Product Review: Vectorworks Architect 2013

Every year I personally look forward to reviewing Vectorworks and this year was no different. It is an enjoyable tool to review because the company (Nemetschek Vectorworks) does an excellent job of making learning their tool simple and accessible.

[Editor’s note: Our review was edited on 14 March 2013 on page 3.]

Arguably what makes this program particularly strong goes beyond just its well regarded ease-of-use and flexibility, but also its wide range of dedicated fields. It is truly a designer’s program and can be used for the design of just about anything from buildings, landscapes, furniture, products, stage sets, theater lighting and much more.

In our case we will be reviewing Vectorworks Architect 2013 for architects and other AEC professionals. This industry version of Vectorworks can be used for both schematic and advanced preliminary design, construction drawings and even a full IFC-compliant BIM (Building Information Modeling) workflow. If you don’t know what IFC is, it stands for Industry Foundation Classes and we’ll touch on that a bit more later.

Customer Service and 80 New Features

Before we begin let’s have a brief mention of Nemetschek Vectorworks (NV) customer service. This area strongly relates to the subject of how one goes about learning how to use a software program–a big deal for the editor here at Architosh who, correctly so, emphasizes that “ease-of-use” is an essential part of a true Mac-centric software design philosophy (and these days this means iOS also). The company has impressed over the years with the level of service staff actually involve themselves in within their own customer forums. Many times you get answers directly from the programmers who are responsible for the feature in question. And because they programmed the feature or even created it often the answers are highly illuminating and thought-provoking.

Speaking of features. There are 80 new features in version 2013. One of the best ways of learning about them is not just reviews like this one but the many descriptive videos and images about the major new features on the NV website. In this review we will be pointing out not all of them but those that were most impressive and key in this year’s release. Towards the end of the review, we will point some cons and issues not yet fixed or addressed in the program from past reviews. Let’s get started.

Just Call Me Frank

Gehry that is! Here is perhaps our favorite new feature. You know all those nice buildings he does with the warped surfaces requiring the use of a super high-end computer and CAD program. Well, now you can come pretty close to doing the same thing, or even do the same thing, with Vectorworks. Yes really, the new Surface Array feature lets one put windows, structural elements, surface treatments or even pictures of your kids on just about any surface shape you can come up with.

Create a surface using an arc, circle, oval, polygon, polyline, rectangle, rounded rectangle or NURBS surface, then create a second object to be placed across the surface…make a few decisions and clicks of the mouse…and instantly the design is distributed across the surface. One can then still make various changes and the array changes accordingly. Once done the original surface can be left in place or turned off to create a transparent affect. This really opens up some possibilities not just in creating exciting new designs for buildings, but in many other areas like furniture design, interior design and product design. (see image 01)

It should be stated here that the new Surface Array features are not included in Vectorworks Fundamentals but are available in Vectorworks Landmark, Vectorworks Spotlight, Vectorworks Designer and, of course, Vectorworks Architect.

Parasolid-based Roofs

In Vectorworks 2013 the company completes its migration to Parasolid. Now all intelligent elements of BIM models are based on the Parasolid kernel. This world’s most advanced geometry modeling kernel powers the Roof tool completely and with superior results. It is now possible to create much more complicated plans and have the roof tool correctly generate accurate roof model forms. (see image 02 below)

Additionally, the roof planes function now accepts intelligent dormer insertions so users can create customized (parametric) dormers into individual roof planes and not just roof objects.

The improved Rotate tool adds very nice graphical feedback (see 03 above) which greatly aids rotation tasks. As you rotate an element a ghost of it appears as your cursor spins the element around. At certain logical intervals like 30, 45 and 60 degrees cursor queues pop up helping you settle your rotation.

Non-blocking Rendering

This is a feature that lets you keep on working while your viewports are rendering. It has potential, but you can imagine that with a weak computer everything is going to slow down. Anyway it’s high on the list of time savers given the proper computer.

next page: The Clip Cube and More

The Clip Cube

Last year at AIA Architosh editor-in-chief, Anthony Frausto-Robledo, had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Biplab Sarkar, PhD, CTO of Nemetschek who offered him two tasty morsels of information on advancements in 3D in the next two upcoming versions of Vectorworks. (see Architosh: “AIA: Nemetschek Talks with Architosh,” 8 June 2012).  The new Clip-Cube was the first of those two future treats. And now it’s here! So what is it exactly?

