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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

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

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

Update Cloud Services Desktop and Nomad Apps for Vectorworks 2013 Compatibility With the release of Vectorworks 2013 software on September 18, 2012, we recommend that users of Vectorworks Cloud Services update their Vectorworks Cloud Services desktop app by following one of the links below based on their individual operating system (Windows or Mac): https://cloud.vectorworks.net/download/latest/Windows https://cloud.vectorworks.net/download/latest/Mac We also recommend that users similarly update their Vectorworks Cloud Services Nomad app to get the benefits of its latest version. Simply check your portable device for updates. Update features improvements Updating your Cloud Services apps resolves some bugs and provides user improvements, such as faster hidden line rendering and document zooming and panning while a markup tool is active. For a detailed list of improvements, go to: https://cloud.vectorworks.net/portal/releasenotes/ Completing these updates also solves some potential compatibility issues.* Note that even if you’re finishing a project in the 2012 version of Vectorworks software, you will benefit from these updates. Please contact tech@vectorworks.net if you have any technical questions or problems during this process. Regards, The Vectorworks Cloud Services Team NOTE: Vectorworks Cloud Services is offered exclusively to Vectorworks Service Select members. Click here to learn more about the service, which allows users to browse and share their latest designs from any web-enabled device. * We’ve identified the following potential compatibility issues. Updating the Vectorworks Cloud Services desktop app will fix these issues. If you use Vectorworks Cloud Services with a 2013 serial number (and no 2012 serial number has been logged on Vectorworks Cloud Services) and you still have the older Cloud Services desktop client, rendering and font mapping will fail. If you upgrade your license from Vectorworks 2012 (without Renderworks) to Vectorworks 2013 (with Renderworks), rendering will fail and font mapping will use the Vectorworks 2012 font mapping.

In this video tech tip we show how to link Renderworks Cameras to Viewports. Linking Renderworks Cameras to Viewports gives you greater control over how you present your project:

In this video tech tip we discuss how to quickly create floors and detailed slabs from existing geometry. Depending on your project, Vectorworks provides multiple methods of creating floors and slabs:

