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This tutorial will help you design and create curtain wall styles. It will also cover how to utilize this tool to create standard storefronts. Download All Project Files

The Slab Drainage tool has the ability to create slabs with sloping components such as "flat" roofs, as well as the ability to place drains. Download All Project Files

This tutorial will help you understand how to use the data visualization capabilities in Vectorworks software to help create viewport-based presentations where an object’s attributes can be controlled by the data. Download All Project Files

This tutorial outlines the interrelationships between levels, layers, and stories, as well as examines how to create and edit both walls styles and slab styles, which leads to greater change management in your building information model. Download All Project Files

The Strategic Planning Guide is a tool to help assess your organization's existing processes and procedures to align your BIM goals with your defined BIM uses. The guide will also help your organization develop a transition plan for BIM implementation and will discuss "things to consider" as you follow through with this process: Download All Project Files

Project Sharing is a multiuser environment the streamlines project management and execution. It was developed to help Vectorworks users manage projects involving multiple users, fostering effective collaboration and communication within a project team. Project Sharing is a single-file structure providing a mechanism that allows multiple users to work within - and access parts of - a file, simultaneously. This type of multiuser environment offers all team members the opportunity to act together - sharing their knowledge and expertise to the overall design and documentation of the project. It allows for the entire team to think of a project holistically. More importantly, a multiuser environment means a single source of information that can be used for automation and quality checking in drawing production and data extraction - one of the greatest benefits of BIM. This workflow guide introduces the user to the basics of Project Sharing setup, configuration, and use:

The following are real-world system requirements for running Vectorworks 2018. In some demanding cases, we would suggest a more capable machine than is described by these recommendations. Likewise, there are some less demanding situations where Vectorworks will perform well on older hardware. General Requirements: Operating System: macOS 10.14 macOS 10.13 macOS 10.12 Mac OS X 10.11 Mac OS X 10.10 Windows 10 (64-bit) Windows 8 (64-bit) Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Windows 7 SP1 (64-bit) Minimum Hardware Profile Entry-level Profile: For small projects, simple models/drawings with a low level of detail, simple renderings (such as, small residential projects, small theaters, small landscaping design) Processor: 64-bit Intel Core i5 (or AMD equivalent) or better RAM: 4GB or more Graphics Card: OpenGL 2.1 compatible graphics card with 1GB of VRAM or more Some integrated graphics cards such as Intel Iris graphics are acceptable for simple models/drawings, but a dedicated graphics card is preferable. Vectorworks with Vision requires a dedicated graphics card, preferably released in the past three years. Using multiple view panes with different visibilities in all panes requires a graphics card with at least 2GB of VRAM. Display Resolution: 1440 x 900 or higher Hard Disk: 10GB free disk space is required for the installation. 30GB or more is required for a full installation with all libraries. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recommended Hardware Profiles High-end Profile: For large projects, complex and very detailed models/drawings, complex renderings (such as large BIM projects, large entertainment venues, commercial sites, GIS, high end landscaping design, photorealistic rendering) Processor: 64-bit Intel Core i7 (or AMD equivalent) clocked at 3GHz or better RAM: 16GB-32GB or more Graphics Card: A dedicated OpenGL 2.1 compatible graphics card with 4GB of VRAM or more Vectorworks with Vision requires a dedicated graphics card, preferably released in the past three years. Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher Hard Disk: 10GB free disk space is required for the installation. 30GB or more is required for a full installation with all libraries. Installing Vectorworks on flash storage (SSD) is recommended. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mid-level Profile: For medium-size projects, complex models/drawings with medium level of details (such as small commercial projects, mid-size entertainment venues, residential site modeling) Processor: 64-bit Intel Core i5 (or AMD equivalent) clocked at 2GHz or better RAM: 8GB-16GB or more Graphics Card: A dedicated OpenGL 2.1 compatible graphics card with 2GB-4GB of VRAM or more Vectorworks with Vision requires a dedicated graphics card, preferably released in the past three years. Using multiple view panes with different visibilities in all panes requires a graphics card with at least 2GB of VRAM, with 3GB or more recommended for large files. Display Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher Hard Disk: 10GB free disk space is required for the installation. 30GB or more is required for a full installation with all libraries. Installing Vectorworks on flash storage (SSD) is recommended. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Network Requirements for Project Sharing: Project sharing requires high-speed network connections. As the network bandwidth increases, so does project sharing performance. Slower network speeds can still provide a satisfactory user experience if you minimize operations that transfer large amounts of data over the network (such as committing changes to the project file or refreshing a local working file). LAN Sharing: Minimum: A Fast Ethernet (100Mbit/s) network connection Recommended: A Gigabit Ethernet (1Gbit/s) network connection is required for large projects. Cloud Sharing: Project sharing using cloud-based storage requires a high-speed internet connection (50Mbit/s or above). This method of sharing works best with small teams or small projects. It is not recommended for large teams or large projects. Hard Drive: Storing large project files on flash storage (SSD) is recommended. Additional Details Graphics Cards IMPORTANT – Several Vectorworks features have placed higher demands on graphic hardware. Additionally, the performance and quality of the graphics provided by the Vectorworks Graphics Module depend directly on the speed, memory, and supported extensions of the graphics card. These features have the potential to provide a very fast and fluid experience if used on capable hardware, or a noticeably slower experience if used on older or incompatible hardware. Graphics cards should support at a minimum OpenGL version 2.1; cards not meeting this recommendation will have limited functionality and poor performance. In general, the more powerful your graphics card is, the better your Vectorworks experience will be. The amount of Video RAM (VRAM) required to drive Vectorworks adequately depends largely on the size of the display being used and the complexity of the Vectorworks document. Medium-sized displays with a native resolution of 1920x1080 or less should be driven by a graphics card with at least1GB of VRAM. Larger displays should use a modern graphics card with at least 2GB of VRAM, with 4GB or more recommended. OpenGL rendering of shadows and edges are VRAM-intensive and require at least 1GB, with 2GB of VRAM or more being preferable. If you want to take full advantage of OpenGL shadows and edges, especially in situations where you have any combination of the following: many lights point lights image textures anti-aliasing high shadow quality excessive geometry and if you have a graphics card with less than 1GB of VRAM, you should consider upgrading your graphics card. Using Multiple View Panes with different visibilities in all panes can be VRAM-intensive and require at least 2GB of VRAM, with 3GB or more recommended for large Vectorworks documents. We strongly recommend that all users check that their video drivers are current. The majority of display problems reported to our Technical Support department have been traced to older video drivers. In general, a recent graphics card running the latest drivers is preferable to an old high-end graphics card running outdated drivers. Vision Pro requires a dedicated OpenGL 3.0 compatible graphics card preferably released in the past three years. We do not recommend any integrated Intel video chipset. While Vision may run under these environments, we do not support them due to their lack of performance and speed. For the latest information on our graphics card recommendations for Vectorworks 2018, go to the Vectorworks Knowledgebase. Remote and Virtual Machines We do not consider remote login environments such as Remote Desktop, Terminal Services and VNC or virtual machine environments such as Parallels and VMware to be appropriate for regular work, so Vectorworks performance in these situations is not of primary concern to us. They may be appropriate for administrative testing or utility purposes, and Vectorworks is fully functional in these environments. You should not expect high performance in these environments, however, especially with interactive screen feedback. We do support Vectorworks running under Boot Camp on Mac machines. As long as you have appropriate and current drivers for the hardware on your machine, you can expect fast and reliable Vectorworks behavior. Maintenance Releases Unless there is a known problem with a maintenance release of the operating system, we recommend the latest maintenance release at the time we ship a new release of Vectorworks as a minimum because that is what we test with. If you have problems with an earlier maintenance release, we will often ask you to update as an initial troubleshooting step. Optimizing Performance For users who work with large files and complex renderings, we recommend running with at least 8GB of RAM. When RAM runs out, Vectorworks usually continues to function, but is slowed significantly by the need to access the hard drive to provide virtual memory. Extreme lack of RAM may cause operations to generate errors in cases where given sufficient RAM they would otherwise succeed. Faster hard drives can have a large impact on system performance especially when virtual memory is actively being used. Faster or slower processor clock speeds have a predictable impact on Vectorworks performance. Hard drive size requirements are driven by the total size of Vectorworks including all content files. You can reduce this size by opting to not install some of the larger Vectorworks content files. Project Sharing and Network Bandwidth The performance of Vectorworks when working on a shared project over the network will depend on the available network bandwidth. If the network bandwidth is insufficient, operations that transfer large amount of data over the network will be slow. We recommend at minimum a Fast Ethernet (100Mbit/s) network connection. For large projects, a Gigabit Ethernet (1Gbit/s) network is required for a fast and fluid experience. Project sharing using cloud-based storages requires a high-speed internet connection (50Mbit/s or above). This method of sharing works best with small teams or small projects. It is not recommended for large teams or large projects. Although project sharing requires high-speed network connections in general, slower network speeds can still provide a satisfactory user experience if you minimize operations that transfer large amounts of data over the network (such as committing changes to the project file or refreshing a local working file). Examples of data transfer times during commit and refresh operations for different bandwidths and project file sizes are shown in the chart below:

