When importing, you can now select which layers and objects to include.

And when it comes to site grading and GIS, new Site Modifier modes, including Aligned, Pathway Path and Boundary Path, enable site designers to create more complex grading projects. There are new ways to account for drainage, vehicular/ pedestrian use and better control via contour drawing and editing. GIS and georeferencing integrations automate the placing of referenced files using GIS settings from a master document.

Cloud and mobile enhancements

In January 2023, Vectorworks announced key updates to Vectorworks Cloud Services and the Nomad mobile app. Utilising Apple’s innovative technology, the development team has increased performance and streamlined reality capture workflows.

The existing Photos to 3D Model feature in Vectorworks Cloud Services has been replaced with a new framework, in order to take advantage of Apple’s new photogrammetry API on macOS, known as Object Capture. Job submissions now incorporate this framework on the cloud infrastructure, desktop app, web portal and Nomad mobile app.

The net result is higher success rates and the ability to create more optimised geometry in less time. The service now captures any additional metadata that is generated by supported iOS devices. This is used by the algorithm to recover actual object size and orientation, a capability that was not previously possible.

Vectorworks has also added support for Apple’s room scanning framework, RoomPlan, to the Nomad app. This means it can now produce models with classified geometry, such as walls, windows, openings and doors. These can be imported directly into a Vectorworks model. In an industry first, users can quickly scan an existing room layout using their iOS mobile device to create a robust reality capture that is accessible and easy to use. In other words, Scan-to-BIM is now possible.

The new version of the Nomad mobile app also gives users more control over light representation in 3D models, to aid in perfecting design presentations. Individual lights can be turned on and off, and heliodon or directional lights can now set the position of the light direction control when opening a model in the Unity-based 3D viewer.

Users can try out the latest Vectorworks Cloud Services features by logging into cloud.vectorworks.net. The Nomad mobile app is available in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Vectorworks and Solibri Inside

Nemetschek, owner of Vectorworks, offers an array of AEC brands that have operated independently for seemingly decades. A recent focus has been to create better integrations between these stablemates — and now Vectorworks has pulled a biggy, by pairing up its flagship BIM tool with Solibri, a market-leading quality checking software.

Called Solibri Inside, this provides users with the ability to validate designs using automated rule checking, modify design errors and create reports by directly inside Vectorworks. It’s a big advantage to the usual workflows, in which files are exported, loaded into Solibri, where checks can be run, errors found and reports made, before the file is sent back to Vectorworks to be corrected. Solibri Inside puts an end to the file palaver, saving a lot of time. Solibri is used heavily in countries with rigorous BIM standards where data compliance is a contractual issue.

Solibri Inside works within the latest version, Vectorworks 2023 Service Pack 3, and eliminates the need for users to open another software platform to perform basic model checking. Users can ensure their BIM models comply with building regulations, with national and international standards or with a specific project’s BIM requirements before sharing. Firms that struggle with internal quality can use Solibri to bring better quality to their data and identify problem files, as well as help identify designers who might benefit from a bit more training.

The first release of Solibri Inside comes with a free standard package for checking door and window clearances and supporting Level of Information (LOI) in BIM models. Users can unlock additional features by registering a Solibri Inside account and adding paid Solibri packages to their toolbox, giving them the full access they might need to develop their own rule checks, however simple or complex.

New subscription-only model

Up until this point, Vectorworks had supplemented perpetual licensing with maintenance and subscription licences. This year sees the end of new perpetual licences, with monthly or annual subscription being the only option from now on.

The company warned customers of this development at the end of summer 2022, stating: “This change will provide all Vectorworks customers with access to a more stable product by increasing the frequency of updates and allow us to focus on consistent quality throughout each version cycle.”

While Vectorworks has done a good job of consistently delivering feature-rich updates and rearchitecting under the hood, year on year, I fear this is part of the commercial disease that has seized the software industry.

The introduction of subscriptions always increases cost of ownership. It’s driven by shareholders, not by customers. Users who have been slow to upgrade their Vectorworks licences, and have not been or are lapsed members of Service Select, have had to upgrade their perpetual licences in order to get current and ensure ongoing access to perpetual licence upgrades. Those that did not could only upgrade by converting their perpetual licences to subscription licences. A discount was offered on annual subscriptions for customers working on versions that are 3 years old or newer. If they chose to take advantage of the offer, they had to agree to forfeit ownership of all versions of the perpetual licence to Vectorworks.

