Vector.
Drop a PDF, a DXF or an SVG in. Get real, editable linework out.
Vector opens a PDF as data. Fills, strokes, text and layers come back as editable objects, hatches collapse to fills where that's safe, and broken polylines rejoin into single paths, so what lands on the sheet is geometry you can select, restyle and take apart. From there it's a full vector editor for what a practice draws day to day: site plans, key plans, cover-sheet diagrams, the fire strategy overlay somebody needs by Thursday. Shapes stay editable as numbers long after you've drawn them, so a corner radius is a field rather than a redraw. A document holds as many sheets as the job needs, and a line's weight can vary along its length.
Import that keeps the data.
A PDF that comes back as objects
A pre-import report draws the file before anything commits, and it finds the separate drawings inside it, so clicking one takes just that drawing, cut clean at the edge. Object counts and detected hatch clusters sit alongside, yours to accept or decline. Where the detection guesses wrong, drag your own box on the preview instead.
A DXF at its real scale
A DXF from any CAD package arrives with its own layers intact, at a true 1:1 real-world scale, so Measure works the moment it opens and the rulers read metres. AutoCAD's Defpoints construction layer comes in already unticked (it never plots, so nobody wants it in a drawing) and it's still listed if you do.
Then a proper editor
Pen, Pencil and Curvature for drawing, live shapes you keep editing as numbers, a pathfinder, fill and stroke as arrays with gradients and arrowheads, named text styles, clipping masks and blend modes, and export to PDF, SVG, DXF or PNG.
Start from a PDF out of any CAD package.
Drop in a vector-ready PDF out of AutoCAD, Revit or SketchUp LayOut and Vector is useful on its own from that point. A DXF behaves the same way, at a true real-world scale the moment it lands, and an SVG goes straight onto the sheet you're looking at as its own layer, which is how a north point or a practice logo gets onto a drawing. If you own Linea too, there are two more doors: "Open in Vector" off a plan's DXF export, and "Open in Linea" to send a drawing back the other way into a new model.
Open Vector
A pathfinder, a knife and a paint bucket.
Unite, Minus Front, Intersect, Exclude, Divide, Trim, Merge, Crop and Outline all run on Skia, the same geometry engine behind Chrome and Android. Outline Stroke turns a line into a fillable shape; Offset Path grows or shrinks a boundary by a typed distance. Imported CAD linework usually needs breaking up by hand before any of that helps, so the Knife cuts freehand across whatever it's drawn over, and the Paint Bucket fills any area those lines enclose, dropped in behind them as an ordinary path, with a gap tolerance (0.5mm by default) so walls that stop a fraction short of each other still hold a fill.
Set the scale once, then measure anything on the drawing.
Pick a standard architectural ratio, or calibrate: click two points, type the real distance between them. Either way a true scale bar regenerates on the drawing itself. After that Measure gives you a distance between two points, or the area and perimeter of any closed shape you hover. The rulers read metres at that scale rather than paper millimetres, and a guide dragged off one lands exactly where the ruler said it would.
Draw it, or type the numbers.
Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon and Line stay live after you draw them, so a corner radius, a side count or a length is a number you change rather than geometry you draw again. The Transform panel takes an exact X, Y, width, height or rotation (one item or a whole selection), and it works on imported linework just as well. Pen places corner and smooth anchors; Pencil follows a freehand stroke and smooths it. With Curvature you click a run of points and the curve is fitted through them, no handles to wrestle.
What Vector gives you as a piece of software.
PDF, DXF and SVG come in as geometry
Fills, strokes, text and layers rather than a flattened picture, with a pre-import report and a click that crops a crowded file down to the one drawing you want.
Real-world scale and measurement
Standard ratios or two-point calibration, then a distance, area or perimeter reading anywhere on the drawing.
Several sheets, with rulers and guides
Artboards from A4 to A0 in either orientation, rulers reading metres at the drawing's own scale, and guides you drag off them.
Pen, Pencil, Curvature and anchor editing
Place anchors by hand, fit a curve to a freehand stroke, or click a run of points and have the curve drawn through them. Then edit anchors and handles directly, cut, join, average, round and simplify.
Live shapes and exact numbers
Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon and Line stay editable as parameters after they are drawn, and the Transform panel takes an exact X, Y, width, height or rotation.
A pathfinder that does the whole set
Unite, Minus Front, Intersect, Exclude, Divide, Trim, Merge, Crop, Outline, Outline Stroke and Offset Path.
Knife and paint bucket
Cut freehand across imported linework, then fill the areas it encloses by clicking inside them, with a gap tolerance for walls that do not quite meet.
Paint as a system
Fill and stroke as arrays, ISO pen weights, dash presets, gradients, arrowheads, a swatch palette and graphic styles. Stroke alignment draws genuinely inside or outside the line, so a wall keeps its own dimension.
A weight that varies along the line
Pick a width profile in the Stroke panel, five tapers plus off, or drag a point on the line by hand. Hold Alt and the point is one-sided, for a poché edge or a section line that thickens on the side it cuts.
Masks, opacity and blend modes
Crop anything to a shape you draw over it, and set opacity or a blend mode on a path, a text item, a photograph or a whole group. Multiply is how a region fill lets the linework read through.
Real type
Point and area text, named text styles, type set on a path, and Convert to Outlines for a font-independent file.
Select, transform and organise
Snapping to artboards, guides and other items, groups, a real Layers panel, align, distribute, and select by shared attribute.
Vector artwork from a description
Type what you want and it lands on the current sheet as editable paths on their own layer, ready to recolour, scale against your line weights and take apart. 18 credits, or 67 for the detailed model, shown on the button before it runs.
Trace a photograph into linework
Place a photographed sketch or a scanned plan on the drawing (PNG, JPEG or WebP, up to 5MB) and turn it into editable paths that sit on top of the original at its size and angle. 6 credits a trace, shown on the button first.
Export to what a consultant expects
PDF as vector with real embedded text, SVG as vector with text outlined so it opens anywhere, DXF as CAD linework at true scale, PNG when a raster is all that's needed. Bleed and crop marks on a PDF or SVG when something is going to a printer.
Frequently asked.
Ready to start? Jump straight in.
Every ArchAdemia Tools plan includes Vector itself, from £29 a month, all in. Two things are charged and both show their price on the button first: generating artwork from a description, 18 credits or 67 for the detailed model, and tracing a photograph into paths, 6 credits a time. Everything else costs nothing, drawing and importing and measuring and exporting among it.