NY Times:"Revit Architecture, the industry standard"

[Chazz]

Maybe eveyone knew or suspected this aready but it's different when the grey lady says it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/business/11gehry.html?_r=1&ref=technology

This is a fascinating article but here is the money quote:

Architects routinely use modeling software, but the latest version of Digital Project would enable them to try extreme designs for skyscrapers. While acknowledging that the Gehry software is impressive, Carl Galioto of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, a firm that has designed many skyscrapers, says that it is hard to learn and three or four times as expensive as a conventional modeling program. Revit Architecture, the industry standard from Autodesk, is listed at $5,495 on Autodesk’s Web site.

[Rob]

Chazz,

sorry I have missed your title in your signature... well, that sums it all up mate.

[Anonymous]

Chazz,

Have you used Revit? It's OK but not better than ArchiCAD. Why the eagerness to switch?

I use both (and a lot of other things besides), and so far ArchiCAD still has major advantages for coordination work. The file translation issues are less important than the modeling and management tools. Lately most of my work has been coordinating large projects ($100-$750M) and we still prefer to use ArchiCAD whenever possible.

Another thing is that so far I have seen very few architects and engineers produce models that are even suitable to use for coordination (though one client of mine is a notable exception - and they are using ArchiCAD). Your argument may hold some water when all the players are actually capable of interoperating. This is not necessarily a criticism of the designers. The requirements for design models are quite different than for coordination.

Frankly this is all a bit of a tempest in a teapot. The interoperability of the Revit suites are an advantage but not a "death knell" for all the other programs out there. Don't forget programs like Tekla. Revit Structure has a very long way to go to threaten their place in the market.

Another aspect to this is that like it or not there is still a lot of 2D work that has to be incorporated into the coordination workflow and this is not going away quickly. ArchiCAD beats everything else all hollow in this area.

Recently I had to review the structural design model of a large hospital against the steel shop drawings which were not only 2D (which is typical) but also not to scale (which is not uncommon). In this case if the model had been in Revit it would have been far more difficult (to the point that I'm not sure it could have been completed in the time available).

I have also had occasions where the only readily available drawings are PDF. In Revit this means looking back and forth between the Revit window and either printed documents or another screen displaying the PDF (I have had to do this and it is a pain in the neck). In ArchiCAD I can overlay and easily check and adjust the model.

I have been among the loudest proponents of interoperability since before most of today's BIM users graduated from high school, and I think the interoperability of the various flavors of Revit is a positive move in this direction, UNLESS the market perception is that this is somehow sufficient all by itself. It is far from it. We need ALL the tools and then some to get all this stuff to work.

ArchiCAD is still one of the most versatile and powerful tools on the market for building modeling. I am in no hurry to give it up.

[Anonymous]

ArchiCAD is simply not an innovative product any longer and each upgrade continues to disappoint and drag it further behind (curtain wall tool? What the hell was that?).

Hi Chazz:

I haven't had the need to use the curtain wall tool on a project, but from what I saw in a demo and different examples I have been very impressed with it. It seems to possibly represent a whole new tool concept within ArchiCad.

You or others probably have much more experience with the curtain wall tool than I and I would like to know what specific good and bad things you might have found.

Thanks,

Don Lee

[Anonymous]

Don wrote:
I haven't had the need to use the curtain wall tool on a project, but from what I saw in a demo and different examples I have been very impressed with it. It seems to possibly represent a whole new tool concept within ArchiCad.

You or others probably have much more experience with the curtain wall tool than I and I would like to know what specific good and bad things you might have found.

The curtain wall tool is quite good as it stands and promises good things for the future. I understand that it is the prototype for a new class of assembly type tools and should see some significant improvements and siblings coming.

If you want to start a discussion about it I recommend opening a new topic though.

[Anonymous]

Matthew wrote:
The curtain wall tool is quite good as it stands and promises good things for the future. I understand that it is the prototype for a new class of assembly type tools and should see some significant improvements and siblings coming.

The curtain wall tool is a great tool and a great start.
The problem with AC is that in the past releases the GOOD NEW features are too few to justify a NEW release. They pack 1-2 good stuff, with few super minor fixes (that can be programmed in a week by a single person) and make a new version. The pace of innovation is SLOW.

If we pack AC 10-11-12 in a single release, then that is what i would call a single release. With this pace AC is left behind. Its already clear that Revit, once lacking alot compared to AC, now is ATLEAST equal (i would say better). AC needs to reestablish its position. It need to be a 3D software. I understand that is hard for an existing 2.5D program (such as Archicad) to re-write its code to support full 3D, but from the users perspective this is not an excuse.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Chazz wrote:
...... It's ArchiCAD driving architects away from ArchiCAD.
........I'd dump it [ArchiCAD.] in a heartbeat except for one thing: it's really hard to switch.

.........and so you choose instead, to stay with it and complain incessantly, while perpetually praising its main rival................which you can't (wouldn't?) switch to....................because its too hard.

