Looking for an objective opinion as to how well Archicad does construction documents

[Anonymous]

I'm looking for a long term software solution that does the best job with making construction documents. I've been playing with Sketchup and Rhino but feel that the process for turning the model into condocs is clunky.

Other contending software that I'm looking at are:

Revit
Chief Architect
Softplan

If anyone has experience with any of those for condocs please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks.

[Tim Ball]

I use AC to create a complete 3D model of my building including all the specification information. From that model I can then extract all the plans, elevations, sections, 3D details I need and place them on layouts as drawings. Those drawings are then published to PDF or any other format you need.

I can also extract the specification and most simple quantities.

The same model is used to create a BIMX file that includes 3D, drawings and specification embedded in the 3D elements.

Now this is a pretty advanced way of working, but is increasingly common amongst other users. I don’t know the capability of the other programmes but you could check and see what they can do as well.

I recommend talking to users not the software companies as users have true knowledge of what works and makes you money.

I am doing a webinar about this through LearnVirtual on 1st March. You can find their website and take a look if you are interested.

[gpowless]

I have been using ARCHICAD since V.6. Before I purchased ARCHICAD 6.0 I explored and tested Chief Architect and Softplan and have re-evaluated both on and off through the last 18 years.

Chief Architect is quick to learn and use at a rudimentary level. I have found that to do anything creative beyond 4 walls is increasingly difficult. The final construction drawings it produces seem to me to be simple and inaccurate. I wouldn't recommend it.

Softplan is a little more robust. I think its niche is limited to mainly small home designs. The last time I tested it I found that I had to try to defeat some of its common tool behavior to get it to do what I wanted. That could have been my inexperience but it turned me off completely. The output produces reasonable accurate contruction drawings. A collegue of mine used it for a couple of years but always had complaints about non-standard roof creation. He ultimately turned back to AutoCad to increase his efficiency and accuracy.

For small buildings (under 6000 sq ft) I think SoftPlan goes head to head with Revit or Archicad but for larger buildings I have my doubts.

When I first started my practice ARCHICAD had everything I was looking for. At the time it was pricey. One had to purchase the full version without the options we have today. But I was producing decent construction drawings within 2 weeks.

To me it was like Microsoft Word. You can type a letter right away without having to learn many of its feature. But as you gain experience the features built in reduce the time & repetitiveness of operations. With ARCHICAD one can produce complete 3D construction drawings from sheds to complex tall buildings.

The rendering and presentation of design results are far superior to anything I have seen from SoftPlan or Revit. The depth of modelling is flexible and I don't need to use any post-processing software for final models. Many of my designs require countless details and I am always able to convey the design and construction materials and methods to the owners, building offiials and contractors without having to clarify over and over again.

I have rejected Revit over time as a viable platform because 1. it was in its infancy and was suffering from many backward compatible issues and 2. because it is still stuck on being a child of AutoCad which has its roots on repeating drafting board methods and 2D line drawing. I understand Revit has grown up a bit but I'm not convinced enough to move away from something I have been comfortable for 18 years.

[Richard Morrison]

I have used both ArchiCAD and Chief Architect for roughly 20 years each. I'm afraid I have to disagree with gpowless about Chief Architect. If you are doing primarily mainstream residential, especially in the U.S., it has gotten very powerful and is quite impressive. There is little reason to think it is inaccurate, and it has features like cabinets and framing that far exceed what ArchiCAD is capable of at the moment. You should watch the video on their website, and give it a spin. However, if you are doing things like canted walls, highly intricate details, commercial/large projects, renovations, and/or especially working with other people on the same project, you will be happier with ArchiCAD.

Revit: I can't stand the interface or the company that produces it, so nothing good to say there. But I have colleagues who seem to like it. (Although very few people who also have spent time with ArchiCAD seem to prefer Revit.)

Softplan: For residential, it does very nice drawings, but pretty mainstream production quality. When I evaluated last, it required many files to consolidate into a single project, so seemed heavy on file management, but that may have changed.

I'm surprised that you aren't including Vectorworks in your evaluation mix. From a purely condoc perspective, I think it does some of the nicest 2D drawings I've seen.