Moving to a subscription-only model tends to go down like a cup of cold sick with users, especially those in smaller firms. The pressure is now on Vectorworks to prove to customers that the subscription model delivers improved value

The subscription offering will now be enhanced to include in the price all the premium benefits of Vectorworks Service Select. This includes library content, training, extra Cloud Service storage, and cloud rendering. Subscribers will have access to the current version and three legacy versions back.

I can’t help but feel Vectorworks stands as a test case for this kind of strategy in Nemetschek Land. Graphisoft still offers perpetual licences for ArchiCAD. Moving to a subscription-only model tends to go down like a cup of cold sick with users, especially those in smaller firms. Often, resentment builds quickly, so the pressure is now on Vectorworks to prove to customers that the subscription model delivers improved value, a trend yet to be bucked in the BIM industry.

In conclusion

Possibly because of its three distinct vertical flavours, Vectorworks always does a pretty good job of improving functionality across a decent spread, typically in rendering, landscaping/GIS, BIM and drawing.

Vectorworks 2023 offers a solid upgrade in terms of features and functions, and the development team has been very quick off the mark to incorporate Apple’s exciting scanning technology, included in its high-end phones and tablets kitted out with a low-density Lidar. When combined with Apple’s AR Toolkit and photogrammetry, it seems that a whole new breed of mobile applications is set to revolutionise data capture on commonly available devices.

For example, it’s now possible to scan an interior, with Apple’s technology identifying walls, doors, windows, and some furniture, and put this data straight into a BIM tool.

Typical Lidar data can be messy and is essentially dumb, but Apple’s AR toolkit does a much more robust conversion of surfaces into objects. I am sure customers will have hours of fun with this technology and it should impress their clients, as it’s all a bit like magic.

As for the business model change to subscription-only, there is now a sense of inevitability. The whole software industry may soon be moving in this direction. But customers lose their bargaining power in subscription models, as they are shifted away from deciding for themselves if and when they want to upgrade. In the past, such steps were typically taken only if the customer considered a new version was worthy of its cash and if it was happy to increase its overall annual tools budget.

The advantage to the software vendor, however, is clear for all to see. With mature products, lower development velocity has tended to mean fewer game changing updates and more refinements. Less revolution, more evolution. Vectorworks isn’t a development laggard, but it’s going to have to work hard to appease aggrieved customers. That said, in the market for BIM tools, its subscription prices are still lower than those of its competitors.

Q&A with Vectorworks CEO, Dr. Biplab Sarkar and CTO Steve Johnson

AEC Magazine: How many years in advance does Vectorworks plan out feature releases and updates? Are there set areas which need to be addressed with each release? Such as performance, BIM components, drafting, structural… obviously with landscaping and entertainment being separate these areas have their own feature updates. How difficult is it to get the balance right?

Dr. Biplab Sarkar, Chief Executive Officer: It’s not a simple task to get the balance just right, but we have achieved a healthy and pragmatic approach that applies across all our product offerings. We set core theme areas that must always be addressed such as modernisation of underlying technologies, ease of use or “usability”, quality and performance, and of course new features that address customer workflows and new industry niches. We then overlay this with industry trends and most importantly, customer feedback on top of those thematic areas to address the prioritisation of development tasks we work on. In terms of how many years in advance, we don’t have a set number, as we believe roadmaps need to have structure and fluidity. Our Public Roadmap outlines our scheduled enhancements and features for upcoming releases and those that are currently in development and actively researched. Customers can also suggest new features they’d like to see and leave us feedback on our upcoming changes.

AEC Magazine:  Vectorworks supports both Apple Intel and Apple Silicon, as well as Windows Intel and soon Windows ARM. Folks like Autodesk are moving to the cloud, which bypasses all this. How do you think the processor platform is going to change? Will customers want local power or cloud? Intel or Arm?

