Vectorworks 2025 Transforms Collaborative Architecture Workflows

The architecture industry thrives on innovation, and staying ahead means using cutting-edge tools that streamline workflows, improve design precision, and enhance collaboration.

With the release of Vectorworks Architect 2025, you now have access to a suite of powerful new features designed to meet these demands and more. This latest version promises to redefine the ways in which you and project participants collaborate in a variety of ways. In this post, we'll dive into the key updates that make Vectorworks 2025 an indispensable tool for modern architecture professionals.

The Cloud Document Reviewer gives you a new and effective way to collaborate on your projects regardless of where you are. It unlocks the ability to share, view, and comment on your Vectorworks documents from anywhere at any time on any web browser. And it doesn’t require an additional installation of Vectorworks.

Take advantage of the Cloud Document Reviewer for a robust collaboration workflow with anyone involved in your projects. If you’re working on a large college campus or a hospital project, for example, you could send links to your documents over to the necessary parties for approval — this way, they can instantly access your plans over the web without the need for specialized software. They’ll be able to see your documents update as you make changes, too.

Classifications of geometry in a design are an essential part of the BIM process. They’re used for writing specifications and managing project information and asset records in a hierarchal and recognized system, often being part of national standards such as Uniclass or MasterFormat.

This feature allows you to assign BIM classification codes in a consistent, automated, and centrally managed way, saving you time and reducing the risk associated with repetitive, manual input.

You can create multiple rulesets to automatically assign classification codes to objects based on their object type, style, or symbol name. Classifications can be viewed in the Data pane of the Object Info palette, and you can manually override automatically assigned defaults if they don’t work for you.

Classification data that’s been assigned to objects can be tagged, reported, and visualized so you can easily check if there are any unclassified objects.

You can set up rules to automatically assign classifications based on objects’ IFC entity information, and the Data Manager functions will ensure that classification data gets automatically mapped to the corresponding IFC property set (pSet).

One of the most important aspects of exchanging IFC files when collaborating with others in a BIM workflow is model location coordination. To achieve that, all IFC files should be exported relative to the defined and agreed project datum, a shared coordinate between all parties producing IFCs. Your project should include the correct true north rotation. Only when the model origin coordinates and rotation match across all IFCs can you correctly federate the files and seamlessly coordinate between various disciplines.​

With the IFC Export - Model Setup feature, you can enter a custom origin at the agreed X, Y, and Z coordinates as well as rotation to true north. In cases where project datum and rotation have already been set through user and internal origin, georeferencing, or the Survey Point object, IFC Export - Model Setup can acquire those values and export the IFC file based on them.​

In projects with more than one building, IFC exporting capabilities can differentiate between them using layer mapping. This ensures that, within the hierarchy of the IFC, there will be multiple distinct buildings.​

This addition of an IFC Export - Model Setup feature streamlines the process of coordinating your Vectorworks files with other collaborators who are using IFC and openBIM.

Keep designing in Vectorworks while Vectorworks Cloud Services exports Revit files for you. You can send time-consuming and repetitive Revit export tasks to be processed on the Vectorworks Cloud, sparing your device the computing power.

Handling Revit exports on the Cloud enables you to export to the current and previously supported Revit versions, which means you can confidently exchange Revit files with consultants working in previous releases. ​Even Revit can’t do this.

From your Vectorworks Cloud Services account, you can schedule Revit exports to be automatically processed in the Cloud at set intervals to automate regular exports of Revit files, in the same way you can set up auto processing for PDFs and VGX 3D models.​ This way your scheduled file exchange with collaborators is always on time and up to date with the latest changes in your Vectorworks model.