This tutorial outlines the interrelationship between levels, layers, and stories as well as examines creating and editing both wall styles and slab styles leading to expected results in your building information model. A number of example files are included that describe and let you test relevant concepts. Several variations of a “Model Set Up Worksheet” that can be used to gather required information to be used in your project files are also included. Consult the Vectorworks Help system for detailed information on tools and commands. The attached tutorial and associated example files can be found here: Model+Set+Up+Tutorial+Package.zip

Some Mac OSX users (Primarily users that upgraded their operating system from 10.5.8 to 10.6.x) may see this message repeatedly when launching Vectorworks even after entering it initially after installation: If you have indeed already entered both a name and company, this is how to correct this error; 1) Go to HD:Users(Your User folder):Library:Application Support 2) Inside you will see a "Vectorworks" folder, ctrl-click or right click on this folder and choose "Get Info" 3) Down at the bottom near "Sharing and Permissions"unlock the lock with your login password: 4) For each user in the list, set the permissions to "Read & Write" 5) Click the small gear icon, then choose "Apply to Enclose Items" and click OK. After that operation completes, restart the machine and try opening Vectorworks again, you may need to enter your name and company one final time. Upon opening the application again however it should no longer repeatedly ask for your information.

Vectorworks, Inc. has released its second Service Pack for the Vectorworks® 2017 product line. This Service Pack includes multiple fixes and improvements in the following areas: • Added compatibility for MacOS Sierra 10.12 • Increased the overall stability of the application • Significantly improved the stability of project sharing in both local and remote networks • Fixed issues related to unexpected shifts of the user origin • Corrected issues related to solid Boolean operations via Marionette, in addition to multiple Marionette nodes • Corrected an issue that could lead to longer-than-expected file load times • Removed a problem that could delay the display of the Edit Texture dialog box • Fixed many issues related to object selection • Fixed multiple issues related to objects unexpectedly appearing and disappearing • Improved Vision export for Spotlight lighting devices • Improved BIMobject content downloading process • New U.S. water budget schedules for irrigation This Service Pack is available for all licenses as a downloadable updater. To install the Service Pack, please click here or select Check for Updates from the Vectorworks menu (Mac) or Help menu (Windows), and click Check for Updates. To learn more about the fixes and improvements in the 2017 SP1 updater, please visit this page. Contact us at tech@vectorworks.net if you have any technical questions or problems during this process. Please note this Service Pack is currently available for all non-localized English versions. Respectfully, Juan Almansa Customer Success Director Vectorworks, Inc.

