topic Re: Top criteria for BIM in Modeling

Top criteria for BIM

Laszlo Nagy — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 07:51:58 GMT

I just got email about a very good article on AECBytes about Top criteria for BIM. It is a good reading:

http://www.aecbytes.com/feature/2007/BIMSurveyReport.html

Re: Top criteria for BIM

Petros Ioannou — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 08:30:52 GMT

Very interesting Laszlo. Thanx

Following the links at Bentley I found these videos of parametric cell studio.

http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Products/Bentley+Architecture/Parametric-Cell.htm

It's a bit off topic (?) but very interesting...

Petros

Re: Top criteria for BIM

__archiben — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:22:41 GMT

AEC bytes are normally impartial, but do have a leaning toward autodesk. with this article - which was based on a survey commissioned by bentley - autodesk and bentley are pushed heavily despite archicad/graphiosft being the second most popular BIM app with 32% of the vote.

i would much rather see some figures that break down the 'BIM solutions being used or evaluated...' into two separate categories for those being used AND those being evaluated. i'm sure that might be more revealing . . .

~/archiben

Re: Top criteria for BIM

Rob — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:10:18 GMT

I think whole purpose of this Bentley survey was to compare Bentley's ego with 'the Autodesk' (as oppose to some 'petty' East-European company).
Clearly the article was supposed to target the flatlands readers as they associate Revit (and therefore Autodesk) with BIM. I believe that Bentley's proud label 'we are BIM application' goes as far as a nice print on the box for majority of its users, knowing some members of Microstation community (including my boss who I am trying to convert and accept AC and ironically - BIM!!) they use Microstation in a sort of ADT fashion.

Re: Top criteria for BIM

Laszlo Nagy — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 06:20:32 GMT

~/archiben wrote:
i would much rather see some figures that break down the 'BIM solutions being used or evaluated...' into two separate categories for those being used AND those being evaluated. i'm sure that might be more revealing . . .

~/archiben

Yes, I thought the same thing.
Maybe the whole market is flooded with Revit so the "evaluate" it but do not actually use it. Would be interesting to know.

Re: Top criteria for BIM

Laszlo Nagy — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 06:21:55 GMT

For me, one of the results of reading this survey was that ArchiCAD is actually pretty competitive and that AC11 was addressing practically the most important criteria these guy came up with, which is a good thing.

Re: Top criteria for BIM

Bricklyne Clarence — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:35:56 GMT

laszlonagy wrote:
For me, one of the results of reading this survey was that ArchiCAD is actually pretty competitive and that AC11 was addressing practically the most important criteria these guy came up with, which is a good thing.

I normally find Lachmi Khemlani's articles and reviews pretty informative and well-balanced, but this "evaluation" seemed like one of the most ridiculous things I've seen her write in quite a while. For one thing, I'm not entirely certain if I've ever come across a less subtle Revit ad, but this was just weird. The article starts out by setting what it considers BIM criteria, then then sets out statistics and results of surveys conducted - wherein ArchiCAD's 2nd place in that "graph" appears; there's an obligatory note of this, before she proceeds comparing Revit with 3rd place Bentley for a huge chunk of the article and then the remainder of the article gushing over the virtues of Revit. ArchiCAD never gets a mention beyond the graph comparison - what? is ArchiCAD no longer considered a BIM application. I understand the North American bias and the AECbytes "sold-their-soul-to-the-devil mortgage payments to Autotable and all, but I mean, come on!! just call it a Revit evaluation and be done with it.

The other thing I had an issue with is the fact that she never bothers to mention the fact that a large reason for the fact that Revit is scoring so high in that survey despite the fact that it doesn't even have nearly half the same number of users as ADT does in their own barn, is due to the fact that Autodesk have for the longest time been bundling it with AutoCAD where it then proceeds to sit on the shelves of firms collecting dust after they've "evaluated" it and after they've installed the program they really wanted in the first place - AutoCAD. Or the fact that this article is also heavily North American, or rather US-centric, thus ignoring the fact that ArchiCAD, and for that matter Bentley, outsell Revit virtually everywhere else in the world.

In any event its a tidy piece of Autodesk subterfuge marketing, as it's meant to be, I suppose. Ridiculous nonetheless.

Re: Top criteria for BIM

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:19:15 GMT

Graphisoft,
Please note the "most frequently mentioned additional criteria" was...

scroll down...

keep scrolling........

"Simplicity and ease of use"

Re: Top criteria for BIM

Laura Yanoviak — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:02:14 GMT

~/archiben wrote:
AEC bytes are normally impartial, but do have a leaning toward autodesk. with this article - which was based on a survey commissioned by bentley - autodesk and bentley are pushed heavily despite archicad/graphiosft being the second most popular BIM app with 32% of the vote.

My first reaction to the article.

