In a bit of an unusual twist, the folks at Vectorworks, Inc. (a Nemetschek daughter company) are touting early the features of the upcoming Vectorworks 2025 product line. We are familiar with the trajectories of various multi-year programming efforts (see our many interviews with CEO Dr. Biplab Sarkar), so it does not surprise us that 2025 will receive some exciting new capabilities connected to the interactive 3D experience.
A New World
Vectorworks has long been considered the gold standard in CAD software ease-of-use. Now, the company is touting early a “whole new world” in interactive features aimed at giving users a bold new way of interactively working in 3D modes, paired with more visualization updates.
When you tout an image like this—very Apple or Mag 7 level-esque—you know you are sitting on something special and can’t wait to show it off.
Vectorworks 2025 is reported to give users innovative new methods for how they visualize their models and navigate around them—opening up a new level of visual understanding and communication.
Vectorworks CEO Dr. Biplab Sarkar says:
At Vectorworks, we’re dedicated to creating usability wins for our customers, ensuring that our software doesn’t dictate the limits of what’s possible. Our latest version is a testament to this commitment, providing powerful tools that seamlessly integrate into your workflow, allowing you to focus firmly on your ideas without obstacles.
Key new features in version 2025 will be Onscreen View Control which will provide a user with instant access to all views of a model. This will pair with new click-dragging functionality for orbiting models (see analysis below). The Two-Point Perspective feature will help users create traditional architectural compositions and professional photography perspectives with a single click.
Perhaps one of the most exciting new features will be Object-Level Visibility. While Vectorworks has long been able to enable individual objects to become see-through or invisible using “class” technology combined with shaders, simple object-level visibility was not possible.
Now, users will be able to make the objects they select to show or hide, ghost, or isolate them from other objects or the whole model.
Industry Verticals
Vectorworks has long managed to release foundational architectural changes to the software each year while also delivering dozens of critical features across its vertical industry solutions for architecture and interior design, landscape design, and entertainment design industry professionals. This year will likely be no different.
In a press release, the company noted that architects and interior professionals will gain new flexible room finishes management features and more automation with BIM data assignments with support for construction classifications. There will also be more updates to the recently introduced cabinetry design tools focused on countertops and likely their edge conditions.
Vectorworks Landmark will boast new tools for landscape architects, enhancing BIM for landscape capabilities and allowing for more precise curb design in 3D. And entertainment design professionals will gain new capabilities as well across Vectorworks Spotlight, Braceworks, and ConnectCAD—the three separate tools serving that important and growing vertical for Vectorworks.
Architosh Analysis and Commentary
In our most recent review of Vectorworks, we noted that the software’s push-pull modeling tools should continue to be advanced, but they must complement better orbit and view controls, something that looks to be coming in version 2025. The idea here is that Vectorworks’ famed ease of use when learning new 3D software puts the program in much better contention actually to challenge SketchUp for conceptual and detail modeling. SketchUp has had little direct competition—with failed attempts from the likes of the formZ folks with Bonzai to even mighty Autodesk with its FormIt software line. We know our recognition of this void in the market dynamics is correct because even McNeel’s recent Rhino 3D update pointed to new features in more direct and simplified SketchUp-like architectural modeling.
Why is direct and simplified architectural modeling so darn important now?
The answer is that the AI craze has hyper-accelerated photo-realistic rendering and is valuable in creative AEC pipelines. It is that simple. Architects need simple and direct ways to capture value in the new AI-empowered visualization apps like D5 and others. This new value system—powered by AI—has helped boost the obvious value of SketchUp—an extremely easy-to-use modeler that helps you build your buildings and environments quickly so they can be rendered in the new era of AI tools. This, hopefully, is the path being taken by the Vectorworks folks with these latest updates