Vectorworks, Inc. has released its third Service Pack for the Vectorworks® 2016 product line. This Service Pack includes multiple fixes and improvements in the following areas: Rendering: Fixes for section viewport and Hidden Line rendering issues. Project Sharing: Numerous stability and performance enhancements. Multiple compatibility improvements specific to OS X 10.11. Marionette: Multiple node and workflow enhancements. Overall application stability improvements. Connected Walls & Parametric Constraints: Significant performance enhancements for large models. This Service Pack is available for all licenses as a downloadable updater. To install the Service Pack, please click here or go to the About Vectorworks 2016 dialog box in the Vectorworks menu (Mac users) or Help menu (Windows users) and click Check for Updates. To learn more about the fixes and improvements in the 2016 SP3 updater, please visit this page. Contact us at tech@vectorworks.net if you have any technical questions or problems during this process. Please note this Service Pack is currently available for all non-localized English versions. Respectfully, Juan Almansa Product Support Manager Vectorworks, Inc.

SMB on Mac OS has been a moving target, but it is getting better. It is more mature with Mac OS 10.10, 10.11 and beyond. NOTE: AFP is now deprecated as of 10.13. You should only use SMB. Some background information on SMB SMB is Microsoft’s proprietary network file sharing protocol. Most versions of OS X prior to 10.7 relied on an open-source implementation of SMB called Samba for accessing Windows file shares and sharing files with Windows clients. When the licensing terms for Samba changed, Apple had to develop their own SMB implementation. Apple has been struggling with it and it is still not as stable as it should be. Possible Issues with Project Sharing We have not seen any issues with SMB on Windows clients, but have seen issues saving from Windows SMB to Mac OS X 10.11, these issues are not present when saving to 10.10 or 10.12. On Mac OS X, we have seen ACL permissions problems with SMB2 and SMB3 with certain versions of OS X (early 10.9.x). We have not seen the same issues with AFP or SMB1 (“CIFS” protocol prefix). Many SMB issues are related to a mix of SMB protocols between clients. SMB3 (now the default for Mac OS 10.10) could have problems when interworking with machines that don’t have full support for SMB3. Much better results can be expected when all machines were on the same SMB protocol version. We have seen problems mixing AFP and SMB clients for the same share For Project Sharing, our recommendation is: Use SMB for both Mac and Windows. Use the latest version of macOS. Use the same SMB version that works well for all clients. Use the newest OS X version. SMB has version negotiation, so servers can be set to negotiate only up to SMB2 if there are machines that don’t fully support SMB3. Never mix AFP and SMB access to a share. Following these recommendations should provide a better experience. We are all hopeful that Apple will improve the stability of its SMB protocol at a faster pace now that they have made it the default protocol for Mac OS.

SMB support from Apple is still a work in progress, certain network setups could still have some potential issues. SMB on Mac OS has been a moving target, but it is getting better. It is more mature with Mac OS 10.10 and 10.11. Some background information on SMB SMB is Microsoft’s proprietary network file sharing protocol. Most versions of OS X prior to 10.7 relied on an open-source implementation of SMB called Samba for accessing Windows file shares and sharing files with Windows clients. When the licensing terms for Samba changed, Apple had to develop their own SMB implementation. Apple has been struggling with it and it is still not as stable as it should be. Possible Issues We have not seen any issues with SMB on Windows clients. On Mac OS X, we have seen ACL permissions problems with SMB2 and SMB3 with certain versions of OS X (early 10.9.x). We have not seen the same issues with AFP or SMB1 (“CIFS” protocol prefix). Many SMB issues are related to a mix of SMB protocols between clients. SMB3 (now the default for Mac OS 10.10) could have problems when interworking with machines that don’t have full support for SMB3. Much better results can be expected when all machines where on the same SMB protocol version. Our recommendations are: Use client native support when possible AFP on Mac OS and SMB on Windows If you must use SMB, use the latest version of the protocol if possible (currently SMB3). Use the same SMB version for all clients. Use the newest OS X version. Following these recommendations should provide a better experience. We are all hopeful that Apple will improve the stability of the its SMB protocol at a faster pace now that they have made it the default protocol for Mac OS.

Vectorworks, Inc. has released its fourth Service Pack for the Vectorworks® 2016 product line. This Service Pack includes multiple improvements and fixes in the following areas: Publish Command: The Publish dialog box now closes properly, so you can resume working in Vectorworks while publishing jobs process in the background. Text (Windows only): We fixed the clipped text in the Vectorworks Package Manager. IFC: Creating custom pSets in Vectorworks 2016 SP3 now works properly. Fixes performance issues when selecting Section Elevations and Detail Callout Markers. Minor improvements were made in the following areas: project file sharing, stories, and georeferencing. This Service Pack is available for all licenses as a downloadable updater. To install the Service Pack, please click here or go to the About Vectorworks 2016 dialog box in the Vectorworks menu (Mac users) or Help menu (Windows users) and select Check for Updates. Contact us at tech@vectorworks.net if you have any technical questions or problems during this process. Please note this Service Pack is currently available for all non-localized English versions. Respectfully, Juan Almansa Customer Success Director Vectorworks, Inc.

In the attached PDF, we cover both some common questions about Project Sharing, as well as a number of suggested workflows and practices for its use. Introduction_to_Project_Sharing_2017.pdf