Here is a tool that is truly amazing for any designer who regularly makes 3D models of his or her project. For the designer it allows one to zoom in on an area and get rid of all the other parts of a building outside the boundaries of the cube.

This lets us work on an isolated area without the confusion of the rest of the building being in the way or a distraction. For client presentations it can really be cool. In fact, there are several possibilities for interacting with a building using the Clip Cube that will give your clients a new and heightened sense of interaction. (see images 04 – 05 below)

You can put the cube around the whole building for example and then move the boundaries in real time to expose various parts of the building – clip off the front to see inside, or the roof to look down to the upper floor and then clip more to see the lower floor in 3D. Your clients will love this and you will be thrilled to do all the extra work it takes to make the inside of your model look as good as the outside – right? (see image 06 below)

Another important remaining point about the Clip Cube is how it works in conjunction with groups. When you edit a grouped 3D object and have the Clip Cube set to visibility “on” the edges of the Clip Cube form tight to the overall three dimensional perimeter of the grouped object(s). If you then perform surface manipulations you may discover that sections of your model vanish as you pull it past the edges of the automatic Clip Cube. If you use groups be aware of this.

Create Detailed Viewport

Another excellent new feature and great time-saver is the Create Detail Viewport command. In Vectorworks, like in AutoCAD, one can utilize a “viewport” to essentially take a snap-shot of something already modeled or drawn and represent it on a sheet (Vectorworks) or paper-space (AutoCAD) and show it at another scale and turn it into a detail, for instance.

In Vectorworks Architect 2013 the new Create Detailed Viewport command does a lot of this work in a semi-automatic way, creating a detail bubble marker and reference marker on a design-layer or creating the same within the annotation space on a sheet-layer. In other words, you can be inside another viewport of say, an elevation view of your BIM model and produce a blow-up detail of something in the elevation view (e.g.: cabinetry panel) and it gets automatically labeled and produced on the same sheet layer. (see image 07)

Hyperlinks

If you use the Internet, who doesn’t, you are familiar with hyperlinks. This feature has the potential for really changing the way we produce drawings. Of course they don’t work on paper prints. I don’t really need to point that out except that it is the reason we would have to use an electronic means of distributing plans. In the hands of the construction supervisor, for example , one can imagine the usefulness. Click on a detail call out and you are taken directly to the detail, or click on a plumbing fixture and you are taken to the web (if connected) to the manufacturer’s site for installation instructions, or even a YouTube video.

Only the links calling out web pages or sheet layers can be exported in PDF files. So there are some limits, but I suppose anyone with the Vectorworks Viewer would have full use of them. Next step –those augmented reality glasses. The carpenter wears them and the plans just pop up in front of him. The architect doesn’t even need to include details for say a window installation, just refer to a detail on the manufactures web site. A bit of dreaming, but I think this might be the most revolutionary and important thing they have going. It seems odd someone had not thought of this idea sooner.

next page: BIM

BIM

We can’t possibly review Vectorworks Architect 2013 and not talk about its BIM features. And in this version there are some really important new features for those users who are using this program for a full or hybrid BIM workflow. We have already mentioned the Create Detail Viewport function, which it not exclusive to VW Architect nor to a full 3D workflow. But nonetheless, quite useful for the BIM workflow.

A key new feature is the new Auto Hybrid Object command that allows the user to create a custom 2D plan appearance for any arbitrary 3D geometry which needs a truly affective and accurate 2D representation while in 2D plan views. With the hybrid BIM object Vectorworks Architect 2013 gives you the ability to control specific aspects of the plan appearance via the Object Info palette to meet one’s documentation needs. (see images 08 -09 below)

The Space Object has also received an update allowing walls to be quickly used for generating space object definitions. Move a wall in your BIM and the space object data and call outs automatically regenerate.

Finally with regard to BIM we must mention that IFC data can now be attached to Vectorworks symbols. This means you can define IFC data for all existing instances of symbols and you can run a new IFC command from the Object Info palette. IFC standards now meet IFC2x3 Certification 2.0.