[poco2013]

You neglected to describe your intended use which makes it difficult to compare products as the ones you mentioned are targeted to different markets. To answer your question directly. I'd rate Archicad as superior to any in the area of construction documents in the arena of ease of use, versatility, time, completeness and accuracy. IOW - all areas.

I've used Archicad since version 17 and Chief for about 10 years now. IMNOHO – CA is just adequate for CD, and mostly for mainstream residential. Completely unacceptable for large commercial and somewhere in between for anything else. I would not use CA for any significant commercial project. CA's use in Residential is really dependent on the documentation required by the builder and the review boards - usually not that difficult and with limited specifications. However, I agree, with respect to Kitchen design and their docs, Chief is competitive with any, including 20/20. Wood framing is very good if you agree with their concept. Somewhat problematic to alter and edit. They create a decent B/M but take a lot of short cuts which would cause problems within a commercial contract. Data access is limited and little or no BIM which makes it more difficult to work with trades.

I had access to SoftPlan for about 6 months and found it comparable to CA but offers no real advantage and is not as intuitive. Gave up on it.

Archicad is not a Kitchen design program and is only just adequate there. A nightmare in the area of wood framing and interior design. It takes quite a bit of time (comparatively), forethought and preparation in these areas but there are things you can do in AC that you can not do in residential targeted programs. IOW, Archicad is quite complete, but requires quite a lot of user preparation. Most AC users have a long history and a fairly extensively prepared custom user library and preferences. It has a number of tools that makes a complex design straight forward without workarounds but all require time and expertise. My point is that there is a lot more to consider overall than just Con Docs.

Not knowing your requirements, but I agree and would strongly recommend that you put Vectorworks on your list?

[Anonymous]

Thanks all.

I will put vectorworks on my list and check it out.

Yes, I should have given some details about my intended use. I'm not an architect, I'm a general contractor in northern california, in a somewhat rural area. Most of the residential buildings here are pretty simple. There is not much work for architects here, most of the building is done by contractors and engineers. I've been sub-contracting with another GC that has been building houses for decades in this area (and down to the bay area) and I'm working on my own design and just learning the process of making construction docs for permit approval. I feel there is a little niche side market here for producing CD's for other builders and engineers, as there are not many services for this here. The guy I work with has been doing his by hand with pencil and ruler, if you can believe that. and the person he has just starting using is a woman who is a graphic artist and she does the CDs in Adobe Illustrator, which is basically doing it by hand but with graphics software, (her work comes out really great looking and professional), but he has to feed her every little detail, and it takes her a while.

Anyway, I'm feeling compelled to really learn the design end of construction for a couple of reasons. One, I'm finding the artistic aspect of home design very interesting and rewarding, and two, I feel like I can provide a service for other builders by turning there design ideas into a 3d model and from there producing complete CDs for them.

I'm pretty proficient with Sketchup (not much of a learning curve) and have been trying to use Layout to make CD's of my design but the process feels a bit wonky, but maybe it is as good as it gets, I have nothing to compare it to.

So, that is why I say I'm looking for a software that is really good at producing complete detailed, professional, and pretty 😉 CDs. Though I realize that the modeling of the design is an integral part of the process.

I've been noticing the connection on this forum of Rhino+Grasshopper+Archicad and wondering if that is a good option for taking a Rhino model and exporting to AC for the CD phase? I have some experience with Rhino with non-architectural modeling and really like it, very flexible and powerful, much more so that Sketchup from what I can tell.

[Richard Morrison]

Then, based on what you've just said, Chief Architect should be your program.

[Steve Jepson]

poco2013 wrote:
You neglected to describe your intended use which makes it difficult to compare products as the ones you mentioned are targeted to different markets. To answer your question directly. I'd rate Archicad as superior to any in the area of construction documents in the arena of ease of use, versatility, time, completeness and accuracy. IOW - all areas.

I've used Archicad since version 17 and Chief for about 10 years now. IMNOHO – CA is just adequate for CD, and mostly for mainstream residential. Completely unacceptable for large commercial and somewhere in between for anything else. I would not use CA for any significant commercial project. CA's use in Residential is really dependent on the documentation required by the builder and the review boards - usually not that difficult and with limited specifications. However, I agree, with respect to Kitchen design and their docs, Chief is competitive with any, including 20/20. Wood framing is very good if you agree with their concept. Somewhat problematic to alter and edit. They create a decent B/M but take a lot of short cuts which would cause problems within a commercial contract. Data access is limited and little or no BIM which makes it more difficult to work with trades.