Application-wide Tips: VectorCaching Under Tools > Options > Vectorworks Preferences > Display, there is an option entitled "Use VectorCaching for Faster Drawing" which will cause Vectorworks to store some drawing details in system RAM instead of on your hard drive. This allows faster drawing, zooming and panning in many cases, but is not recommended unless you have plenty of RAM not in use, generally this means having more than 4-8GB of total system RAM. Enhanced Navigation Graphics Under Tools > Options > Vectorworks Preferences > Display, there is an option entitled "Use Enhanced Navigation Graphics" which will utilize your machines graphics card ot GPU more heavily in order to rapidly draw objects onscreen, specifically during zooming and panning in 2D. This option may actually slow down machines with Intel integrated or other weak graphics hardware, but if your machine had a powerful graphics card similar to one mentioned HERE, you should enable this option. File Specific Tips: Relative path file referencing rather than Absolute file path referencing By choosing relative path referencing it limits the time it takes VectorWorks to find the files being referenced into a document. Instead of following a long server file path to find the referenced files, VW searches for the files relative to the location of the file containing the References (files in the same project folder). Do not create circular references. Save Referenced Cache to Disk Use this option for referenced files that do not need to be updated regularly (daily). Note that this will increase the size of the file that is containing the reference, but it will take less time for the file to open. Check ‘Automatically update out of date reference during file open’ to update the referenced data if any changes have been made when opening the working document. If this option is unchecked you would have to manually go to the Navigation Palette and update any referenced files displaying red text are to show the most current data. DWG Shuttle File Use the DWG shuttle file to easily create a referenced design layer viewport of your DWG files into your working document which will allow you to snap to points, control layer and class visibilities separate from your working document and allow you to update revised DWG files. Note that when you create design layer viewports to select just the layers that you need and keep any layer information that you do need invisible. This will reduce file size and help drafting speed. Importing DWG Files After importing DWG files go to Tools > Purge. This will delete any symbols not being used in the document from the Resource Browser and also delete any classes that do not contain any geometry (reducing file size). Do not collapse everything into one class, this will limit your control of which objects you want/need to be visible or invisible with a referenced design layer viewports. Although it may take time to sort through the classes it will improve drafting speed and time because VectorWorks will not have to calculate or redraw geometry that you do not need. Also check to make sure the vital geometry does not contain unneeded vertices to represent the object. Extra vertices will take VectorWorks longer to calculate the geometry. Saved Views Use ‘Saved Views’ to easily control layer and class visibilities of objects as you work. You can reduce the number of objects that are visible and increase the intelligibility of your work view. Fewer visible objects means VectorWorks takes less time to redraw the information when panning and zooming. Symbols Use ‘Symbols’ instead of ‘Groups’ when you have to show an object more than once. Not only will this increase drafting speed but it will also reduce the file size. When a Symbol is created VectorWorks contains the geometry (the Definition) of the symbol in the Resource Browser and shows the object (the Instance) multiple times through out the document, where as an object that is Grouped and duplicated the geometry and vertices are also being duplicated causing VectorWorks to calculate more information. Updating/Resetting Plugin Objects When documents are converted from an older file format (i.e. 11 to 2013) into the new file format, a significant delay in many operations will sometimes occur. To resolve this issue, go to Tools > Utilities > Update Plugin Objects. Normally you will want to check all three options when updating an older document. Purge The Purge command located under "Tools" is used to remove objects that exist in the docuemnt itself, but are not present in the drawing area. Objects that have been brought into a document, but then not used (ie. Textures that were applied to a 3D object, then removed) are still in the document taking up space. A video detailing the Purge process can be found HERE. This means that if you choose to purge "Classes", any classes in the document that are not assigned any objects will be deleted. Similarly, if you choose "Textures", it will delete any textures residing in the resource browser but not applied to 3d objects. Symbols will remove any symbols in the document that are not use, NOT delete symbols that are in referenced libraries in the rest of the resource browser, just this document.

In this tech tip, we demonstrate how design layer viewports can be used with a large scale project and how it can be used within the same document.

Would you like to save a drawing file as a template to use it as a foundation for creating other files? A template file is especially useful when you have common drawing elements, including resources, layers, and classes that will be used repeatedly in future projects. To create a template file, set up the classes and layers (even sheet layers and viewports) as you would for most projects. Once all the information, title block, symbols, classes, layers, and anything else you want has been added, select File > Save as Template. Save the file in the Vectorworks > Libraries > Defaults > Templates folder. Once the file is saved, the next time you open Vectorworks, rather than creating a new project from a new blank document, simply select File > New. Select “Use document template” and then select the template file name in the drop-down list. If you want to use the same template as an office standard so multiple people will use the same template file, either copy the template file to everyone’s template folder, or store the file on the server. If the file is stored on the server, create a shortcut to the file. Place the shortcut in everyone’s Vectorworks > Libraries > Defaults > Templates folder.

See how the the Export PDF and Publish commands in Vectorworks 12.5 and later create clean and efficient PDF files from a Vectorworks project.

When working in Vectorworks, you may sometimes think an item has disappeared or been deleted. Before you start over, here is a method of finding/revealing "lost"objects. Occasionally, when changing the scale, zooming, or changing render modes, an item (or even your entire project) may seem to have vanished. Most likely, the view has simply been refocused to a blank area of the file. By resetting the drawing window around all visible objects in the file, the objects can be "found" again. To fit thedrawing window around all visible objects in the drawing: 1. Ensure that the current layer contains the object(s) to view, and that no objects are selected. 2. Select View > Zoom > Fit to Objects. (Note: You may also choose this option from the View Bar in the lower left corner of the document window) Vectorworks zooms in or out so that all the objects in the drawing display in the drawing area.