being FORCED to work in REVIT - pickup time ?

[Anonymous]

So today I was offered a position from a small firm who've recently moved to "REVIT from Autocad, so they can utilize BIM" as the HR consultant described it, or something along those lines.

I have nothing against REVIT or Autocad in general, other than I started with version R14 before switching to archicad. Autocad wasn't fun and Archicad, well everyone here knows how good Archicad is.

My question is has anyone recently been forced to use revit, and if so, how long has it taken to pick it up.

At the very least, i'm keen to understand why this firm has "switched" from autocad to Revit, or why they were even using Autocad in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Having come to Archicad from Revit, I would ask how long did it take you to become proficient in Archicad? Probably take slightly less to learn Revit because the basic BIM principles are the same. I don't know what country you are from but Autocad was the predominant drafting program in the US and Canada for the last 40 years. Over the last number of years, firms have been switching to Revit and it's BIM advantages. There are still a LOT of Autocad users.
With regard to Revit, I think it is a very powerful program, (as is Archicad). I find Revit is much more logical than Archicad but perhaps that is more a comment about how my mind works than anything else. Both programs have their pluses and minuses but it quite useful to know both.
Kris

[Anonymous]

Australia.
cheers Kris

[Bricklyne Clarence]

A lot of firms that were formerly AutoCAD firms (i.e pretty much most firms here in North America) tend to switch to Revit when they make the jump to BIM - primarily because the company that owns both software - Autodesk - has a marketing policy that funnels AutoCAD users and using firms into using Revit.

Especially in North America where the two primary CAD software used to be AutoCAD and Vectorworks (mostly for Mac/Apple using firms).

So if you're a small firm that knows almost nothing about BIM but want to make the switch, you'll probably have your reseller tell you (more like hard-sell you) that Revit is the way to go. And since they don't know any better or know any other alternatives, a lot of firms just blindly follow and make the switch - particularly because they're scared of getting left behind in the technological shift.

As for learning, if you're already an ArchiCAD user, then you'll probably find Revit much more easier to pick up (than if you were learning it from scratch) since they work on the same principles (but do a lot of things differently, most of which you might find annoying on the Revit end)

I know both software and in my experience with a lot of people who know both, you'll find people will tell you that ArchiCAD is more intuitive to how we as architects and designers think and DESIGN (rather than draft), whereas Revit is usually geared towards documentation and drafting and is thus more "rigid", mechanical and not as flexible.

I don't envy you at all.
It can be painful in some respects going from ArchiCAD to Revit.