And this makes sense how?

Especially seeing as you seem to be implying that you have no other choice. Which, of course would bring to light the fact, (that you forgot to mention), that Revit has no native Mac version.
And as you are ostensibly a Mac user, using the best BIM application on the Mac platform, switching would mean either Parallels/Bootcamp (tons of fun with resource hog Revit, I'm sure, not to mention that whole Windows thing that you Mac users love so much) or, of course, Vectorworks.

Or alternative just stay with ArchiCAD............and whine.

Tough choice. I think I see your predicament now.

[Chazz]

Rob wrote:
Chazz, sorry I have missed your title in your signature... well, that sums it all up mate.

Right. I try to be out front with it. D'ya think I should up the font size?

Bricklyne wrote:
Or alternative just stay with ArchiCAD............and whine.

Per the sig (and I won't ask about yours), I don't "whine".

I natter
------------------

I think my point, which is a small one and perhaps not even worth belaboring (certainly not to Bricklyne) is that while AC may be a capable product currently, I see dark storm clouds on the horizon in the form of the Revit suite. Moreover, smart people shopping for a BIM tool will not choose the best one currently but the one best positioned for the long hall. It's hard to make the case that the product with the rosiest future is AC. Lastly, regardless of the relative merits of each tool, the decline of AC and the rise of Revit is not a theoretical future I'm speculating about but a demonstrable fact here in the USA using the best two metrics easily available (and as discussed exhaustively elsewhere on the forum): Craigslist job postings and Google trends. Both paint a pretty clear picture of what the market has to say about the situation.

However, the prevailing position on this forum seems to be (as Dwight so succinctly repeats): "ignore them and they will go away". I'm pushing back against that. That's all.

Mostly I'm frustrated and bummed to see this wotrkflow --something that I've invested an enormus amount of time in (I've given you the best years of my life) just completely poop out.

[Chazz]

Matthew wrote:
[Revit is] OK but not better than ArchiCAD. Why the eagerness to switch?

Thanks as always Matthew. Maybe the more interesting question here is "is there room for two programs with such strongly overlapping feature-sets and goals?" does the market need or want ArchiCAD and Revit?

What about in other markets? There are a several photo editing apps out there but no professional pixel-pusher is without Photoshop. It rules even in a sea of open file formats like jpg and tif. Conversely, there are a bunch of general purpose 3D modeling apps, as well as tons of rendering tools, even though this is a pretty mature market. On the other hand, there used to be several portable document schemes in the world, but none exist now save PDF.

Does the BIM market want multiple architectural modeling players or just one? It would seem to me that the interoperability needs of BIM users, however difficult they are to satisfy in the real world, argue for less players not more and maybe it is a winner-take-all world like PDF. I don't claim to know the answer, but this could be the most important question in divining the future of ArchiCAD.

Matthew wrote:
I have also had occasions where the only readily available drawings are PDF. In Revit this means looking back and forth between the Revit window and either printed documents or another screen displaying the PDF (I have had to do this and it is a pain in the neck). In ArchiCAD I can overlay and easily check and adjust the model.

We usually convert the PDFs to DWG and bring in actual linework ('course this only works on vector PDFs). It's a pain but its better that referring to paper.

[Rob]

However, the prevailing position on this forum seems to be (as Dwight so succinctly repeats): "ignore them and they will go away". I'm pushing back against that. That's all.

Mostly I'm frustrated and bummed to see this wotrkflow --something that I've invested an enormus amount of time in (I've given you the best years of my life) just completely poop out.

I do not think this is a true. I reckon the problem is that AC users have not ever been forced to face a real competition over almost two decades and when the competition has arrived we all seem to 'cope' with that fact differently. It is a natural reaction I believe we will get used to (and some of us already has) but it does not mean we have to slip into a 'chronic' pessimism all the time.

I've given you the best years of my life

and I believe you have enjoyed them... anyway you sound like a bored housewife finding her husband in a bed with his blond secretary...

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

Chazz wrote:
We are QuarkExpress. They are InDesign […] I'd dump it in a heartbeat except for one thing: it's really hard to switch. […] Mostly I'm frustrated and bummed to see this wotrkflow --something that I've invested an enormus amount of time in (I've given you the best years of my life) just completely poop out.

You definitely 'are' not ArchiCAD, you are not even married to ArchiCAD.

Switching cannot be that painful --certainly not more painful than using a product that you think is not the best for your circumstances. A lot of the pseudo-industry is making the much harder 2D-to-3D switch only now, so you are years ahead of them.

Your supposed invested time was never an asset but rather have been operating expenses. With every release you have had to unlearn stuff and learn new tools and methods, fix templates, and done stuff with that. Hopefully it made sense this far --the moment you think something else makes more sense then you should switch, or at least have an intense fling and reassess the situation.

If you just do what you think is right you will not suffer all that negativity.