The following are real-world system requirements for running Vectorworks 2017. In some demanding cases, we would suggest a more capable machine than is described by these recommendations. Likewise, there are some less demanding situations where Vectorworks will perform well on older hardware. General Requirements: Operating System: Mac OS X 10.10 Mac OS X 10.11 macOS 10.12 Windows 7 SP 1 (64-bit) Windows 8 (64-bit) Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Windows 10 (64-bit) Processor: 64-bit Intel Core i5 (or AMD equivalent) clocked at 2Ghz or better RAM: 4GB minimum, 8 GB recommended 8GB – 16GB recommended for large files and complex renderings. Graphics Card: OpenGL 2.1 compatible graphics card A dedicated graphics card is highly recommended. VRAM: 1GB (minimum), 2GB-4GB (recommended) (More Info) Vectorworks with Vision: OpenGL 3.0 compatible graphics card A dedicated graphics card is required VRAM: 1GB (minimum), 2GB-4GB (recommended) (More Info) Screen Resolution: 1440 x 900 minimum 1920 x 1080 or higher recommended Vectorworks 2017 with all libraries installed takes up ~25GB of storage space. * See the discussion in the Optimizing Performance section below. ** See the discussion in the Graphics Card section below. Additional Details: Graphics Cards IMPORTANT – Several Vectorworks features have placed higher demands on graphic hardware. Additionally, the performance and quality of the graphics provided by the Vectorworks Graphics Module depend directly on the speed, memory, and supported extensions of the graphics card. These new features have the potential to provide a very fast and fluid experience if used on capable hardware, or a noticeably slower experience if used on older or incompatible hardware. Graphics cards should support at a minimum OpenGL version 2.1; cards not meeting this recommendation will have limited functionality and poor performance, particularly when rendering in OpenGL mode. In general, the more powerful your graphics card is, the better your Vectorworks experience will be. The amount of Video RAM (VRAM) required to drive Vectorworks adequately depends largely on the size of the display being used and the complexity of the Vectorworks document. Medium-sized displays with a native resolution of 1920x1080 or less should be driven by a graphics card with at least 1GB of VRAM. Larger displays should use a modern graphics card with at least 2GB of VRAM, with 4GB or more recommended. OpenGL rendering of shadows and edges are VRAM-intensive and require at least 1GB, with 2GB of VRAM or more being preferable. If you want to take full advantage of OpenGL shadows and edges, especially in situations where you have any combination of the following: - many lights - point lights - image textures - anti-aliasing - high shadow quality - excessive geometry and if you have a graphics card with less than 1GB of VRAM, you should consider upgrading your graphics card. We strongly recommend that all users check that their video drivers are current. The majority of display problems reported to our Technical Support department have been traced to older video drivers. For the latest information on our graphics card recommendations for Vectorworks 2017, see This Article. Remote and Virtual Machines We do not consider remote login environments such as Remote Desktop, Terminal Services and VNC or virtual machine environments such as Parallels and VMware to be appropriate for regular work, so Vectorworks performance in these situations is not of primary concern to us. They may be appropriate for administrative testing or utility purposes but you should not expect good performance in these environments, however, especially with interactive screen feedback. We do support Vectorworks running under Boot Camp on Mac machines. As long as you have appropriate and current drivers for the hardware on your machine, you can expect fast and reliable Vectorworks behavior. Maintenance Releases Unless there is a known problem with a maintenance release of the operating system, we recommend the latest maintenance release at the time we ship a new release of Vectorworks as a minimum because that is what we test with. If you have problems with an earlier maintenance release, we will often ask you to update as an initial troubleshooting step. Optimizing Performance For users who work with large files and complex renderings, we recommend running with at least 8GB of RAM. When RAM runs out, Vectorworks usually continues to function, but is slowed significantly by the need to access the hard drive to provide virtual memory. Extreme lack of RAM may cause operations to generate errors in cases where given sufficient RAM they would otherwise succeed. Faster hard drives can have a large impact on system performance especially when virtual memory is actively being used. Faster or slower processor clock speeds have a predictable impact on Vectorworks performance. Hard drive size requirements are driven by the total size of Designer with Renderworks including all content files. You can reduce this size by opting to not install some of the larger Vectorworks content files. Project Sharing and Network Bandwidth The performance of Vectorworks when working on a shared project over the network will depend on the available network bandwidth. If the network bandwidth is insufficient, operations that transfer large amounts of data over the network will be slow. We recommend at minimum a Fast Ethernet (100Mbit/s) network connection. For large projects, Gigabit Ethernet (1Gbit/s) networks are highly recommended for a fast and fluid experience. Slower networks can still provide a satisfactory user experience if operations that transfer large amount of data over the network, such as committing changes to the project file or refreshing a local working file, are kept to a minimum.

Attached is an example file showing how to create worksheets that list Revision and Issue data. The data for revisions and issues, is not stored like other data attached to objects. For each revision or issue, there is a separate record field. So to list all revisions or issues, you have to create a worksheet will multiple database rows, each set to the needed record fields. In the example file, there are worksheets showing the formulas needed to pull this information. For each issue/revision and new database row is needed. As for the criteria, we suggest limiting the worksheet to a sheet layer and the sheet border object as shown in the example file. For reference, here are the basic formulas needed: =('Issue Data'.'Number-1') =('Issue Data'.'Date-1') =('Issue Data'.'Note-1') =('Issue Data'.'Approved-1') =('Revision Data'.'Date-1') =('Revision Data'.'Description-1') =('Revision Data'.'Zone-1') =('Revision Data'.'Approved-1') To show subsequent issues or revisions, you need to duplicate the database row below the previous row and change the number at the end of the formula. So for 5 issues, you will have 5 database rows, each with the same formulas above, except the number at the end will change to 2, then 3 and so on. Note, that the Revision Number is not stored in the record. You will need to manually enter the number for each row. The =1, =2, =3… formulas were used to create the numbers in the example file. The initial setup of these worksheet will take some time, however after they are created they can be placed into any project to quickly create an Issue or Revision worksheet. Both Issues and Revisions have a limit of 49. However, in most cases you will only need to setup you worksheets for 10 or so issues/revisions. If you have a project with more than 10 issues/revisions, simply add those lines to the worksheet as needed. Issue and Revison Data Worksheets.vwx

