Vectorworks Summit 2015, I was there. It was pure adrenalin.

[_c_]

I was there. It was pure adrenalin.

It took me two planes and 15 hours to reach Philadelphia, I come from Europe.

I wanted to be there and I swear, I didn't dream it could turn out to be so exciting, entertaining and interesting at the same time. Someone in the organization really has a deep sense of how to time an event.

We had parties and they were perfect, loud and crowded as they have to be.

Every evening. And even during the event too! At the opening keynote, where each of us was about to politely enter the room, suddenly there was a compelling music and darkness undisclosed all engineers greeting us. Shaken from any whatever rest of countenance, nearly dancing, we got into the room. It was crowded up to the last place. I can tell you that after that everybody was highly excited in anticipation.

Then we had Sean Flaherty telling us the story of MiniCad. I loved it. I am user old enough in many senses but didn't know most of this story. Sean Flaherty made his story humorful, entangling. There was a graph … that graph with the Peak of Inflated Expectations, the Trough of Disillusionment, the Slope of Enlightenment and the Plateau of Productivity, please, can someone post it here? I took a picture but nothing came out of it.

We had conferences and some of them were truly moving.

For example Leo Van Broeck. Van Broeck, if you ever read this, I repeat it: you made my day.

Van Broeck is an insanely charming speaker. He shifted us from the abstractness of a conference participation to the restlessness of wanting to get out and just DO something. Stripped architecture naked. Shot us into an emergency state. A feeling I didn't have since a far time in my past when I pushed for a whole day across chilometers of landslide during a muddy summer in the Alps. The landslide kept on taking me away down the valley and I was deep in it up to the chest. The same did Van Broeck with me.

Some conferences were so shocking, that had to be repeated due to popular demand. Marc Pancera presenting the SwissFEL I saw twice. It's about a particle accelerator in Switzerland whose tolerances are less than 2mm (0,078'') for the 750m (2400 ft) of its length. Millions of tubes. A machine drawn in 3D so large and detailed, that nobody could display it, only the client. Everything had to be changed under the eyes of the client then. He described the project with incredible passion and respect.

We had time for knowing and discovering each other, and that was beautiful beyond what I can describe. Years of mail traffic, private and public, engineers and fellow users, all concretized into hugging humans, shrill calls, laughs and you name it. I didn't know I knew so many people in this VW community. Some friends couldn't come - Molly, Mike, I am thinking of you- we missed you a lot. Next time!

I spoke so much that I lost my voice.

I met Vectorworks when it was a bright child. Used it through its adolescence, occasional falls and rises.

Some of you must have already heard what the next version has in store for us: project sharing, self generating objects à la Grasshopper, energy analyze, 3D objects editing by controls reshaping. I think that Biplap's video with his presentation will be available soon. I won't try to describe it.

Orso thanks you all for this event

[michaelk]

Orso

Thanks for posting this. I've been thinking many of the same things. Your description of the summit is perfect.

It was an amazing conference.

Now my only disappointment now is that I didn't get to meet you!

Next time.

mk

[PVA - Admin]

I am so very glad you feel this way.

In addition to months of prep work, the large majority of which was handled by other departments than my own, I spent 5 straight days directly working on the conference and logistics surrounding it. I maybe slept... 9 hours in that 5 day period?

I met a huge number of users and was even able to squeeze in some tech support and training for those who had their machines with them. It was completely worth it.

[PVA - Admin]

Also, the chart you mentioned, I believe this is the version used in the keynote along with an explanation of it:

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2819918?_ga=1.51071721.1904172021.1401730474

[michaelk]

Oh yeah…

It was an amazing conference, AND I got to meet Jim W!

mk

[_c_]

thank you Jim!

[_c_]

Michael, there were two persons wearing a mass of curly, bicolor white/black hair, both with olive-coloured skin.

One with a beard, one without. I was the one without. LOL!

Shukri, it was amazing to meet you!

(Shukri was the one with the beard).

[Matt Panzer]

It really was an amazing time and I'm already waiting for details about the next one. The presentations and breakout sessions were great and only wish I was able to go to more of them.

It was a real pleasure meeting so many people I've known, but without a face (or true personality) to put them to. Unfortunately, I managed to not meet many who attended. Jim, you were very high up on my list and I somehow missed you. I'm not good at recognizing faces and probably walked right by you several times.

Luckily I was able to meet mk and both curly masses. :-)

[Markvl]

Indeed a great show that was beyond expectations. Learned a few things, met some wonderful people and simply had a great time. Some pretty cool features coming too for 2016.

Great meeting you Jim W.

[PVA - Admin]

Glad I was able to meet those I did!

I was running around doing various tasks throughout the Summit, I was in the Support room a large portion of the time, but yeah I missed a few faces as well.

Luckily it seems this was a hit and they'll be having more in the future.