Fuse VW Gantry

Vectorworks plugin + MCP server bridging Claude (or any MCP client) to Vectorworks 2025/2026 on Windows.

Lineage: This repo is a substantially rewritten fork of mako-357/vectorworks-mcp. Upstream contributed the architectural sketch (C++ plugin owns a local socket, Rust process bridges to MCP) and the wire-protocol tool shapes. The implementation has been ported to Windows, hardened for production use, extended with a status palette + auto-start, and dual-targeted at VW2025 + VW2026. See FORK_NOTES.md for details. The repo name remains vectorworks-mcp for upstream alignment; the plugin itself is Fuse VW Gantry.

Architecture

Claude  --stdio-->  fuse-vw-gantry-server.exe  --TCP localhost-->  FuseVWGantry.vlb (in VW)
                    (Rust, rmcp crate)                              (C++, VCOM SDK plugin)

VW2025 plugin listens on 127.0.0.1:27230, VW2026 on 127.0.0.1:27231 (formula: 27200 + SDK_VERSION/100). Both VW versions can run concurrently.

MCP tools

Tool	Description
get_drawing_info	Document state — has-document, layer count
list_layers	Layer names in current document
create_line	Draw a line segment
create_rect	Draw a rectangle
create_circle	Draw a circle
run_script	Execute Python or VectorScript with stdout/stderr capture

Prerequisites

• Vectorworks 2025 or 2026 (Windows)
• Vectorworks SDK for the matching VW version
• Visual Studio 2022 (toolset v145, Windows 10 SDK 10.0.26100.0)
• Rust for the MCP server

Build

Rust MCP server

cd mcp-server
cargo build --release

Output: mcp-server/target/release/fuse-vw-gantry-server.exe.

C++ plugin

Default build targets VW2025:

"F:/Visual_Studio/MSBuild/Current/Bin/MSBuild.exe" \
  "D:/CODE/vectorworks-mcp/vw-plugin/vectorworks-mcp.vcxproj" \
  -p:Configuration=Release -p:Platform=x64

For VW2026, override VWSDKRoot:

... -p:VWSDKRoot="D:/CODE/TH_VWX/VWX_SDK/2026-NNA-eng-win-SDK/SDK/SDKVW(832364)" \
    -p:OutDir="D:/CODE/vectorworks-mcp/vw-plugin/build/Release-VW2026/" \
    -p:IntDir="D:/CODE/vectorworks-mcp/vw-plugin/build/Release-VW2026/obj/"

Output: vw-plugin/build/Release/FuseVWGantry.vlb (or Release-VW2026/).

Install

Copy to the VW plugin folder for the matching version:

%APPDATA%/Nemetschek/Vectorworks/<year>/Plug-ins/
├── FuseVWGantry.vlb
└── FuseVWGantry.vwr/    (entire directory — strings + palette HTML/JS)

For shared-team distribution via a workgroup folder (e.g. Dropbox), drop the same files into <WorkgroupRoot>/<year>/Plug-ins/ instead.

Setup

1. Restart Vectorworks. Dismiss the "Unknown Developer Plug-ins" dialog (one-time, until plugin credentials registration).
2. Open the palette: Window → Palettes → Fuse VW Gantry.
3. Click Start bridge. The status dot turns green; endpoint shows 127.0.0.1:27231 (VW2026).
4. Optional: tick Start bridge on Vectorworks launch to auto-start on next VW boot.
5. (Optional) Add the menu command via Tools → Workspaces → Edit Workspace — drag "Fuse VW Gantry" from the Fuse category into a menu.

Claude Code configuration

Add to .mcp.json at any project root:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fuse-vw-gantry-2026": {
      "command": "D:/CODE/vectorworks-mcp/mcp-server/target/release/fuse-vw-gantry-server.exe",
      "args": ["--vw-version", "2026"]
    },
    "fuse-vw-gantry-2025": {
      "command": "D:/CODE/vectorworks-mcp/mcp-server/target/release/fuse-vw-gantry-server.exe",
      "args": ["--vw-version", "2025"]
    }
  }
}

Restart the Claude Code session. Tools mcp__fuse-vw-gantry-2026__run_script etc. become available.

Settings

Auto-start preference is persisted at: %APPDATA%/Nemetschek/Vectorworks/<year>/fuse-vw-gantry-config.json

License

MIT (inherited from upstream).