topic Re: rev-it vs archicad in Collaboration with other software

rev-it vs archicad

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 05:26:25 GMT

im an archicad drafter who works for a company that is the sole distributor of archicad here in the philippines. and people just can't help compare archicad to auto-desk rev-it (as of now, autodesk is the leading cad software here). some people says that archicad is better and some people says otherwise.
"why is archicad better than rev-it?" people always ask me this question and i yet have to come up wit a decent reply. please help me up with this. im really proud of archicad and i just want to help promote it.

Re: rev-it vs archicad

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 06:59:42 GMT

There have already been quite extensive discussions of this. There is one here.

If you search for both ArchiCAD and Revit you will find 737 pages of postings. You will undoubtedly wish to refine your search a bit more than my quick one.

You may be able to get another discussion going on this topic. But I for one am tapped out on the subject for now.

Re: rev-it vs archicad

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 15:20:25 GMT

helo im kristine from the phil also..i just want to say that archicad is much better than autocad, i cant tell exactly why but i just know it!!

hehe..nwei im working in makati for a U.S based company..and was surprised to know that there is a company which uses archicad here..is your company a U.S based also or is it local?Because I'm just new with archicad and i want to know if there are other companies using it here so that if I want to resign with my present company,which i would like to do , I can look for other companies using archicad..because for me it's really really cool..

Although, as my other officemates here realized especially if your working previously with autocad, that the two are really different software, far from each other..i mean with autocad you work with commands and keyboard..with archicad alot of mouse clicks and less
keyboard shortcuts(or do you know lots of it?)...pls do send me a reply via email..kristinegrace_sanchez@yahoo.com............

Thanks a lot!

Re: rev-it vs archicad

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 07:39:10 GMT

as sir matthew sugested, i did read some of the topics concerning the rev-it vs archicad. but as of now th only thing i noticed is archicad is a lot better when it comes to compatability.
other than that, is there anything else? i guess, same as kristine, i can feel it in my gut that archicad is a lot better than rev-it but i just need to know specifically why.

Re: rev-it vs archicad

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 16:00:21 GMT

dino wrote:
as sir matthew sugested, i did read some of the topics concerning the rev-it vs archicad. but as of now th only thing i noticed is archicad is a lot better when it comes to compatability.
other than that, is there anything else? i guess, same as kristine, i can feel it in my gut that archicad is a lot better than rev-it but i just need to know specifically why.

I am not very familiar with more recent versions of Revit so I can only give you some vague generalities.

ArchiCAD has been around a lot longer and so has had time to develop tools, methods and workarounds* for just about any circumstance.

It was originally developed on much slower computers and so has many methods for working efficiently on projects that exceed the capacities of the machines. Using the marquee tool to inspect and work on an arbitrary isolated part of the model is one example of this.

It was originally developed for the Mac (like Word, Excel, Quark, PageMaker, Photoshop, etc...) and so it still has a legacy of quality interface design that is often lacking in Windows only products; though increasing complexity seems to have degraded this somewhat over the years. (I haven't looked at the recent versions of Revit so I don't know how it compares in this regard.)

Revit is a newer product and so lacks the time in the field. (It would be interesting to know the difference in hours billed on each program - I imagine that ArchiCAD must be quite a few (tens of?) thousand years ahead by this metric.) But from what I understand Revit are working very hard to catch up.

It is also based on a substantially different premise than ArchiCAD. From the beginning it has worked with relationships between the architectural elements (ie. stretch a dimension string and the associated element changes with it). While great in principle this has created problems. Early versions had significant performance problems. The other issue is managing all these relationships. I have heard of some who had some very unpleasant experiences with automatic relationships doing things that they didn't expect and didn't know about until after the drawings were issued. I believe recent versions are addressing this by allowing you to limit the extent of these relationships.

In Summary: Each program has it's advantages. Most I have talked to seem to agree that ArchiCAD is much better in the initial design stages despite that you have to use an add-on (MaxonForm) to do freeform modeling. ArchiCAD also has very strong drafting and documentation tools, and the integration of the model and documentation is also very good (and improving substantially with each release of the program).