Error Reporting and Detailed User Logs When the Vectorworks program communicates with our servers, we collect anonymous data about the type of graphics card your machine uses, your monitor resolution, and other information that helps us correct issues and identify new features. By default, this data is minimal. Vectorworks users have control over the type of data included in user logs, crash logs, and “check for updates” actions. This article explains the various levels of information we collect so that you can decide whether submitting it to us to help improve the product is comfortable for you. We recommend our users set the Error Reporting to Send crash details and verbose usage patterns as this option invaluably assists us with product development while maintaining user privacy. NOTE: After altering this setting, you should fully shut down and then restart Vectorworks to apply the change. There are four levels of information that can be gathered, as determined by the Error reporting setting located in the Session tab of Vectorworks Preferences (Tools > Options > Vectorworks Preferences). Send nothing: When you check for updates or activate Vectorworks software, we always collect general data about the operating system, graphics card, monitor resolution, and Vectorworks version. The following additional information is collected from your machine: Vectorworks Version (Vectorworks 2024) Operating System (Windows 11, macOS 13, etc) IP Address CPU Type (Your computer's processor) GPU Type (Your graphics card) Graphics card driver version RAM (How much you have installed in total) Language Display Resolution (This also includes how many monitors are being used actively) Time since the last Reboot This minimal information is always reported to us even when Error Reporting is set to Send Nothing, mainly because of its importance in tracking installation issues and resolving issues related to the operating system. This information is collected in almost any software package or operating system you use and is completely anonymous. Send crash details: In addition to the general information that is always collected, this allows us to receive additional information in the event of a crash, including idle time, alerts received, workspace information, and graphics card operations prior to the crash. The following additional information is collected: Session Time (How long you were using Vectorworks, starting when you launched the application and ending at the crash) Alerts/Events (Alerts appear on the bottom right corner of the application window) VGM Details (What exactly your graphics card was attempting to do at the time of the crash) Workspace Info (What has been customised and what version it was initially created in) This additional logging information, however, only comes to us in the event of a crash. If your application has not crashed, then the information is not sent to us at all. Send crash details and light usage patterns: Selecting this option invaluably assists us with product development while maintaining user privacy. In addition to the previously listed information, we are able to duplicate actions taken before a software crash, review undo actions, determine which objects may have been selected, and view Vectorworks-related file paths. We cannot see the data in your drawings, and the reporting has no impact on your software operations. Reporting happens in the background as you work and should not affect your workflow. The following information is additionally collected: App start up/app shutdown Plugin installed at startup Critical errors Send crash details and verbose usage patterns: Selecting this option invaluably assists us with product development while maintaining user privacy. In addition to the information gathered through the light usage pattern option, we are able to upload additional information such as tool and command selection. We cannot see the data in your drawings, and the reporting has no impact on your software operations. Reporting happens in the background as you work and should not affect your workflow. The following information is collected: Mouse Movement (Where your cursor moves to over time, to the level where we can exactly recreate mouse locations and actions immediately prior to a crash) Idle Times (How long Vectorworks was sitting unused between user actions) Tools Selected Menus Selected Settings Used Undo Actions (The content of what was undone/redone) CheckObject (What or When objects were selected and deselected) Folder Structure (Where files or referenced files are stored and accessed by file name and path) This level is the most personal, and although this material is collected anonymously, we fully understand that some users would not be comfortable sharing this much with us. This is why this option is both disabled by default and controlled by the user directly. This information is sent to us when you close Vectorworks, you may see an alert when shutting it down that asks you to wait while the information is transmitted to our servers. However, this critical detail provides us with priceless data on how users work with the software, all without them having to do anything but use the application. No effort is required on the part of the user, and they are benefitting the development of Vectorworks as a whole, both for the current version in the form of Update fixes and in future releases. We strongly recommend that our users set the Error Reporting to Send crash details and verbose usage patterns.

The attached document below is an introduction to Project Sharing, along with this video series, provides an explanation of proper use and workflow suggestions.

