Vectorworks Design Summit – CEO Keynote

This new we were introduced to the new CEO of Vectorworks – Dr. Biplab Sarkar. He has been with Vectorworks since 2000 and he was instrumental in adding many of the 3D features we take for granted and over the years he has guided the most of the big features in Vectorworks. He is only the third CEO that Vectorworks have ever had.

The first part of his address covered was all the changes that have been made since last year. Vectorworks have changed their name to Vectorworks Inc, from Nemetschek Vectorworks. A subtle change, as we all used to call it just Vectorworks anyway. Vectorworks have acquired ESP Vision, CameraMatch, Nemetschek acquired Bluebeam, and they now have offices in Las Vagas, Sophia, Atlanta, and Columbia.

I guess that most people would want to know what Dr. Sarkar said about Vectorworks 2017. For the second year in a row, the keynote preach has addressed the upcoming features of Vectorworks. It's great to know that they have in mind, and some of these are really really exciting:

• Subdivision Modeling will be improved to allow objects to be converted to Subdivision Surface, mirror modeling, and bridging.
• Project Sharing will be improved to allow for the checking out of objects or groups of objects and it will allow projects to be shared over the cloud. I assume this means Dropbox and Google drive. I took lots of notes, but I only have Google Drive/Cloud Aware written down.
• A complete overhaul of the Resource Browser. It will now be a Resource Manager. When you look for resources there will now be a consistent interface for all resources in all the tools, you can drag and drop resources to arrange them, and there will be a tagging feature to allow you to look for resources based on keywords. You will be able to search for resources on your computer, your network, or the Internet.
• A new Structural Member object. This is really powerful, the ability to join beams and columns together (like we currently do now with walls). When you move a beam, all the connected beams stretch.
• A new suite of irrigation tools whic includes and detailed catalog of parts. Outlets can be sprinklers, drips, etc, and the output is aware of the capacity and flow of the pipe work. If you specify the wrong pressure or flow in the pipe, the area covered by the outlet will change accordingly.
• Vectorworks Cloud services will be upgraded so that anyone can have a Nomad account.
• The Vectorworks Graphics Module will now work on your Top/Plan views, dramatically speeding up you 2D drawings. They also said that Top/Plan view would use multithreading, meaning that on multi-core computers, Top/Plan will use the extra horsepower of your computer.
• Vectorworks will be getting a VR output. This will allow you to share your projects with clients and other team members by sharing a URL. They can click on the link and walk around the project. My favourite part is that the VR is aware of the structure and when you get to stairs you walk up them, you bump into walls, and you can't fall off a balcony. And there is a stereo view as well.

The planet Vectorworks blog has more information on these and some pictures. You can read more here…