Many people have complained over the years about ArchiCAD's lack of drafting tools but this can only come of not knowing how to use the program. Most of the people I have trained quickly prefer to draft in ArchiCAD even when they are old hands at AutoCAD (there have been some who simply refused to learn and left their firms to go back to AutoCAD based practices). I have one client who uses ArchiCAD almost strictly as a drafting tool (they often use form•Z for conceptual modeling) and they could generally run rings around AutoCAD users.

I don't know how Revit stands up on drafting and documentation but have heard that it is good.

My lack of recent experience with Revit prevents me from having a strong opinion about which is better and by how much. I do know that Autodesk's purchase and promotion of Revit has driven a lot of ArchiCAD sales, which suggests that quite a few firms - once convinced of the need to move to BIM - are choosing Graphisoft's product over Autodesk's. I know from experience that my clients studied the two programs long and hard before choosing ArchiCAD. They certainly didn't go to Revit just because it's owned by Autodesk (in many cases that is more of a negative factor).

* Don't look down on workarounds. They are future new features and without them we often would not be able to get the work out on time. The worst place to find yourself is when the only workaround is to print out, white out and paste up (been there done that too).

Re: rev-it vs archicad

Scott Davis — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:02:26 GMT

Matthew wrote:
My lack of recent experience with Revit prevents me from having a strong opinion about which is better and by how much. I do know that Autodesk's purchase and promotion of Revit has driven a lot of ArchiCAD sales, which suggests that quite a few firms - once convinced of the need to move to BIM - are choosing Graphisoft's product over Autodesk's. I know from experience that my clients studied the two programs long and hard before choosing ArchiCAD. They certainly didn't go to Revit just because it's owned by Autodesk (in many cases that is more of a negative factor).

Revit sales are the driving force in Autodesk's recent successes. 15,000 seats of Revit in a 3 month span is impressive. This information is from the latest quarterly report on Marketwatch.com:

".......Autodesk's performance was driven by strong increases in revenue from new seats, subscriptions and emerging economies as well as increasing penetration of its 3D products...Revenue from new seats of 3D model-based design products increased 41 percent over last year, on particularly strong sales of the Revit family of products.....The company's 3D products, Inventor, Revit and Civil 3D continue to increase their market penetration. Combined revenues from the company's 3D model-based design products increased approximately 37 percent over the second quarter of last year to $91 million or 20 percent of total revenue. In total, more than 32,000 commercial seats of 3D were shipped in the quarter. The Revit family of products led 3D growth again this quarter. Revit revenue increased 96 percent compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2006. Autodesk shipped more than 15,000 commercial seats of Revit in the quarter...."

Re: rev-it vs archicad

Djordje — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:07:26 GMT

Scott wrote:
Revit sales are the driving force in Autodesk's recent successes. 15,000 seats of Revit in a 3 month span is impressive. This information is from the latest quarterly report on Marketwatch.com:

How many of those are RevitBuilding bought for AutoCAD?

Many ADTs were "sold".

Re: rev-it vs archicad

Scott Davis — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:14:08 GMT

Djordje wrote:
Scott wrote:
Revit sales are the driving force in Autodesk's recent successes. 15,000 seats of Revit in a 3 month span is impressive. This information is from the latest quarterly report on Marketwatch.com:
How many of those are RevitBuilding bought for AutoCAD?

Many ADTs were "sold".

Article doesn't give specifics, but surely some were "upgraded" seats of ADT to Revit.

Re: rev-it vs archicad

Srinivas — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:49:51 GMT

Interesting to know how many of them were forced upgrades?

Re: Revit vs archi*cad

Scott Davis — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 20:10:20 GMT

Srinivas wrote:
Interesting to know how many of them were forced upgrades?

What was forced about it? I could still be running Revit 1.0 and AutoCADr14 if I wanted.

Re: Revit vs archi*cad

Eduardo Rolon — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 20:15:10 GMT

Scott wrote:
What was forced about it? I could still be running Revit 1.0 and AutoCADr14 if I wanted.

