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.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Olivia, you can do that now.

Right now you can push/pull walls, windows and doors in the 3D window, floor plan and sections/elevations. You can define custom profiles for walls, columns and beams, you can create and edit components, you can define views and layers. SketchUp's Layout is a "copy" of Plotmaker which has been declared by AC users as too slow and difficult.

Archicad can do better renderings than SketchUp, can handle bigger model, has teamwork, it is easier to make changes, has better text and dimensioning tools, has better dwg support, can handle xrefs and modules better than SketchUp, etc.

What can you do in SketchUp that cannot be done in AC? The only things I can think of is that there are no limitations of the objects that can be created in a 3D window (since all objects start as shapes) and that all windows can be "orbited" into a 3D view. If you analyze these advantages vs their disadvantages you'll see that AC implementation is good and fast enough.

Can we stop wishing that a hammer do the work of a screwdriver or vice-versa? Each is good at what it does and if somebody wants to use a hammer to pull a screw I can guarantee that it is not the Hammer's fault if he does a bad job of it.

PS
This does not imply that AC or SU can not improve and that some of those improvements may approach the workflow of the other.

[Dwight]

Thousands of people think Archicad should be a freer model and that SketchUp should be more technical. It could happen, but not tomorrow.

I'm sure that someday a writer will come up with a tidy phrase to describe this idea like Thomas Kuhn could, but not today:

These applications are based in an era and a premise of how things can or should work. As user base builds, the legacy of the application impedes improvement. The hurdle of reinventing the user interface seems insurmountable being that not everyone is just starting out in architecture and all excited about learning, but that thousands of people now make their living through an application that they need to be productive in some way from the get go every morning and they have families and want to go home at night, not experiment with new ways to do things. Call me a geezer, but this is what my seminar attendees tell me.

The ideas behind the Burden of BIM and the slickness of SketchUP will propagate what I call "That Third Thing" relying on alliteration to give gravity to the idea.

Using what we have learned from these initial forays, somebody will reinvent the way we use computers to assemble buildings.....

and how would that third thing go? How can slickness and technique be merged to make a non-turgid application?

[Djordje]

Olivia wrote:
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.

Agreed.

I always wanted to be able to do the whole construction set with my B6 pencil, freehand.

There has to be a tradeoff between the blobbing it and deciding the technical details. One gets paid for the second activity.

[Anonymous]

"ejrolon" wrote:
Olivia, you can do that now.

Right now you can push/pull walls, windows and doors in the 3D window, floor plan and sections/elevations. You can define custom profiles for walls, columns and beams, you can create and edit components, you can define views and layers. SketchUp's Layout is a "copy" of Plotmaker which has been declared by AC users as too slow and difficult.

Archicad can do better renderings than SketchUp, can handle bigger model, has teamwork, it is easier to make changes, has better text and dimensioning tools, has better dwg support, can handle xrefs and modules better than SketchUp, etc.

All this is good in archicad, I'm not disputing that.

What can you do in SketchUp that cannot be done in AC? The only things I can think of is that there are no limitations of the objects that can be created in a 3D window (since all objects start as shapes) and that all windows can be "orbited" into a 3D view. If you analyze these advantages vs their disadvantages you'll see that AC implementation is good and fast enough.

Can we stop wishing that a hammer do the work of a screwdriver or vice-versa? Each is good at what it does and if somebody wants to use a hammer to pull a screw I can guarantee that it is not the Hammer's fault if he does a bad job of it.

I think you are missing my point. I'm not saying cancel out archicad with sketchup. All I am asking for is greater flexibility to create custom 3d objects (like in sketchup), and be able to easily generate plans, elevations and sections from them (like in archicad). I'm not saying that sketchup should replace archicad. This forum is supposed to be about improving the program, what is the point of ignoring the unnecessary complexity of archicad?

