When a new version of Vectorworks comes out, it is important to look at the new features and how they benefit you. Every year we look at what is new in Vectorworks and we try to look at how these new features can be used in your workflow. For Vectorworks 2014 there was some major changes in working in 3D.
Improved 3D Modeling – Vectorworks have introduced two new 3-D modeling tools. These tools I do not make it easier to change your models by twister and or changing the the taper on the face of your models.
Control for Plant and Massing Model Shadows – Global control over plant shadows means that you can now control the shadows on all the plants. The same controls are used to control the shadows on massing models.
Tape Measure Tool – Allows you to measure the size of objects inside a viewport with entering the viewport annotations.
The Keynote Labels and Legend Improvements – This gives you the ability to stop the auto renumbering of keynotes in the callout legend. Previously, the remaining keynotes would automatically renumber if you deleted one. This provides a better way of controlling with large numbers of keynotes.
Reshape Tool Improvements – Reshaping of all planar objects without having to convert these objects to polygons, speeding up your workflow. Reshape tool allows site model crop and labels to be edited, which will allow the site model labels to be relocated, deleted, or new labels added.
Edit Bitmap Crop – This allows you to edit the shape of the bitmap image without the need to go to a photo editor outside Vectorworks. This will allow you you to use photod for plants, to edit arial photos, etc.
Opacity Preview – This button allows you to see the changes to the opacity before you commit to the changes, allowing you to gauge more accurately how transparent the objects will become.
Format Text Preview – Allows you to see the changes to your font, size, and style before you commit the text.
Improved creation of classes in dialog boxes and palettes – You can now create new classes when you need them, on the View bar, Object Info palette, in dialog boxes, etc. This means less mouse clicks when creating classes, and less frustration.
Visibility tool improvements – This will allow you to see all objects by temporarily enabling all the classes.
Elevation Benchmark tool – You can now create elevation benchmarks that read the true elevation of parts of your building, allowing you to analyse these objects in relation to the other objects in the layer, or in relation to objects in the entire project.`
Modify By Record command – This will be a dramatic increase in productivity when dealing with large complex sites that have many contours.
Simplify Polygon Command – This will dramatically improve productivity when dealing with imported polygons (especially site contours) by dramatically reducing the number of vertices on a polygon, while maintaining the polygon shape.
Referencing DWG/DXF drawings – Instead of importing DXF/DWG files, they can now be referenced. When the the file is updated, a single click will update the referenced file in your drawing.
Publish – This command is designed to print, export to PDF, export to DXF/DWG, or export to DWF. All these options are in a single command, with a single interface.
Individual Editing of Gable End Walls – This version of Vectorworks allows you to change the gable end walls under individual gables. the benefits of this is that some gable end walls are hard to create on your own, but others are not needed.
Realistic Textures (Displacement mapping) – Textures have a much more realistic display for water and bumpy textures.
Better working in rotated views – The rotated plan view has been very productive when you are working with plans that are not orthogonal. But there has been a challenge when you want to return to the rotated view, or you want to see a standard view relative to the rotated view. These two and being able to use standard views with the rotated view is going to make it easier to create elevations from the rotated view.
Better method for creating section viewports – The Clip Cube makes editing in 3d much easier, and the ability to create a section viewport from any side of the clip cube is an extremely productive way to create your section viewports. This really speeds up creation of viewports and is now really practical from the 3d model.