Vectorworks Design Summit: Wrap Up and Details

We have already provided some initial thoughts on the Vectorworks Design Summit held last week in Philadelphia. In this report we’ll cover a lot of terrain at a high level to give folks an overview of the event. I have personally been to many events and conferences, and this event stands out as one of the better planned, programmed and orchestrated conferences I’ve attended.

Here’s what impressed me. The three-day conference struck a near perfect balance between information, inspiration, and networking fun. The information part included direct Vectorworks training for attendees who wanted to dig into the tool and gain skills. This took part the first day only and folks brought their own computers. Files were supplied so folks could follow along with the instructor.

The other side of the information coin included the type of learning that took place in the wide variety of sessions over the 2nd and 3rd day. These were time-efficient, 1-hour topical sessions with learning unit options, typical of the type of session one encounters like at the AIA National Convention. Keeping the sessions to one hour meant participants could experience a wide variety of new information and speakers. It also kept folks moving a lot (and awake!) This lively pace of activity was “bookended” with major keynote addresses on both days. More on the actual keynotes on the 2nd page of this article.

These keynote addresses contained the meat of the inspirational aspects of the event. After a walk back through time with Vectorworks’ CEO, the design keynote speaker, architect Leo Van Broeck, founder of BOGDAN & VAN BROECK, gave an excellent talk that people were continuing to talk about for the next day and a half. The final day had the morning future of Vectorworks keynote and closing design keynote by Adrian McGregor, managing director of landscape architecture and urban design firm McGregor Coxall.

Each day, except the last (3rd), featured a party with dinner and they gave participants time to network, make friends and generally unwind. One final note. All of this activity, with the exception of the dinners, took place within the intimacy of a business-class hotel with excellent facilities. If you got tired and needed to recharge (or recharge your electronics) your room was just an elevator ride away.

In terms of press attending or invited? From what I could tell there were three publications in attendance—Architosh, Tenlinks, and CAD User from the UK.

Mini Expo

One of the more delightful aspects of the Vectorworks Design Summit was that they had a mini expo hall, an area just outside the large keynote presentation room. As attendees exited the major keynotes they poured past small table booths showcasing products and services related to or belonging to the larger Nemetschek Vectorworks ecosystem. Companies present at the event included:

• Asite™, a cloud technology offering in their Adoddle platform for comprehensive construction project management.
• Bluebeam Software, Inc, a family member of the greater Nemetschek Group and the most recent acquisition by the German software giant. A popular question to the Bluebeam team is: when will you have a native Mac version. The person staffing the booth told me they are working on it but don’t have any announcements to make just yet. One might best be advised to recognize that it may take 18-24 months before Bluebeam makes announcements regarding tighter integration with its sister BIM companies in ArchiCAD and Vectorworks, counting back from the fall of 2014.
• Canon USA was there showing their large-format printers. Besides Canon now owning the subsidiary that distributes Vectorworks into Japan, Nemetschek Vectorworks’ largest market, Canon has developed direct support of Vectorworks in two specific 5-color printers. The 24 inch wide iPF685/680 ($2,496.USD max.) and the 36 inch wide iPF785/780 ($4,495.USD). These printers are directly supported at the driver level from Vectorworks (i.e.: no need for Postscript driver or forced conversion to PDF format for printing). All of Canon’s wide format machines naturally print out PDFs and have wide availability of Postscript optionality.
• EIZO was on hand to show off their ColorEdge high-performance technical monitors (displays), offering trouble-free color calibration. For users requiring the most demanding color accuracy EIZO monitors are highly regarded.
• irisVR was on hand with a pair of Oculus Rift virtual reality goggles. I had never put on a pair of these before and was quite blown-away but the experience. This technology, perhaps more than anything else in the market right now, other than cloud + mobile, is going to transform AEC workflows. While in their booth the irisVR team said they are currently working on a plugin for Vectorworks which might show up in time for AIA Atlanta next week. From within Vectorworks one executes a menu command that pushes the BIM or 3D model to an Oculus Rift setup. While there has been much ballyhoo about the Oculus Rift, the irisVR team told me the new HTC with Valve VR product (which we wrote about here earlier in May) is even better.
• Lenovo and MakerBot were both on hand showing their hardware options….the former their ThinkStation mobile workstations (which are actually quite nice). Lenovo is now the world’s largest PC maker. The former IBM PC division has expanded greatly under the leadership of Lenovo. MakerBot is a subsidiary of Stratasyst Limited and a global leader in 3D printing. Folks were 3D printing Vectorworks models.
• MAXON with Cinema 4D was also there as well as providing sessions for attendees to learn about the popular professional 3D software application. The Cinema 4D company is the entire M&E (media & entertainment) segment with the Nemetschek Group, but based on this report here the group plans acquisitions in this space within a year or so. MAXON has provided exceptional growth performance for the company
• Nemetschek Scia is a world-leading developer of structural analysis software that supports the Open BIM process.
• Finally Synchro Software was on hand to show their award-winning 4D (time dimension) scheduling software. Synchro PRO integrates data and models from leading BIM companies, including direct support for Vectorworks.

