Archicad vs Sketchup

[Anonymous]

Further to my email a few months ago now which some may remember in which I slagged off Archicad and stated that Autocad and 2d was still the way to go I want to modify that statement.

Ive tried Sketchup recently and god does that program poo all over Archicad! Its amazing and its so intuitive and easy to use. Its not like Archicad at all.

So now I am convinced that the way to go is Sketchup for up to planning/concepts and then converting to 2d Autocad after planning. I cerainly dont see Archicad featuring in the future of architecture much at all unless you are a house designer.

I would certainly ask any doubters to try Sketchup and then tell me I am wrong. I know the argument for archicad is its true BIM 'and all that' but I dont need 'all that'. I need a simple way of doing client friendly 3d designs and Sketchup is it. What I dont need is Archicads inflexible and complex object based mentality. I just dont need it.

Ive just done a great looking 3d house in Sketchup in 3 days that would have taken me a month to do in Archicad. And no I wouldnt have then saved the wroking drg time because you cant use Archicad to do working drawings I can tell you that as a fact.

So you see I havent changed my mind, I dont like Archicad as I am a design orientated architect not an IT freak.

[Anonymous]

nats wrote:
Oh yes and another thing. its strange that most of the people who cant understand my views are those that have all their software and computer specs emblazened at the bottom of their posts!

Are you lot architects or computer IT junkies? Is that all architecture has become for you - a set of lines and fills? Why do you feel the need to show off how many computer packages you have? I have to say I find this very funny every time I visit this forum.

Just for the record, the reason you see the system info at the bottom is so that when asking and responding to posts others know what sort of system and what version of AC is being used as that often will affect the issue and the answer.

Perhaps you should spend more time here listening and learning.

[Anonymous]

Nats,

It would be nice to find out what you think 2D drawings are in ArchiCAD.

1.
If you start from scratch trying to imitate ACAD thinking of lines, arcs, splines and hatches,…, ACAD will be better with all its features and offset tool. While working on AC a lot of operations are done by the program itself : f.e. a wall consists of lines and fills and they intersect automaticly, parameters define the width, etc… When changes to plans have to be made, I like AC.

2.
My first 2 years of experience with ArchiCAD, I was “drawing” each section and elevation on a separate story, on top of each other, as they were individual plan views. Using 3D parametric walls, windows and doors speed up productivity. Let’s call it 2,5D.
I discovered the ease of eyedropper and springe, scissor, stretch and split, different shortcuts,… Not having any knowledge of 3D that time, the ghost story was a very handy tool.
This was a great time saver when checking consistency of my 2D drawings.

!!! I’ve seen people setting up a layout on story O and File > Print. This way you loose all functionality of ArchiCAD but it’s still a 2D drawing, isn’t it? !!!

The more I felt good with ArchiCAD, I discovered how to build up a 3D model. It was AC 6.5 that time and I admit I still had a lot of 2D adjustments in section / elevation .

3.
Although AC11 offers more 3D opportunities with complex profiles and SEO, one can still feel the need to finalize in 2D. With Worksheets, Trace and Reference, Linework - and Fills consolidation, you can create and clean up 2D drawings in no time and still have a link with the 3D model. No waste of time adding shadows or fills to represent materials because you get it out of a 3D model for free. Do you draw shadows all by hand or do you just skip? Final result is important when doing a comparison with other software.

I know of more than one office working this way with higher productivity than they had before with ACAD !

4.
So, in my point of view a 2D drawing in ArchiCAD can be everything you see in front of you, even when it’s full of 3D elements.
You’re traditional approach : draw everything you need, over and over and over...
ArchiCAD : you place elements with certain dimensions that can be finetuned at any time in ten different ways.

If you have good knowledge of “model view options”, “pen sets” and “layer combinations”, AFAIK ArchiCAD is the fastest way having fully detailed (!) 2D architectural drawings at the end of the building proces ………beside Vectorworks and Vellum ☺.
If you need to do 3D visualisation as well, no matter in wich stage, than a BIM model like ArchiCAD is my way to go. I agree SU is very fast, to start with, but modifying both plans and 3D separately is time consuming!