Bricklyne wrote:
I normally find Lachmi Khemlani's articles and reviews pretty informative and well-balanced, but this "evaluation" seemed like one of the most ridiculous things I've seen her write in quite a while. For one thing, I'm not entirely certain if I've ever come across a less subtle Revit ad, but this was just weird. The article starts out by setting what it considers BIM criteria, then then sets out statistics and results of surveys conducted - wherein ArchiCAD's 2nd place in that "graph" appears; there's an obligatory note of this, before she proceeds comparing Revit with 3rd place Bentley for a huge chunk of the article and then the remainder of the article gushing over the virtues of Revit. ArchiCAD never gets a mention beyond the graph comparison - what? is ArchiCAD no longer considered a BIM application. I understand the North American bias and the AECbytes "sold-their-soul-to-the-devil mortgage payments to Autotable and all, but I mean, come on!! just call it a Revit evaluation and be done with it.

My overall impression of the article.

Well put guys.

Re: Top criteria for BIM

stefan — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:10:23 GMT

I most cases I would defend the AECBytes articles, but this one is strange...

- it is well structured and detailed
- it seems to have asked pertinent questions
- it also reflects the Bentley vs. Revit comparison, which IMHO was a mistake (although she can blame Bentley for it).

All in all, interesting to read, but the survey can be critisized...

Re: Top criteria for BIM

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 13:11:00 GMT

I'm one of those "Revit Series" users... Autocad came bundled with Revit for a few hundred bucks more. But it's Autocad sitting on the shelf, not Revit, I use it mainly for cleaning up my dwg files from the surveyor. Anyone that uses Autocad for architecture design these days is just plain nuts!

And the article didn't look like a Revit ad to me either, I thought they went out of their way to make Bentley look like the best answer. Ugh!

Michael Vaughn

Re: Top criteria for BIM

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:03:24 GMT

I was also slightly put off by the article. I responded on her blog page that:

- Revit is often shelfware -- it's great software but users haven't made the effort to learn it. How many of the respondents actually use Revit BIM as their primary documentation platform?
- ArchiCAD was not discussed at all
- Bentley was touted as a solution, and it's more like a nightmare!

Bentley probably wanted to see what the damage was against their archenemy Autodesk, and yes it's bad. Bentley is like a group of bleating sheep about how great their product is, when it's tough for all but the most advanced users to learn and use. Its future is not looking bright.

I don't think AC users should feel slighted by the survey -- instead you got to see that you have more than half the architectural users of Revit (the share posted is for all 3 flavours of the BIM platform, so the architectural share is certainly less than the total), and twice the userbase of BA.

Re: Top criteria for BIM

Karl Ottenstein — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:14:56 GMT

Good to hear that you're actually using Revit, Michael, and not one of those who just have it on the shelf.

I have a lot of problems with the survey, though. First, the sampling method, and second, the questions (as perceived from the article - I did not take the survey).

The sample being a self-selected (those willing to respond) subset of AECBytes subscribers is such that I can not accept many of the results as statistically valid - merely socially interesting and suggestive for further study.

I have to wonder how the question was asked as to what BIM software a firm was using. If the question was merely that, the response is different than if one asked "What software do you use to substantially model your entire project in 3D?" etc. As some of us know, there are ArchiCAD users out there who would say that they use BIM software (ArchiCAD), but in fact they are only using the 2D tools - plus perhaps the wall tool with doors/windows to quickly create 2D plans. (Shockingly stupid, but true.) No doubt, some Bentley and Revit users do not really use their products as they are meant to be used.

Even Dr. Khemlani's response here:
http://aecbytes.com/blog/2007/10/10/top-criteria-for-bim-solutions-aecbytes-survey-results/#comments
that Revit is the current 'market leader' is a vague, unsubstatiated fact AFAIK. If by market leader, she means the most delivered copies, perhaps that is so. To me, the 'market leader' would have the most square feet of buildings designed and/or built with the software as actual 3D models (true BIM). Or, the most number of people actually using it in production. I have not seen any study that hints at those numbers and would like to see some real scientific/statistical work on this entire area to not only guide manufacturers (the Bentley-sponsored purpose of her informal survey) - but to give a true state-of-the-industry to guide the profession and university curricula.

Cheers,
Karl

Re: Top criteria for BIM

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:57:28 GMT

Karl wrote:
The sample being a self-selected (those willing to respond) subset of AECBytes subscribers is such that I can not accept many of the results as statistically valid - merely socially interesting and suggestive for further study.

This fact in itself makes the statistics functionally useless. Similarly, we don't have any idea on the Revit forums whether the member demographic correlates at all with the real user base: are large, medium and small firms represented equally on the forum? We just completed a wish cycle -- do those votes represent the wishes of the entire Revit user base, or just those who happened to stumble onto AUGI?

A real survey of a large number of firms large and small would be more telling.