Vectorworks, Inc., a daughter company of the Nemetschek Group in its design segment and a globally leading BIM and CAD software provider, has officially released its new Vectorworks 2024 product lineup. The new release boasts dramatically new user interface and user experience (UX) capabilities that will give both experienced users and new ones lots of flexibility to tailor the software to their exacting workflows.
On the BIM front for architects, Vectorworks Architect 2024 adds multiple new capabilities that will allow architects to better design, document, and present their work to clients and collaborators.
Vectorworks 2024
The current release includes new 2024 versions for Vectorworks Architect (for architects and interior designers), Vectorworks Landmark (for landscape architects, urban designers, and garden designers), Vectorworks Spotlight, BrackWorks and Vision (for entertainment design professionals), and ConnectCAD (for AV and entertainment design professionals).
Vectorworks Architect 2024 boasts numerous new core features and BIM-centric improvements.
Additionally, new releases include 2024 versions for Vectorworks Fundamentals (for general design, 3D modelers, and general CAD) and Vectorworks Design Suite (combines Architect, Landmark, and Spotlight into one product for comprehensive architecture, urban design, and landscape architecture or comprehensive entertainment design industry workflows with BIM capability).
“Our goal is to empower designers with tools and resources that boost their creativity,” said Vectorworks Chief Technology Officer Steve Johnson. “With Vectorworks 2024, we have taken this mission to new heights through groundbreaking new features, user experience enhancements, and a strong focus on quality and performance. These advances will significantly accelerate our users’ design experiences, from the initial spark of an idea to the ultimate realization of a project.”
Core Technology in 2024
All versions of Vectorworks 2024 feature advancements in core technologies, with version 2024 featuring a new modern user interface with reorganized View and Mode bars. The net result is users gain more screen real estate, bring key workflow items to the top of the UI, and better streamline overall functionality. Experienced Vectorworks users can see from the image below how different yet similar the Vectorworks 2024 UI can be. Note the streamlining in the tools bar and View and Mode bars.
Better UI in Vectorworks 2024.
Another core new capability is the ability to save custom viewport settings as “styles” (akin to rendering styles), which consolidate typical viewport view options, inclusive of rendering modes. For example, styles can be created for schematic design versus construction documents. Styles can be drag and drop applied, instantly changing the appearance of a viewport.
Vectorworks 2024 boasts new cross-platform Excel file referencing into native Vectorworks worksheets and back again. With Excel so prominently used for data organization in the AEC and media and entertainment (M&E) industries, this new feature will surely please many users. Finally, core rendering has improved to the Shaded rendering mode, giving all users higher levels of realism and “certainty” while designing in real time.
Architects and Interior Designers
New for BIM workflows in architecture and interiors are new materials capabilities for door and window BIM objects. Door and window handedness can now be modified in situ in the main window under the cursor rather than in object palettes, streamlining BIM workflows. Version 2024 also improves the stair tool and features new railings and guardrail capabilities. The railings tool leverages the “object styles paradigm” and gives architects and designers to apply whole guard and handrail styles to given applications and, at the same time, allow for individually modeled unique circumstances.
The Wall tool has continued to improve and now boasts multiple configuration options for how wall components can return to objects (doors and windows or other objects), forming neat terminations as architects intend designs to work. There are new improvements to sills and gaps between windows and doors and walls, plus improvements to wall, slab, and roof texturing.
Vectorworks Architect 2024 advances BIM in the area of walls.
New structural member improvements help users deliver more precise control over 2D and 3D attributes, material, shape, and size for styled and instance-based parameters. Users will note that objects get controlled by either “styles” or “instance-based” parameter controls. With new controls over auto-joining, users will be able to better control and streamline their documentation with these structural objects.
Landscape Architects and Designers
Landmark users gain similar new features. A new Fence tool is a major highlight of Vectorworks Landmark 2024 and shares similar styled versus instance-based parameter controls as the updated Rail tool.
The automation of the Fence tool saves major time while designing in 2D or 3D. Like the new Railing tool, the Fence tool features gravity mode so that the applied fence not only follows contours but also can adjust automatically to curbs, walls, and other objects it runs over. Fences also automatically facet to curved applications, locating posts automatically as required. Control of gates, stops or interruptions to fences is greatly improved.
A new Landmark Color Palette gives designers an efficiently pre-organized “nature-focused” color selection experience. And there are new features that help users with Legends. Site Model Analysis boasts new auto-coloring to help communicate designs faster. Users and clients alike will understand slope ranges and elevation data more clearly.
Entertainment and AV Design
For live events and for lighting and AV designers, Vectorworks 2024 tools for them reduce the amount of manual work—which is quite intensive in these industries.
The new Equipment Lists feature unifies the equipment and inventory tracking process, providing the tools to plan and document equipment and streamlining the preproduction process.
Vectorworks’ ConnectCAD gets streamlined new features.
For ConnectCAD users, the “Share Reports” command uploads design data to Vectorworks Cloud Services as a configurable worksheet to view in a web browser on any device, and the new unified 3D Rack workflow saves even more time, providing the ability to quickly design and edit equipment racks in 3D with required 2D objects created automatically.
Cloud and Collaboration
For improved remote work and collaboration with colleagues, Project Sharing is completely rewritten from the ground up, offering industrial strength synching technology. This will ensure data and geometry are always current in the project file. And as we noted before in a pre-release report, this new capability does not depend on what cloud service a firm uses, whether Vectorworks Cloud or a third-party cloud service like Dropbox. Project Sharing+ tracks every change, every time, and improves reliability regardless of your team or project size.
Experiencing Vectorworks 2024
The release of localized language versions will begin in October and conclude in the first quarter of 2024. For more information about the availability of Vectorworks 2024 in other markets, contact your local Vectorworks distributor. Vectorworks Service Select and subscription users can download Vectorworks 2024 when the product is released in their local markets.
To learn more about the latest release, visit vectorworks.net/2024 or join the conversation on social media with #Vectorworks2024.