And if you wanted to upgrade to Acad2007 and the new Revit you would have to pay full price, not an upgrade

Re: Revit vs archi*cad

Djordje — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 04:01:12 GMT

ejrolon wrote:
Scott wrote:
What was forced about it? I could still be running Revit 1.0 and AutoCADr14 if I wanted.
And if you wanted to upgrade to Acad2007 and the new Revit you would have to pay full price, not an upgrade

They have something called "Legacy program" around here. The upgrade is something like 60% of the full price or maybe more, depends on the license.

Re: Revit vs archi*cad

Scott Davis — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 04:12:15 GMT

ejrolon wrote:
Scott wrote:
What was forced about it? I could still be running Revit 1.0 and AutoCADr14 if I wanted.
And if you wanted to upgrade to Acad2007 and the new Revit you would have to pay full price, not an upgrade

and if I were still on Windows 95 and wanted XP Pro...I woud pay full price.

Re: rev-it vs archicad

Eduardo Rolon — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 04:15:31 GMT

Last I checked here the upgrades were
to 2007
$600 from 2006
$800 from 2005
full price from 2004 downwards, no legacy option yet, though the dealers might be able to work around some of the prices.

Re: Revit vs archi*cad

Eduardo Rolon — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 04:51:54 GMT

Scott wrote:
and if I were still on Windows 95 and wanted XP Pro...I woud pay full price.

All the following rambling items are not meant in any mean way.

1. AC does not work like that, nor Mac OSX or Cinema 4D you can upgrade from any version to the current one with a discount and in the case of OS X it is the same price for all ($129).

2. Autodesk's EULA's specifies that you cannot sell your license, unless you close your office or die. If you don't need an AC license you can sell it and the new owner pays a transfer fee. So in my evaluating software to use I take that into consideration, do I own or do I rent?

3. I choose not to pay Autodesk's yearly tax.

4. Autocad 2007 main selling point is that it copied SketchUp and I prefer using SU since SU's upgrades are $99 and a full version cost less than ACAD's upgrade.

5. Even now that I get Autodesk's full suite for free as a professor (and some NFR's) I keep paying for AC for my office and have not upgraded my R2004 licenses.

Re: rev-it vs archicad

Chadwick — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 15:33:59 GMT

I just ran into this page when looking for an upgrade price for Archicad on google. And I cant help but comment that it would probably depend on your reseller in any situation. We have a copy of ADT 3.3 that nobody uses here and our local Revit reseller said that it would cost around 2,300 (1300 off the full price) to upgrade that to Revit 9.1.

So, really it all depends on your reseller I guess.

Re: Revit vs archi*cad

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:36:09 GMT

Scott wrote:
What was forced about it? I could still be running Revit 1.0 and AutoCADr14 if I wanted.

Thats not true.
As a former AutoCad user, you are FORCED to upgrade.
Why? because every 2 versions you are sent a letter saying, if you dont upgrade now, you lose the right to upgrade, and you have to buy the product again.

This was what forced me to move from autocad (+ addon that i used ) to another solution. The choice was archicad.

Although i may whine alot (and i will continue to whine... ) i made a great choice.

The first and most important factor is that the interface is intuitive. Very intuitive. I learned the interface in 3-4 days (basic stuff i mean) just reading a conversion guide somewhere on the net (conversion from autocad to archicad).

I hope GS will make me a gift for saying that and bring interactivity scripting inside gdl in Archicad 11

Re: rev-it vs archicad

stefan — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:32:46 GMT

Autodesk users can keep using the former versions installed when they are on subscription. This is not allowed with non-subsription upgrades.

Graphisoft supports some previous ArchiCAD versions with the dongle. Important to be able to access older projects that have not been migrated to newer versions.

Re: rev-it vs archicad

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 13:34:35 GMT

Really, the major difference between AC and Revit is that experienced users of the one platform can't use the other really well for some time. So if your area is well stocked with users of one platform, I would suggest you roll with it. Getting users proficient with the software costs more than the software itself.

As to which platform is better thought out and has a better future, I can't comment; it's been too long since I used AC and I'm hoping for an education soon 😉

Re: rev-it vs archicad

Rakela Raul — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 14:10:19 GMT

and I'm hoping for an education soon Wink

same here, so go on with it...where is ML ??