Thinking Revit vs ArchiCAD? Stick this thread!

[Anonymous]

Some of you are aware of the noise coming from the Revit user community regarding the new release and how many users are frustrated that long-standing wishes were not met, and instead we got a half-baked UI that might work out in the end, but was not asked for.

A widely respected Revit user and implementor (see http://architechure.blogspot.com) who worked for Revit pre and post Autodesk buyout has blogged clearly and humourously about the shortcomings of the new release.

And now he's being pushed out by Autodesk -- he's being told that he can't speak at Autodesk University, the annual educational conference held in Las Vegas. His sessions are a gold mine to Revit users, and he's become a mentor to many of us in our quest to master the software.

But he didn't toe the company line, so he's gone.

Do you folks want to use software from a company that behaves more like a cult than a software vendor?

Long live ArchiCAD.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Easy Wes, or you will get banned too.

When I had to buy software for my practice I rejected Autodesk for the company not the product and the issue that opened my eyes happened in 2001.

[Anonymous]

I was banned a long time ago

Our leadership over at AUGI is getting pretty frustrated with Autodesk corporate policy...

[Anonymous]

ejrolon wrore:
When I had to buy software for my practice I rejected Autodesk for the company not the product and the issue that opened my eyes happened in 2001.

Just curious, could you elaborate more?... Im thinking of buying revit

[Anonymous]

It might be Autodesk's policy of "retiring" software after three years -- if you don't pay for upgrading then, you'll pay full price for the software after that.

With AutoCAD they had to do that because new releases just weren't compelling enough for people to pay up. Revit has generally not had that problem -- upgrades have always been no-brainers.

[Eduardo Rolon]

It was a combination of the unnecessary yearly upgrades, being burned by a software lock right before a deadline and the sales reps from Autodesk.

I remember being at a CAD University at San Rafael and being in a meeting where all the dealers were asking Autodesk to make the installing procedure more difficult so they could charge their clients money for installing the software.

Also at the time that I was planning what software to use Revit hadn't been bought by Autodesk and AC was more feature complete.

[Anonymous]

It could be funny if it wasn't sad! It makes me wonder why people still continue to buy Autodesc's products?!?

Let me share my experience with them:
I don't use Autocad in my work for several years. I have it in my signature because I have used it since R14 and I know it in detail.
Last year I was invited to work in cooperation with a foreign firm who used Autocad R2006. I knew from previous experience that sometimes Autocad messed up files from different releases, especially fonts, so, I definitely wanted R2006. But Autodesk resellers told me the oldest version they could offer me was R2007! I asked if I could use a R2006 with a R2007 serial number and the answer was negative. This can be done with Windows - if you have the latest version you could use whatever old version you like legally! You have payed them and thats what matters to them! Autodesk resellers suggested that the other company should upgrade!

[Anonymous]

i've just been having a play with the family/component builder. And you can see why Revit is gaining momentum (becoming more of a standard). Library generation is just easier. Our GDL is more powerful, however harder to use. Autodesk has dumbed it down for the masses.

[Anonymous]

Without knowing terribly much about GDL's capabilities, I can tell you that Revit's family building capabilities range from the basic to psychotically advanced.

One architect had pretty much proven cosine law with all the mathematical formulae inside their curtain wall families...

[Anonymous]

Yes i'm the opposite (know a lot more about GDL).
from what i've seen of Revit 2010 they make it far easier for the 'normal' user to create 'families'. Which is a huge plus. Hence the reason why i think it's being adopted so fast recently.

Also when you log into Revit, the first window asks if you would like to start a new project or a new family/component. Where as in ArchiCAD you are not made as aware of the GDL scripting window.

Just little things, but IMO they are quite big when you are trying to make something an industry standard. Will be interesting to see what happens.