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: Yes, Vectorworks is the first BIM product to support Apple Silicon. The feedback from our customers tells us that while certain workflows, like rendering or AR/VR/MR, can be very well supported in the cloud, when it comes to the documentation of the BIM model, they prefer the availability on a desktop. So, customers are still looking for local power and a chip architecture like in Apple Silicon to greatly improve their experience in terms of performance. Also, Vectorworks has been making many of the core functionalities to be multi-threaded on the desktop over the years, which also helps the users. Furthermore, we are making use of the GPU in some of the near-real-time render modes. So, for Vectorworks users, desktop is still the platform of choice.

Steve Johnson, Chief Technology Officer: Processor technology will never stop changing, 32bit, 64bit, PowerPC, ARM; we’ve grown and prospered through all those changes, and we’ll continue looking for new technologies and directions. Our software engineers have a knack of anticipating these changes and have shown the ability to quickly adapt and change accordingly. Most of the reengineering work we do is in anticipation of these changes. Our graphics VGM reengineering happened right before the announcement of Apple Silicon and allowed us to be one of the first BIM packages to run natively on ARM. Our current re-engineering efforts are absolutely focused on better cloud capabilities.

Customers will want what serves their needs. Local power and cloud are certainly at play and each architecture and platform will require vendors to work hard to evolve their solutions to take full advantage. That is why Vectorworks is so committed to leaning into new technologies like Apple Silicon and ARM. That is also why we invest in re-engineering to modernise our design solutions, so these advances are available to our customers.  We owe it to our customers to continuously evolve our solutions to be used on whatever platform and architecture they require. That is what we are doing. And that is what we think will serve our customers best.

AEC Magazine: Solibri Direct is a very interesting combination of Nemetschek products. In certain countries with strong BIM standards, Solibri has been widely adopted for model checking within collaborative design. In countries like the US, less so as they seem to be stuck in RVT workflows and deliverables. What features do you think your US customers will get the most benefit from? Will you supply rule sets for common workflows?

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: The collaborative Nemetschek project of Solibri Inside was put into place for the very reason of making some of the great benefits of Solibri accessible to more customers. One of the wonderful aspects of Solibri Inside is that it is so simple for architects to run valuable BIM checks like door and window clearances and completeness of IFC data in the model with the free version. Being able to do that directly inside a product like Vectorworks Architect and do it quickly will save valuable time for architects in producing higher fidelity models with fewer errors. Plus, architecture firms can do this without the need to do an import/export exchange with model validation software. Basic rule sets for common quality checks are provided by Solibri and delivered their web portal, making them available inside Vectorworks.  This type of functionality and workflow really adds to the value of working in Open BIM workflows, and we believe integrations like this will truly help spark an increase in Open BIM usage in the U.S. and worldwide.

AEC Magazine: There is a lot of hype about Digital Twins. How do you define them and where will they be used?

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: We think that the “Digital Twin” emerging trend is primarily used currently in design and build phases of a building. The digital twin is supposed to incorporate with some sort of real-time sensors, which we believe is not utilised to the fullest extent. The management and operation of the building is where we see the sensor data mostly used. So, in that sense we agree with where the digital twin is heading. IoT sensors can add a lot of value for building owners and operators in terms of building maintenance, gaining noise and energy efficiency etc.

AEC Magazine: What is your view on AI in AEC? Where do you think it will make the most impact and in what kind of areas will you be deploying AI for customers? BIM is still very manual and ultimately produces 2D drawings, do you think AI will dramatically alter the workflows AEC professionals are used to today?

Dr. Biplab Sarkar: AI in the AEC industry is the same as it is in any industry now — full of potential that can cause positive disruptions and new opportunities to explore design and construction in a way that may have been limited in the past. The places we can see direct or immediate impact will be through some forms of automation through both ML and AI. And the biggest place of impact we’ll see is in design discovery and exploration. We are already starting to see artists and graphic designers use tools like ChatGPT to discover or uncover stylistic elements that fit within a design brief, or a design problem being solved. It’s not a far leap to see a similar application for architects, landscape architects, or lighting designers to generate various design iterations or to refine specific elements of a design idea through some form of automation provided by machine learning or AI tools or both. While BIM may be considered manual today, if we compare it to what simple CAD drafting has to offer, it has automated a lot of the tedium of project documentation leaving time to focus on design and innovation — and explore new materials and building applications. We think that AI can have a similar impact on the workflows of design professionals within the AEC industry.