This article contains a number of frequently asked questions and answers in regards to Vectorworks 2016's new Project Sharing feature. If you do not find the information you are looking for below, please feel free to contact us directly HERE. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can I still use layer and resource referencing? When you share project files and use referencing, keep in mind the following rules: -Project files can be referenced into other project files and regular Vectorworks files; resources referenced from the file cannot be modified. -Regular Vectorworks files can be referenced into project files. For example, a symbol library can be referenced into a project file; resources referenced from the file can be modified. -Working files cannot be referenced into any other files; they are temporary files that can be deleted at any time. -Place the reference file in a location accessible by the project file and all users working on the project. -Relative reference paths are relative to the location of the project file, and the referenced file must be on the same volume as the project file. What if I need to leave the network that the project is on? Can I still work on the project? Yes, Project Sharing includes a Work Offline mode in case you need to take a laptop on a trip or you temporarily lose access to the network containing the project file. When in this mode, changes will ONLY be saved to the working file directly and any layers you have checked out will not be available to other users until you reconnect to the project and release them. If Vectorworks detects a loss of connection to the server, it will prompt you to begin working in offline mode. What if I want to see who made certain changes to a project? The History feature within the Project Sharing dialog will let you search not only for users, but by specific layers to either focus on ALL of a specific user’s changes, or to focus on which users made a change to a particular layer. Since you can add comments when checking out layers, editing layers or releasing layers, you can also search this comment history, so including useful keywords in the comment is advised. What should I do if my working file has become corrupted or I can no longer commit to the project file? 1. Do a Save A Copy As (Not just "Save As") of the working file and turn it into a regular VW file. 2. Have the administrator force release the layers that were checked out. 3. Delete your working file (you should have your changes in the "saved as" regular VW file). 4. Create a new working file from the project file. 5. Check out the necessary layers 6. Copy and paste the changed elements from the regular VW file to the new working file. Can I see changes made by other users live, in real-time? Not yet. Currently only after another user Commits changes to the project and you Refresh your working file will you see their new changes. Can a user with Fundamentals use Project Sharing? No, Project Sharing is only available in Architect, Landmark, Spotlight or Designer. Can I convert a Project file back to a regular Vectorworks file? Yes and no. You cannot “convert” a project back into a regular Vectorworks document, but you CAN use File > Save a Copy As (Not just "Save As") in order to create a non-project version of the working file, which from then on will function just like a regular Vectorworks file. The original project can then simply be archived or removed at your discretion. NOTE: Make sure that when using Save a Copy As, you then select the VWX file format to save as, not the default VWXW format: Can I store the project file on cloud storage? Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive? Yes, you can put project files (.vwxp) in Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or Box folders. NOTE: When using Google Drive, keep in mind that Project Sharing is only compatible with "Drive File Stream" if you are using Vectorworks 2020. It will still work with "Backup and Sync" on previous versions. Can I change the permissions for users that currently have layers checked out? Yes, but you should ALWAYS make sure that a user releases their layers and commits any changes before their permissions are altered to prevent a situation where a user is attempting to commit a change in an area they no longer have access to. Can I have more than one working file at once? Yes, but the Layers you checked out are restricted to the working file you checked them out in. A user cannot check out a layer in Working File 1 and then modify that layer in Working File 2. How is my user name determined? This is your computer's login name. If you attempt to access a Project file from more than one computer that you log into with two different login names, you will have to be added to the project file twice, once with each user name. What network permissions are required for users to access the location where a project file resides? Full access. Read, Write, Rename, Delete, Create, etc. Vectorworks uses a “safe save” technique for saving files, in which the previous version of the destination file is maintained until the last possible moment, to avoid potential file damage during save, such as by a hardware or network failure. To support this in a networked environment, permissions must be correctly set to handle the required file operations. In particular, the following two conditions must be fulfilled: 1) The user must have permission to delete files in the destination folder. This is usually the case when the user has write access to the folder. However, some network server configurations using fine-grained control (e.g. with Access Control Lists) may need to be specifically configured to allow this, by assigning “delete_child” permission to the folder. See (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201416) for more information. 2) Files created in the destination folder must inherit the permissions of the folder itself. Server installations that use Access Control Lists may need to ensure that “file_inherit” permission is set on the destination folder. (Note: On OSX Server, ACLs may need to be explicitly enabled. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203574 ) What are the system requirements for using Project Sharing? In addition to the normal Vectorworks System Requirements We recommend 1Gbps network connection to the Project file, but 100Mbps will normally suffice. The performance of Vectorworks when working on a shared project over the network will depend on the available network bandwidth. If the network bandwidth is insufficient, operations that transfer large amount of data over the network will be slow. We recommend at minimum a Fast Ethernet (100Mbit/s) network connection. For large projects, Gigabit Ethernet (1Gbit/s) networks are highly recommended for a fast and fluid experience. Slower networks can still provide a satisfactory user experience if operations that transfer large amount of data over the network, such as committing changes to the project file or refreshing a local working file, are kept to a minimum. With OSX 10.9, Apple has made SMB the default protocol for connecting to network shares, moving away from the previous standard, AFP. We have observed some issues with SMB on OSX that cause permissions to be set incorrectly. If you experience problems with saving to a network share, attempt to connect via AFP to see if that solves the problem. From Finder, select Go->Connect To Server. Enter the prefix “afp:” prior to your share address. For example, “afp://myserver.address.net”. How should I start using cloud storage? Best practice: Move your VWX file into the cloud folder and then convert to a Project File. Second best is to move (*not* copy) your PF to the cloud folder. Once the project is there, leave it there, and never make any copies. Bad practice: Making copies, renaming, working on the file outside of Dropbox, or anything else you do in Finder/Explorer.

Last Modified: 09/2/2015 The following are real-world system requirements for running Vectorworks 2016. In some demanding cases, we would suggest a more capable machine than is described by these recommendations. Likewise, there are some less demanding situations where Vectorworks will perform well on older hardware. Vectorworks 2016 and later are 64 bit applications. 32bit operating systems will NOT be able to run Vectorworks 2016 and later. General Requirements Operating System Mac OS X 10.9 Mac OS X 10.10 Mac OS X 10.11 macos 10.12 Windows 7 SP 1 (64-bit) Windows 8 (64-bit) Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Windows 10 (64-bit) Processor 64-bit Intel Core i5 (or AMD equivalent), Intel Xeon E4 series or better RAM 4GB minimum - 8 GB recommended 8GB – 16GB recommended for large files and complex renderings. Graphics Card** OpenGL 2.1 compatible graphics card VRAM: 1GB (minimum), 2GB-4GB (recommended) A dedicated graphics card is highly recommended Screen Resolution 1440 x 900 minimum 1920 x 1080 or higher recommended * See the discussion in the Optimizing Performance section below. ** See the discussion in the Graphics Card section below. Additional Details Graphics Cards IMPORTANT – Several Vectorworks features have placed higher demands on graphic hardware. Additionally, the performance and quality of the graphics provided by the Vectorworks Graphics Module depend directly on the speed, memory, and supported extensions of the graphics card. These new features have the potential to provide a very fast and fluid experience if used on capable hardware, or a noticeably slower experience if used on older or incompatible hardware. Graphics cards should support at a minimum OpenGL version 2.1; cards not meeting this recommendation will have limited functionality and poor performance, particularly when rendering in OpenGL mode. In general, the more powerful your graphics card is, the better your Vectorworks experience will be. The amount of Video RAM (VRAM) required to drive Vectorworks adequately depends largely on the size of the display being used and the complexity of the Vectorworks document. Medium-sized displays with a native resolution of 1920x1080 or less should be driven by a graphics card with at least 1GB of VRAM. Larger displays should use a modern graphics card with at least 2GB of VRAM, with 4GB or more recommended. OpenGL rendering of shadows and edges are VRAM-intensive and require at least 1GB, with 2GB of VRAM or more being preferable. If you want to take full advantage of OpenGL shadows and edges, especially in situations where you have any combination of the following: - many lights - point lights - image textures - anti-aliasing - high shadow quality - excessive geometry and if you have a graphics card with less than 1GB of VRAM, you should consider upgrading your graphics card. We strongly recommend that all users check that their video drivers are current. The majority of display problems reported to our Technical Support department have been traced to older video drivers. For the latest information on our graphics card recommendations for Vectorworks 2016, go to the Vectorworks Knowledgebase and search for "OpenGL". Remote and Virtual Machines We do not consider remote login environments such as Remote Desktop, Terminal Services and VNC or virtual machine environments such as Parallels and VMware to be appropriate for regular work, so Vectorworks performance in these situations is not of primary concern to us. They may be appropriate for administrative testing or utility purposes but you should not expect good performance in these environments, however, especially with interactive screen feedback. We do support Vectorworks running under Boot Camp on Mac machines. As long as you have appropriate and current drivers for the hardware on your machine, you can expect fast and reliable Vectorworks behavior. Maintenance Releases Unless there is a known problem with a maintenance release of the operating system, we recommend the latest maintenance release at the time we ship a new release of Vectorworks as a minimum because that is what we test with. If you have problems with an earlier maintenance release, we will often ask you to update as an initial troubleshooting step. Optimizing Performance For users who work with large files and complex renderings, we recommend running with at least 8GB of RAM. When RAM runs out, Vectorworks usually continues to function, but is slowed significantly by the need to access the hard drive to provide virtual memory. Extreme lack of RAM may cause operations to generate errors in cases where given sufficient RAM they would otherwise succeed. Faster hard drives can have a large impact on system performance especially when virtual memory is actively being used. Faster or slower processor clock speeds have a predictable impact on Vectorworks performance. Hard drive size requirements are driven by the total size of Designer with Renderworks including all content files. You can reduce this size by opting to not install some of the larger Vectorworks content files. Project Sharing and Network Bandwidth The performance of Vectorworks when working on a shared project over the network will depend on the available network bandwidth. If the network bandwidth is insufficient, operations that transfer large amount of data over the network will be slow. We recommend at minimum a Fast Ethernet (100Mbit/s) network connection. For large projects, Gigabit Ethernet (1Gbit/s) networks are highly recommended for a fast and fluid experience. Slower networks can still provide a satisfactory user experience if operations that transfer large amount of data over the network, such as committing changes to the project file or refreshing a local working file, are kept to a minimum. More Information For the latest support information on Vectorworks 2016, go to the Vectorworks Knowledgebase and search for "2016"

