Save Column – There haven’t been a lot of changes to the column object, except for the ability to save a column. This is not the same as the object styles for doors and windows, but it does improve your ability to reuse columns on several projects.
Delete 3D Wall Peaks – For a long time we have been able to fit our walls to 3D geometry. The downside is that you end up with a wall that has peaks. While it has been easy to add these peaks it has always been troublesome to remove them, and now we have a method.
Internal Elevations – This command will create internal room elevations, put them on a sheet layer for you, and create an elevation marker on the design layer that is linked to the viewports. And it is all editable.
Slab Drainage – This tool allows you to create a slab with falls to ta drain. Flat roofs are never really flat and this tool allows you to make better flats roofs.
Slab Association And Offset Edges – For a few versions now we have had the ability to connect a slab style to a wall style. This allows us to choose an association between components of the wall and the edge of the slab.
Property Line – There have been many requests to make the Property Line more flexible. Vectorworks have been listening and they have improved the Property Line to make it much more flexible. You can set the units on the segments, choose which segments are annotated, etc.
Drawing Labels and Numbers In Viewports – This might seem like a small thing, but it means that all of your view ports now follow the same strategy for having labels when you create them, and being able to edit the label name and number without having to enter the viewport.
Data Visualization – When we draw objects, we quite often add information to the objects using Record Formats. These record formats allow you to attach information and this information can be used to change the look of your objects.
Master Snaps – When you have a lot of objects that are close together it is difficult to snap to the one you want. The concept of master snaps is to have an overriding snap that makes it easy to click on.
Scalable Worksheets – It has often been a challenge getting your worksheets to fit onto a sheet layer. There was a way to scale your worksheets, which was the use of viewport. This is no longer required.
Drop Shadows – You will find the Drop Shadow controls on the Attributes palette.
Pen And Fill Opacity – Vectorworks have separated the opacity so you can control the fill without affecting the pen opacity.
Plug-in Styles (Doors And Windows) – The new Plug-in Styles is an interesting concept that is a cross between a symbol and a plug in object. The purpose is to allow you to control parts of these plug-in objects while maintaining overall control for other parts.
Story Support (Symbols) – When you place a symbol in a design, you can choose the elevation of that symbol. But you might have a situation where you want most of the symbols to be at the same elevation. If this was the case you could set the elevation of the objects as you create the symbol. But on another project you might want to use the same symbol but vary the height. Story support the symbols allows you to connect the elevation of the symbols to a level of your story. This would allow you to control the symbols by a level, but you might have a different elevation on each story of the building.
Structural Member – This is a brand-new tool. The structural member tool is designed to be an intelligent object that will know when it joins another structural object. One way of thinking about this is that it’s like walls for structural members, so that when you move a column, the connected beams will move as well. You can join beams to columns and beams to beams.
Project Sharing 2.0 – Project sharing was introduced with Vectorworks 2016. It worked really well, but it did require that all the users be on the same network. this can work fine when you’re in the same office, but it didn’t work well if you weren’t in the same office, you would require a Virtual Personal Network in order to do this. Many people they work with others that are not in the same office, but still wanted use project sharing. Now, project sharing can be carried out using a range of cloud-based systems. There are several other cloud based storage systems, but not every one of the systems is supported. In basic terms Vectorworks needs to be able to look at the file that stored in the cloud, and detect whether that file has been updated or not. It also needs to be able to write to that file.
Resource Manager – When you look at the new Resource Manager, it may look like an updated Resource Browser, but it is much more than that. The Resource Manager has been embedded throughout Vectorworks. this means that whenever you look for a resource, the resource manager will appear showing you the best results. The resource manager can look for files on your computer, and your favourites, in your user folder, and your workgroup folder, in the Vectorworks libraries (some are on your computer and some are online), and in the Vectorworks subscription libraries (VSS).
Creating A Solar Study – The solar study is extremely useful, allowing you to see the effects of the adjoining buildings, adjoining vegetation, the changing time of day, and the changing season of the year. This information can be extremely useful in helping you to design your project.
Creating A Sun – Later on we going to create a solar study, but before we do that we need to place the sun in the drawing. We have a tool for placing a sun, called the heliodon. This tool allows you to place a sun, set the location, set the day of the year, set the time of the day, and export a movie of a solar study.
Creating A Camera View – We need to create a perspective view, and the Renderworks camera is one of the quickest ways to achieve this. The camera view can control the perspective, the depth of field, and the rendering type.