Luka Stefanovic

@Poot Yes Phase D is on my list for research, I'm hoping to have that sometime in the future. B2 maintenance is also something we want to look at adding at some point. It would be great to hear your feedback and lessons learned from that large landscape project, I'm sure there will be valuable things we could implement in VECC. Thank you!

@Poot I have submitted this improvement and am currently discussing implementation. I'll keep you in the loop but it sounds like it will be added in the next version (2027). If you have any other feedback or ideas for improvement, please let me know and I'll pass them on.

@shorter It's already out and available to add under Install Partner Products. It came out with Vectorworks 2026 Update 1 but is also available with Vectorworks 2025 Update 5

@Poot I have submitted this improvement and am currently discussing implementation. I'll keep you in the loop but it sounds like it will be added in the next version (2027). If you have any other feedback or ideas for improvement, please let me know and I'll pass them on.

@Poot Glad you feel like it's a big improvement! Hopefully we can carry on with the good work and continue to make this tool even better! That EC factor in the Record Format is for product stage only, the end of life EC factor can be changed in the settings in the top right corner. Though I'm assuming this won't do what you're after as it will apply another value to all materials. Would you mind sharing one of the EPDs you mention, perhaps this can be one of the next improvements!

Hi @Poot no the only affected stage would be B4 replacement - for example you could replace plasterboard twice on a 50-year lifespan and 3 times on a 60-year lifespan. That's the only stage where you might see changes in the assessment regarding the shorter lifespan. This could be changed in the worksheet, but it's a bit tricky to do. Essentially you wouldn't be changing the lifespan but the frequency of replacements. The good news is that this will be much easier to edit in the next version, with the new and automated Embodied Carbon Calculator coming out as part of the Sustainability Dashboard in Vectorworks 2026.

Hi @Peter Telleman you can export Vectorworks worksheets to Excel, you can even reference Excel files in Vectorworks models and then push the data from Vectorworks to Excel and vice versa in a two-way data exchange, but you can't do it automatically. References need to be updated and worksheets recalculated, data pushed from Vectorworks to Excel or worksheets exported manually. There's no automatic recalculation because if it was doing it that would mean that every time there is a small change in the model, worksheets would be recalculating and if you had a big database model, your machine would be constantly blocked.

Hi @Poot The VECC can be used in any industry or project really, and the latest version (2024) has no Door/Window section, only Materials and individual objects, which are handled through Record Formats. In short, if you assign Materials to Vectorworks objects their quantities will be calculated automatically in the worksheet and EC obtained based on Material property (such as density and EC factor). Additionally you can attach a Record Format to any object that has a manufacturer's EPD data, say a bench Symbol in your model, you can add declared EC for the bench as a product and the worksheet will count how many of those are there in your project and tell you the total EC for all benches. In terms of negative carbon, you would simply enter a negative value for the EC in the Material property and the calculation would take that into account. I hope that makes sense, but to repeat - VECC is really adaptable to handle different projects as it is based on model quantities of Materials and Material properties, the only reason it has an architectural flavour in the presentation is because I am an architect!

@Tim Harland I still think it would be possible to do it through Excel Referencing, but I'll need those examples to understand what exactly needs to be done. Let me know when you put it together and I will try to do it. @Amanda McDermott Can you also send me an example of what you're trying to do along with a Vectorworks and Excel file and I can see if I can put that one together for you. It sounds like it should be possible to do. Thanks! And happy holidays!

Hi @Tim Harland it sounds complex what you're trying to achieve. Can you send an example of what you're trying to do, in Excel and in Vectorworks, and I can try to put it together as a sample. I think what you describe should work but it's easier to understand by looking at actual examples rather than just a description 🙂 Thanks, Luka

@Tim Harland In short, there are two ways you can use referenced Excel data in Vectorworks - just bringing a worksheet in and viewing it as such, for example a consultant list, or a product data sheet. The other, more complex way, is to use referenced Excel data in another database worksheet - for example, creating a furniture schedule that counts the Symbols in your model and hooking that up to a product price list from a manufacturer. In both cases, integration goes both ways - if you make a change in Excel and update the reference, the data in Vectorworks worksheet will be updated. If you make a change in Vectorworks, you can push it back to Excel and update the worksheet. What you seem to be describing is the complex workflow in reverse. It is certainly possible, but I think it's overly complicating - taking advantage of reading the model as a database, then pushing that data back to Excel to be a plain spreadsheet just for the sake of formatting in Excel, which can be done in Vectorworks too, seems overly complicating the workflow to me. As I said, you should be able to do it, but I would recommend a simpler way of formatting a door schedule in Vectorworks. Good luck with setting it up!

My apologies @Tom W. I've been beta testing for too long! Wall Tag reading IFC mapped Data v2023.vwx

There you go! Hope that makes sense how it's set up and what it does. This one looks at component names and thicknesses rather than Materials, but the principle would be the same. Correct, currently it's not possible to list subparts (Components) and break them down into further parts in the reporting system. Something I know engineers are looking at, but I don't know if there is a solution coming.

@Tom W. @Samuel Derenboim I'm a bit late to the party so there is a lot to unpack here - let me start by saying that Data Tags can only tag Walls, but they can't tag Wall Components. This is why you need to use formulas like ComponentMaterial. I sometimes use the Data Manager to map formulas to Wall data, IFC in particular has fields for Materials that you can populate with concatenated information like component material name + thickness etc. This would allow you to potentially enter different data to these fields but still use a single Data Tag to display it. As far as I'm aware, there is no way of showing Simple Materials that constitute a Compound Material - you can get their accurate volumes for example Concrete = 0.95%Cement + 0.05%Rebar, so if you ask for quantity of cement, you will get a correct volume (which you can later use to calculate weight via density, or cost or embodied carbon) Of course, it depends what you're trying to achieve but there is a lot of flexibility between the Data Manager, Data Tags and Worksheet formulas to get you pretty much all data about objects in Vectorworks.

Sorry I'm a bit late to the conversation, but the reason for using a class in that particular webinar was that at the time, you couldn't hide objects completely using Data Viz. Now you can so you could use only Record Format and Data Viz to render objects invisible in both Design Layer view and Viewports. However there is still a benefit of using a dedicated Demo class and dedicated proposed and existing sets of Design Layers - you can use Grey or Show / Snap other Layers or Classes. While Data Viz does make pen and fill invisible, the objects are still there and you could accidentally select them or join a Wall with an invisible one. So it's a kind of safety net, both workflows are valid and will do what you need graphically, it's just a matter of workflow preference.