These steps are only needed for the server machine that will be hosting the G series dongle for Vectorworks 2015. For other versions of Vectorworks, see THIS ARTICLE (If your serial number does not being with the letter "G", you do not need to continue reading.) Compatible Operating Systems: Windows XP x86/x64 Windows 2003 Server x86/x64 Windows 2008 Server x86/x64 Windows Vista x86/x64 Windows 7 x86/x64 Windows 8 x86/x64 Windows 8.1 x86/x64 Mac OSX 10.7.X (Intel CPU Only) Mac OSX 10.8.X Mac OS X 10.9.X Mac OS X 10.10.X Incompatible Operating Systems: Windows 3.1 Windows 95 Mac OS 9 Mac OSX 10.0.X - 10.6.X Macs with PowerPC CPUs Select your Operating System: Windows - Mac OS X Windows: You will need administrative access to the machine acting as the server in order to continue. You MUST access this machine locally to perform these steps. Remoting into the machine via Remote Desktop or any remote control method will cause the server to fail. To correct this, the machine must be rebooted locally. On your B series installation DVD or downloaded B series installer folder, you will see a “Dongle Support” folder: Open this and you will see a “HASPUserSetup” application: With your dongle UNPLUGGED from the machine, double click on the Dongle Driver Setup application. You will see the following window: Click Next Accept the license agreement, then click Install. The driver will install, once it does, click Finish. Plug in the dongle now, it should glow a bright red. Return to your B series installation DVD or downloaded B series installer folder, you will see a “Network Licensing Software” folder. In this folder there will be a “Series G” folder. Within this folder you will see a “Windows” folder: Inside the “Windows” folder you will see a “Vectorworks Network License” folder. Copy this folder onto your machine. Open this folder once it has copied to your machine, you will see multiple files, including the Reprise License Manager “rlm.exe”: You will have received a license file ( .lic ) from Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc. Place the license file in the “Vectorworks Network License” folder that you just moved to your machine: Once you have placed the .lic file in the proper folder, double click the Reprise License Manager “rlm.exe”, a similar window to this will appear: You will see the your Vectorworks license number (the last 6 of your serial number) circled in red as in the above image. The server is active and your networked G series licenses will now function properly. If you wish to monitor and control the server itself, you can open a browser window and go to: “ http://localhost:5054 “. You will then see this window: For further information on configuration, consult the Reprise License Manager “RLM_Enduser.html” located in your “Vectorworks Network License” folder. Mac: You will need administrative access to the machine acting as the server in order to continue. You MUST access this machine locally to perform these steps. Remoting into the machine via Screen Sharing or any remote control method will cause the server to fail. To correct this, the machine must be rebooted locally. On your B series installation DVD or downloaded B series installer folder, you will see a “Dongle Support” folder: In this folder, you will see “Sentinel_Runtime.dmg”: With your dongle UNPLUGGED, double click “Sentinel_Runtime.dmg”: Double click "Install Sentinel Runtime Environment": Click Continue. Click Continue. Click Agree: Click Install: The installation will complete. Click Close. Plug in the dongle now. It should glow a bright red. Once it does, return to your B series installation DVD or downloaded B series installer folder, you will see a “Network Licensing Software” folder: Open the “Series G” folder, then the “Macintosh” folder. In this folder there will be a “Vectorworks Software License” folder. Copy this to your machine. You will receive one license file ( .lic ) from Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc. Place this file in the “Vectorworks Network License” folder that you just copied to your machine: Double click the Reprise License Manager ‘rlm” and you will see this window appear: (You may need to click “Allow” or “Open” on one or more popups authorizing administrative/network access.) The server is active and your networked G series licenses will now function properly. If you wish to monitor and control the server itself, you can open a browser window and go to: “ http://localhost:5054 “. You will then see this window: For further information on configuration, consult the Reprise License Manager “RLM_Enduser.html” located in your “Vectorworks Network License” folder.