[Eduardo Rolon]

Olivia wrote:
…
I think you are missing my point. I'm not saying cancel out archicad with sketchup. All I am asking for is greater flexibility to create custom 3d objects (like in sketchup), and be able to easily generate plans, elevations and sections from them (like in archicad). I'm not saying that sketchup should replace archicad. This forum is supposed to be about improving the program, what is the point of ignoring the unnecessary complexity of archicad?

Olivia, I am not trying to be dense and I understand the point, AC should be flexible and easy but what it is designed to do is not, therefore there are some complexities. The main problem here (and the whole thread) is that you are comparing apples to oranges. Sketchup does not do 10% of what can be done in AC and what it does it does extremely well yet most of that 10% can also be done in AC.

Let's switch the argument around and go to the SketchUp forums and start wishing that it Needs to implement more of Archicad tools, it needs independent floor pan representation of objects it needs pdf, more than 2 line weights, auto wall cleanup, automatic cut material for objects, sheet index, detail link tool, autocad xref's, automatic publish of all tabs to any format, etc. It becomes a little absurd 🙂.

What does SU has is an easy to figure out interface and workflow (and I agree that is a goal that AC should have) but what we do is architecture and like it or not construction documentation is a more complex workflow.

Thus lets be clear what SketchUp is good at and see if those items are worth integrating in AC.

[Anonymous]

I think simple "push pull button" would be a great add-on to ArchiCAD

[Eduardo Rolon]

ozbencetin wrote:
I think simple "push pull button" would be a great add-on to ArchiCAD

So, changing the name of the "Complex Profile" and "Profiler" is the only thing that AC has to do?

[TomWaltz]

ejrolon wrote:

ozbencetin wrote:
I think simple "push pull button" would be a great add-on to ArchiCAD

So, changing the name of the "Complex Profile" and "Profiler" is the only thing that AC has to do?

They really aren't the same... not even close, really. Push/pull works on any shape in any view. Sure, you can make a wall taller, but you can't make a shape grow out from it without editing its profile, something you may not want.

If you learn SketchUp, you'll find its modeling capabilities are really a lot more flexible than Archicad's are.

[Anonymous]

Olivia wrote:
...what is the point of ignoring the unnecessary complexity of archicad?

The trouble is that one person's unnecessary complexity is another's critical feature.

SketchUp can be what it is precisely because it is freed from the complexity of true building modeling and complex and detailed documentation requirements.

I too would like to see some more freeform modeling and massing tools in ArchiCAD but these will necessarily be different than those in SketchUp (some kind of super-zones I imagine). But as Dwight points out there are limits to the changes that are possible in established programs. Each new set of features adds further to the complexity.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Tom,

I have been teaching SketchUp for the last 6 years, so I am aware of what it does, though apparently I have to work on my sarcasm skills.

The problem is people wishing for wishing's sake look at Djorde's post.

AC already has an implementation of SU's push-pull. And although SketchUp's push-pull is easier to use than AC how good is SketchUp in publishing to dwg and pdf a full set of architectural drawings. Let's go to SketchUp forums and start bugging them because in AC it is easier. Would you sacrifice the Publisher for SketchUPs push pull?

I AM KIDDING!!!!

I am not saying that I wouldn't want something like it, I am saying that lack of it does not mean that AC sucks and that the complex profiler meets most of my needs and does things that SU's push-pull cannot. For Example try to convert a push/pulled section into an arc without using the "follow me" tool.

SketchUp is good at what it does and IMO AC has already implemented some of the things that it does and they have expanded on them. Also if to do something in SketchUp you follow steps A+B+C and the same thing can be done in AC but following D+C+B+A then I prefer that GS spend it's time making AC run faster than eliminating that extra step.

Lets do an experiment and list of all the things that SU can do that AC cannot and then do the list of all the things AC can do that SU cannot and compare. There are few things that SU can do that AC cannot, but they are not deal breakers IMO.

Therefore not knowing how to do a push-pull in AC does not mean that SU is better it only means that it is different.

TO be sure