Vectorworks 2020 update Martyn Day caught up with Vectorworks CEO Biplab Sarkar to find out about the latest developments in the Mac and Windows CAD / BIM tool and to get his views on future BIM software development
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nder the stewardship of CEO Biplab Sarkar, Vectorworks is building up considerable development velocity in ‘under the hood’ software architecture, whilst fleshing out the BIM features within the software. The company is also making a number of strategic agreements and partnerships bringing additional capabilities and productivity enhancements. For those that don’t know, Vectorworks is part of the Nemetschek group of companies. Headquartered in Germany, Nemetschek acts as a holding company for a variety of building and construction related companies and technologies. Uniquely in this industry, it owns no less than three BIM modelling companies – Allplan, Graphisoft and Vectorworks, which work independently of each other. While Allplan is popular specifically in Germany and Graphisoft is dominant across the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), Vectorworks has a particularly strong footing in the USA and anywhere it historically did well in its previous guise of MiniCAD. In recent years Nemetschek has made strides to pull its key brands together to present a united front, but still each of the company CEOs are pretty much left to guide their product portfolios how best they see fit, depending in the needs of their respective user bases. Vectorworks has a strong Apple Mac heritage but does have a Windows equivalent, which is a challenge when it comes to matching feature and functionality within two very different operating environments. Vectorworks is obviously an architectural BIM modeller, where it slugs it out against Revit and other systems. However, it does have two specific market niches in which it easily dominates, namely landscape design, for which it has a variant called Vectorworks Landmark, and in stage and lighting design where layout and modelling is done with Vectorworks Spotlight. With each annual release new 46
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functionality is divided between these three key areas.
the code and make better use of CPU and GPU advances. SP3 brings improved file 2 Vectorworks has an Service Pack 3 open times, view updates and integration with Esri ArcGIS Vectorworks 2020 has quicker snaps. for landscape and urban designers recently been updated with There are also two Service Pack 3 (SP3), which significant partnership features a slew of quality and performance integrations, one from real time (speed) improvements. Vectorworks is visualisation developer Enscape and the undergoing re-engineering, feature by other from Newcastle’s finest, NBS, with its feature, subsystem by subsystem to update Chorus product, a multi-user, cloud-based, 1 Vectorworks has links with construction-specification system NBS Chorus
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