PS : I have been working in other offices before, using Vellum, Vectorworks, Microstation and AutoCad intensively. AutoCAD in combination with SketchUP, just the way you describe is a good solution but definitely not the fasted at the end

[Anonymous]

By the way,


I like to use each software at it's best performance.
SketchUP is still in the running for very specific tasks : 3D details, ...

Once Graphisoft will offer real 3D dimensioning and a "hide individual element" button I can skip SU as well

[Haneef Tayob]

Three Days!
Why not just ditch all the software and try some cardboard. I've found that clients love real models (building that is) much more than computer generated ones. If you want intuitive, there's nothing like using you hands to cut with a blade and paste with glue.

[Anonymous]

It depends on what you are skillful with the blade and glue.... hahahahahahaha!!!

Regards :

Antonio

[Bricklyne Clarence]

What boggles the mind and really puzzles me is why in the world no one figured out the fact that this guy "nats" (nuts????) was basically trolling and wasting everyone's time.
Especially after he openly admitted that he wasn't exactly looking for information or help on anything ArchiCAD related, constructively or earnestly, but rather was "bored at work" and basically just looking to get into an argument to entertain himself.

This thread should never have gone longer than 3 pages,....... even that.

There are unfortunately a lot of sincere users and newbies asking for help in a whole host of threads which largely go unanswered while clowns like this unnecessarily hog all the attention and bandwidth with pointless drivel like this.

.........sad really.

[vistasp]

Bricklyne wrote:
What boggles the mind and really puzzles me is why in the world no one figured out the fact that this guy "nats" (nuts????) was basically trolling and wasting everyone's time.

I think a lot of us do realise. When dealing with irrational persons such as this, you have either to ignore them completely (which is unlikely to happen on such a diverse forum) or talk to them in a totally rational manner. If you notice, the moment the discussion came off it's original high pitch, Nats disappeared from the thread. Doubtless, he'll try to make some excuse about suddenly becoming too busy to talk to us intellectual cretins. 😉

[Anonymous]

At some point I started to use sketch-up for a 3D modeling and continued to use Archicad for 2d work. At that moment I had been using archicad only for a two years or so and I was still learning it at the university. And also one reason was the rendering because the rendering engines with radiosity profited considerably when lower polygon count was achieved, considered the CPU speeds at these times. Soon I realized this method was waste of time and I started to build my models entirely in archicad. Where archicad fails, I turn to maxonform and yes, it's not the perfect solution but I manage to obtain a satisfying results.

Few comments about your model. Yes the projected window would be impossible with standard window object (to my knowledge at the moment) but two walls and two slabs wouldn't be a big issue to create with few mouse clicks and afterwards convert it to hot linked module for instance. Also you are able to import your balustrades into the archicad with 3ds import add-on. Other than that I see no reasonable cause to use sketch-up from my point of view.

I personally consider the switching and synchronizing between multiple programs the number one time and efficiency killer and therefore work towards to minimize it.

[Anonymous]

Bricklyne wrote:
This thread should never have gone longer than 3 pages,....... even that.

Aside from Nats' obviously provocative statements, I think this thread has gone on this long because he did at least raise a valid point. For some offices Sketchup for schematic design followed by AutoCAD (or other drafting program) for contract documents still makes sense. Building modeling is still very challenging stuff (and seems to get more complex with each new software release) and for some firms it may simply not be appropriate.

I would like to see a future in which we can all collaborate on the same core (IFC?) model with whatever software suits the circumstances. This could conceivably allow the Sketchup/AutoCAD office to interoperate successfully with ArchiCAD, Allplan, Revit and Microstation users. In the mean time we will all just keep making do as best we can with the tools at hand.

[Anonymous]

I agree.

It would be nice to be able to model so simply like in sketchup, and then be able to generate plans, sections and elevations from the model, with drawing organization capabilities, as in archicad.