Other Niceties in Vectorworks Architect 2013

For those of you who find hidden line renderings useful you will be pleased to learn that these types of renders have been sped up 2x – 5x faster than version 2012. Zooming and panning is now faster as well. Two other great improvements include the removal of the crop in perspective views (see image 01) — now your models appears in the full screen window–and secondly, the walk-thru tool works differently now with the addition of a cursor marker which you can put anywhere on the screen and get much more controlled navigation.

Vectorworks 2013 now includes Arroway Textures, a high-quality library of texture libraries for those who opt for Renderworks 2013 as an add-on. There is also a new physical sun and sky Renderworks background that simplifies the production of high-quality renders. (see image 11 below). And for those who want to do more advanced rendering work they can utilize the Export to CINEMA 4D and Send to CINEMA 4D commands. Now in this version Vectorworks Fundamentals users can also enjoy this link to CINEMA 4D, not just those with Renderworks licenses.

Workgroups and No More Manuals

For as much ambition that Vectorworks Architect has as a full fledged BIM program the company has not implemented any new features in the areas of large-teams or workgroups, features needed in larger offices implementing BIM. VW Architect utilizes a federated-file approach rather than a unified single-file approach much like Bentley’s BIM offering, and unlike ArchiCAD and Revit. It is through this approach that teams can be setup to assign individual control and assignment of work via individual files federated in the group of files that belong to the BIM master files. While a federated-file system has its pros and cons much like a single-file system, we would like to see the company devote more effort in making large project and large team setup easier and more systematic. And perhaps the future use of their Vectorworks Cloud technology can help with remote offices and remote workers in a coordinated way with future workgroup features.

Nemetschek Vectorworks has also moved their help manual to an Adobe Air application. This was done in previous versions. To be honest there are many nice features in this move and Adobe Air’s technology is fine. But many users still like having a printed manual alongside them as they learn the software.

Conclusion

Vectorworks continues to be what it has always been, a versatile program that can be the one program a designer needs. It is arguably the most flexible CAD program available. Some who prefer a completely dedicated program for BIM in particular might consider that a handicap. All BIM programs have their strengths and weaknesses. We have also not mentioned the company’s integrated Vectorworks Cloud Services. These bring additional benefits to this BIM package for more information on that we point you to our feature here.

Vectorworks is known for being well loved by creative designers. Users especially like the WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) approach that the program is famous for. It is also a very powerful modeling program and with the Renderworks add-on users get a top-tier rendering engine from Maxon’s CINEMA 4D. Additionally, the program has the ability to update models sent to CINEMA 4D without the need to redo work inside of scene setup in CINEMA 4D. [Editor’s note: earlier we incorrectly referred to this as round-trip fidelity.]

What the company has touted for years remains one of its top selling points: Vectorworks is a hybrid 2D/3D CAD/BIM program that does not force architects to make a complete either-or-approach to the BIM adoption question. —- JOHN HELM, NCARB

Pros: significant new 3D technologies in Clip Cube, full-screen perspective option, Surface Array for advanced NURBS modeling; now fully Parasolid-based BIM, great hybrid object feature and IFC improvements; very robust new interoperability with addition of FBX, Collada, Rhino, gbXML and more — all of this makes a more powerful BIM for architects; excellent improvements to Renderworks 2013

Cons: no big improvements to workgroup or team capabilities, weakness in program for larger firms/big teams/remote workers; still does not match SketchUp, Bonzai 3D or similar programs for persistent OpenGL rendering; no window-tiling options (user gets just one window layout option); no SE, MEP or energy modules.

Advice: This update is a lot like version 2012–many excellent new features, very solid BIM updates, yet no new collaboration capabilities for large team/workgroups that enables Vectorworks to compete for large-firm adoption. Existing BIM users will love the Clip Cube, full-screen perspective mode, faster performance and Detail Viewport tool–these all make an update a no-brainer just for performance alone. For those with Renderworks added the new physical sun and sky backgrounds offer much to enjoy. Cloud Services options extend the abilities of this program, especially for compute power.

Cost: Vectorworks 2013 comes in many versions. In this review we focused on Architect and discussed Renderworks as well. We did not fully review Renderworks 2013. Vectorworks Architect  with Renderworks is 2,945.USD. Upgrades start at 884.USD.

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