These steps are only needed for the server machine that will be hosting the G series dongle. For other versions of Vectorworks, see THIS ARTICLE (If your serial number does not being with the letter "G", you do not need to continue reading.) Compatible Operating Systems: Windows 98 Windows ME Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP x86/x64 Windows 2003 Server x86/x64 Windows 2008 Server x86/x64 Windows Vista x86/x64 Windows 7 x86/x64 Windows 8 x86/x64 Windows 8.1 x86/x64 Mac OSX 10.5.X (Intel CPU Only) Mac OSX 10.6.X (Intel CPU Only) Mac OSX Server 10.6.X (Intel CPU Only) Mac OSX 10.7.X (Intel CPU Only) Mac OSX 10.8.X Mac OS X 10.9.X Incompatible Operating Systems: Windows 3.1 Windows 95 Mac OS 9 Mac OSX 10.0.X - 10.4.X Mac with PowerPC CPUs Select your Operating System: Windows - Mac OS X Windows: You will need administrative access to the machine acting as the server in order to continue. You MUST access this machine locally to perform these steps. Remoting into the machine via Remote Desktop or any remote control method will cause the server to fail. To correct this, the machine must be rebooted locally. On your B series installation DVD or downloaded B series installer folder, you will see a “Dongle Support” folder: Open this and you will see a “Dongle Driver Setup” application: With your dongle UNPLUGGED from the machine, double click on the Dongle Driver Setup application. You will see the following window: Click Next Accept the license agreement, then click Install. The driver will install, once it does, click Finish. Plug in the dongle now, it should glow a bright red. Return to your B series installation DVD or downloaded B series installer folder, you will see a “Network Licensing Software” folder. In this folder there will be a “Series G” folder. Within this folder you will see a “Windows” folder: Inside the “Windows” folder you will see a “Vectorworks Network License” folder. Copy this folder onto your machine. Open this folder once it has copied to your machine, you will see multiple files, including the Reprise License Manager “rlm.exe”: You will have received a license file ( .lic ) from Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc. Place the license file in the “Vectorworks Network License” folder that you just moved to your machine: Once you have placed the .lic file in the proper folder, double click the Reprise License Manager “rlm.exe”, a similar window to this will appear: You will see the your Vectorworks license number (the last 6 of your serial number) circled in red as in the above image. The server is active and your networked G series licenses will now function properly. If you wish to monitor and control the server itself, you can open a browser window and go to: “ http://localhost:5054 “. You will then see this window: For further information on configuration, consult the Reprise License Manager “RLM_Enduser.html” located in your “Vectorworks Network License” folder. Mac: You will need administrative access to the machine acting as the server in order to continue. You MUST access this machine locally to perform these steps. Remoting into the machine via Screen Sharing or any remote control method will cause the server to fail. To correct this, the machine must be rebooted locally. On your B series installation DVD or downloaded B series installer folder, you will see a “Dongle Support” folder: In this folder, you will see “DongleDriverInstaller10.4.pkg”: With your dongle UNPLUGGED, double click “DongleDriverInstaller10.4.pkg” and you will see the following window: Click Continue. Select “Macintosh HD” for the drive. Click Install and allow the installation to complete: Click Close. Plug in the dongle now. It should glow a bright red. Once it does, return to your B series installation DVD or downloaded B series installer folder, you will see a “Network Licensing Software” folder: Open the “Series G” folder, then the “Macintosh” folder. In this folder there will be a “Vectorworks Software License” folder. Copy this to your machine. You will receive one license file ( .lic ) from Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc. Place this file in the “Vectorworks Network License” folder that you just copied to your machine: Double click the Reprise License Manager ‘rlm” and you will see this window appear: (You may need to click “Allow” or “Open” on one or more popups authorizing administrative/network access.) The server is active and your networked G series licenses will now function properly. If you wish to monitor and control the server itself, you can open a browser window and go to: “ http://localhost:5054 “. You will then see this window: For further information on configuration, consult the Reprise License Manager “RLM_Enduser.html” located in your “Vectorworks Network License” folder.

For Cinema4D versions r13 and later, Vectorworks with Renderworks is capable of both Exporting to the .C4D file format, as well as a function "Send to Cinema4D" which will launch the Cinema4D application directly, then give you the option to create either a completely new project or to merge into the currently active project. These commands can be found under: File > Export > Export to Cinema4D File > Send to Cinema4D Vectorworks will export either the current active layer, or if you are using a Design series version of Vectorworks; all objects included in Unified View, if Unified View is enabled. A “Vectorworks Scene” is created within the CINEMA 4D project. Vectorworks layers are exported as container objects in the scene hierarchy. Vectorworks classes become CINEMA 4D layers, allowing visibility to be controlled across the scene. Layer names, object names, and object types are preserved. Vectorworks and Cinema4D Frequently Asked Questions: Q: Does Vectorworks or Renderworks include a copy of Cinema4D? A: No. Vectorworks Renderworks uses the rendering engine from MAXON, but does not include a full copy of Cinema4D in addition to Vectorworks. A trial version of Cinema4D can be obtained HERE. Q: Can I export to Cinema4D without Renderworks? A: In Vectorworks 2013 and later, Yes. (In Vectorworks 2012 and prior; No - Renderworks must be installed in order to access the Export to Cinema4D functions.) Q: Do all the renderworks texture export directly from Vectorworks to C4D? A: Yes, all Renderworks Textures, object colors and Image Props should translate over. Q: Do all the lighting objects export directly from Vectorworks to C4D? A: Yes, all lights should export directly, as well as retaining their On/Off state. Q: WIll my current view be preserved? A: Yes, the view in Vectorworks should be directly transferred to your view in Cinema4D. Q: If I alter the texture or color of a 3D object in Vectorworks, then merge to an existing scene Cinema4D, will the material be updated? A: No, however the texture or color will be exported to Cinema4D and can be applied there. This is done to preserve changes you may already have made in Cinema4D.