I had access to SoftPlan for about 6 months and found it comparable to CA but offers no real advantage and is not as intuitive. Gave up on it.

Archicad is not a Kitchen design program and is only just adequate there. A nightmare in the area of wood framing and interior design. It takes quite a bit of time (comparatively), forethought and preparation in these areas but there are things you can do in AC that you can not do in residential targeted programs. IOW, Archicad is quite complete, but requires quite a lot of user preparation. Most AC users have a long history and a fairly extensively prepared custom user library and preferences. It has a number of tools that makes a complex design straight forward without workarounds but all require time and expertise. My point is that there is a lot more to consider overall than just Con Docs.

Not knowing your requirements, but I agree and would strongly recommend that you put Vectorworks on your list?

I agree with this assessment about CA and SoftPlan. I was once very good with SoftPlan. I was selling and training for a SoftPlan distributor when he gave me an ArchiCAD demo so I could be informed about how to sell against it. I jumped ship immediately and have never regretted it.

I do not agree at all about any lack of ability with ArchiCAD in producing casework/kitchen cabinet plans and shop drawings. It's not 20/20, but it doesn't need to be. And I really like what I can do with ArchiCAD to produce framing plans, models, diagrams, layouts, schedules... I think this is a matter of skill with the program not it's functionality.

[Anonymous]

In thinking about it more I would say that I have two main requirements of the software package. First and foremost I want to be able to produce Con Docs of the quality that the graphic artist I mentioned does, and do that in much less time than it takes her. Her docs are high end. Beautiful color rendering, and color use for distinguishing things like hot and cold water lines, topo maps etc. It's not just that it is pretty, it is very well laid out and very readable. When you submit plans to the county they'll tell you expect to wait 2-3 months for permit, but the guy I work with says the last couple plans he submitted of her docs the turnaround was only 1 month and he believes it is because of the quality of the docs. If they are very clear, readable, and discernible it makes a difference in the time it takes for the county to approve them, and that is very important to me. Obviously I'm not going to learn to make docs in Illustrator. And maybe there is no arch software that can match that quality, but if there is I want to learn it and am willing to put in the time to really learn it even if it is complex.

I've been looking hard at Chief Architect, downloaded trial and reading forums and tutorials. Here is my sense of CA at this point, and I'm hoping Richard and anyone else with experience can tell me if my assessment is accurate or not. CA is a very fast and easy way to model a relatively simple residential design, and from there it has a streamlined process of creating con docs from that design. But what I'm hearing, and have seen of an actual doc shown on youtube is that the docs do not look good at all, cramped and fuzzy. Maybe CA does not have the 2d toolset to spruce up the docs and improve the layout and readability? Or maybe it is the users lack of deeper knowledge and skill with the software?

The other limitation about CA I'm seeing is that it does not have the flexibility of a Sketchup type modeler. I can build a home in sketchup (fairly quickly) with every stud and sheet of drywall built up. Not that I would need to do that, but I would like to have that functionality. I know I said we do simple construction around here, but I'd like to potentially branch out into more unconventional designs. Does CA have that design flexibility?

I would really like to know if Archicad would meet the requirements that I mentioned. I'm sure it does a lot more that my simple needs, but does it really do the two things I require well?

And I'm wondering further if the best path would be to use Rhino for the design and then export to something like maybe Vectorworks or Archicad for the con docs. Anyone have a sense about that? Maybe that is a question for the Rhino forums.

[poco2013]

Steve wrote:
I think this is a matter of skill with the program not it's functionality.

Everyone is entitled but I disagree (mostly) that it's a matter of skill here. More a matter of familiarity and experience with the programs. Or the degree of training required in comparison. The view posted can be done with a few clicks in residential programs with a complete listing and summaries of all elements without resorting to objects and/or property programing, and without too much training - not impressed if that was you point as i am aware of the effort & time to produce the same in Archicad vs other programs. Same with Kitchens. It's not a matter of "can it be done" but the effort.

I strongly suggest that the poster obtain a demo of Archicad and make the direct comparisons himself.