As you can see there were more than 10 different companies showing well over a dozen products and services options for all attendees at the Design Summit. This is a really big number for a small event. At the AIA National Conference next week we expect to see just about twice that number, yet thousands of attendees.

Design Summit Sessions

As we mentioned above, a core component of the Design Summit were its sessions. These struck an interesting balance between directly applicable to Vectorworks learning and sessions spotlighting notable architects and designers and their work and supporting workflows.

A sampling description of the sessions include items like “Creating and Managing Libraries” by trainer Jonathan Pickup, author of several Vectorworks training manuals. Panel and moderated sessions included items like “How Vectorworks Gives 3 Designers a Competitive Edge”, moderated by the Vectorworks folks and features three noteworthy users.

Some sessions took place in the main keynote room due to their anticipated popularity. One such session was “BIM Planning of the Swissfel Project” by Marc Pancera, Architekt MSc. ETH Arch. of Itten+Brechbühl AG. These guys were so fascinating we have a feature interview planned on the firm and their work on this linear particle accelerator project.

next page: Photo Gallery and Notes on Keynotes

Notes on Keynotes

Vectorworks Nemetschek CEO Sean Flaherty gave the opening keynote address. The one-hour talk went back through time and covered highlights of the company’s 30 year history, including many illuminating tidbits, one of which was mentioned in our first post on the summit.

1999 was the year that the company changed the name to Vectorworks, from MiniCAD. Flaherty noted that during Apple’s darkest days he really felt that the company was going to not make it. Smartly, MiniCAD was made for Windows during the late 90’s and it led to an explosion in sales. He noted that it was the only true cross-platform general CAD product in existence, and that set Vectorworks apart.

In 2000 Nemetschek AG acquired Diehl Graphsoft (Vectorworks). At that time annual sales were $8 million USD. From that time until now the company has grown eight fold (8x), with profit growing ten-fold (10x). With over a half million active users around the globe, Flaherty said their next tasks is to grow the company 4x or reach 2 million users. He didn’t elaborate in detail in how the company intends to do that but painted a strategy in broad strokes, including supporting the next generation of designers.

This open admission of size targets was interesting, but it was coming from a company that clearly sees itself accelerating based on its most recent trending. Flaherty noted that part of the problem in the CAD world is that the press and users alike put software solutions into segment categories or “silos.” In other words, are you a BIM program or a CAD program? Are you AEC or CAID? Noting that Vectorworks doesn’t fit neatly into these segment silos, Flaherty discussed how the company’s messaging needs to refine and evolve in order to persuade users to understand that the company cares about and understands “Design.”

Innovative design has to cross silos and be fluid, he noted that “architects know that segments don’t really exist.” Many of its most noted users don’t fit neatly into segment profiles but have a diversity of capabilities. Flaherty stated that Vectorworks is the only tool in the market that can combine best-of-breed BIM, site design and design CAD all in one package.

Finally, in discussing the company’s outlook, Flaherty said that Nemetschek Vectorworks is opening up an Atlanta, Georgia, software development office. This office will be situated directly across the street from Georgia Tech, which it has partnered with. Georgia Tech has one of the world’s leading BIM research programs. It is also one of the US’s leading colleges for computer science majors. The company also has a dedicated research and development team and has hired several PhD’s to support these endeavors. Architosh will get deeper into that in an upcoming feature.

Design Keynote

The design keynote was delivered by architect Leo Van Broeck, of BOGDAN & VAN BROECK. A Belgium based firm, he gave an enlightening talk centered on the theme of densification and sustainability.

Van Broeck’s firm has a talent for the adaptive reuse of abandoned buildings, lots, and complex brownfield sites. While it took nearly two thirds of his talk before the audience could see the firm’s creative output, most, including myself, were already deeply impressed with the research-led discussion. Van Broeck spoke about architects being “doctors of space,” when it comes to reversing the negative impact of buildings on our natural world.

During his talk he dropped several stunning statistics, including that the average pet dog in Europe has a bigger carbon footprint than the average human being in Africa. It was also noted that a super energy efficient single family home, for example, out in a rural setting or deep in suburbia—a car dependent location—has a carbon footprint two and a half times (2.5x) that of an old-style apartment in the city. Van Broeck argued very convincingly that when it comes to achieving lowering the carbon footprint of Man, mobility itself is the problem.

Architects can, of course, make a big difference—one building project at a time. But for Van Broeck, “compacting” should be part of the solution, if not the central part, to sustainability in the wider context.