AEC Magazine: New licences will only be available through subscription, what are the advantages of this over perpetual licences? Perpetual customers will be scared that you will force them, or price coerce them at some point to go subscription. It seems the software industry wants more money from customers, as subscription increases the cost of ownership. How does the cost of ownership compare and are there any additional features that subscribers get over those who upgrade at their own pace?

 Dr. Biplab Sarkar: With our transition into a subscription-based business model, we can now showcase the fruits of Vectorworks’ continuous development cycle. With this model, we have increased the frequency of updates focusing on the consistent quality of the software throughout each version cycle and delivery of new functionality when it is ready instead of holding new functionality for an annual new version launch.

Subscription users also get added functionality that was not available to them in an upgrade at their own pace such as our Cloud rendering, document publishing, panoramic rendering, photogrammetry, up sampling and stylising images, and Cloud presentation features, just to name a few. Plus, subscription users get access to additional promotional offers from our technology partners and us and new templates and content libraries that are added regularly throughout the year. As we move into the future, there will continue to be more added functionality for subscribers.

Subscription licences also offer a lower upfront cost and allow our customers to purchase the products they need when they need them. Subscription licences may even allow customers to pass some costs back to their customers, making this option one of the most budget-friendly licensing options.

Pricing for Vectorworks subscription licences is competitive with similar software.

While cheaper options may exist, the same robust set of tools may not be at users’ fingertips, and they could still need additional components to complete their tech stack — meaning the price may not actually be that different (and their workflow may become much more complex.) We’re committed to offering best-in-class software that enables designers with robust capabilities and the freedom to follow any workflow at a competitive price.

Main image: The new Offset Edge tool in Vectorworks 2023 lets you offset edges and edge loops from planar and non-planar faces

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Vectorworks 2023, the forthcoming new release of the CAD / BIM software, is due to launch soon with a major focus on process automation. The Windows and Mac OSX software will also include several updates for BIM workflows and enhanced interoperability, thanks in part to new Revit import options.

Core architectural objects have been re-engineered and modernised to be more intuitive through all phases of a project. According to Vectorworks, this helps reduce the amount of manual work needed to create and edit day-to-day documentation.

A new Graphic Legends tool is designed to help make the creation of object type and drawing key legends less labour-intensive and prone to errors. According to Vectorworks, it completely removes the manual process of creating graphic legends, automatically coordinating resources used and providing an easy editing and customisation process.

Elsewhere, door and window objects can now be created and interactively edited by simply drawing a rectangle on the face of the wall in 3D or a line spanning the opening in 2D. A new folding door configuration tool can accommodate a custom number of leaves, while the window tool includes a folding sash configuration that can help create a custom number of sashes.

Building on the data-centric focus of the previous release, Vectorworks 2023 is said to make even better use of data and resources for more precise BIM models and documentation, with several powerful data reporting additions.

In terms of Revit file import, Vectorworks will now support the translation of more Revit object types and provide better organisation of the imported file data. According to the developers, this will make it easier to design a project within the context of existing information and reference a Revit file directly for a more collaborative workflow.

Users will also experience ‘better, faster and more accurate’ BIM collaboration when using BIM Collaboration Format (BCF) files. Now, as a web palette, the BCF Manager will have the ability to be kept open to ‘seamlessly and efficiently’ manage and model changes with cloud-based collaboration tools.

Elsewhere, there’s a new offset edge tool for a ‘streamlined and smooth’ 3D modelling process that lets users offset edges and push/pull faces from both planar and non-planar surfaces for more efficient design exploration. The Shaded Render Mode now supports an unlimited number of light sources, environmental lighting and reflections and object reflections.

Other general enhancements include performance improvements, such as the ability to generate section viewports up to six times faster and speed up the documentation process, and a new home screen that provides a single source for getting started, learning and training.

Vectorworks Landmark 2023, a dedicated version for landscape architecture, will introduce improvements to site grading by providing new site modifier modes for more complex grading projects. The software also offers more intuitive ways to account for proper drainage, vehicular and pedestrian use and better control through contour drawing and editing.

Through a partnerships with Laubwerk, version 2023 also includes a ‘new and extensive’ library of 3D plant geometry with a wide range of detail levels, seasonal changes and growth representations for more accurate 3D plant representation, documentation and collaboration.

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