switching from revit to archicad

[Anonymous]

hi, i'm new to archicad... kinda. i used version 6 ages ago but have been using revit since 2006. i thought it would be a piece of cake getting back into archicad but find i'm mistaken. i've done the basic interactive training but have difficulty doing the exercises on my own. could be because i'm trying the same approach as in revit, which doesn't work, obviously.

anyone here made the switch? any tips on how to un-revit my thinking?

[Thomas Holm]

greenfin wrote:
any tips on how to un-revit my thinking?

Interesting subject. I haven't used Revit. I would say do all the basic tutorials you can find, and try to get the knack on the workflow there. Of course there's a risk you might get bored and start jumping steps, since you're a seasoned CAD user.
I personally start modeling in the floor plan (in most cases), use the 3D window for checking, then create sections and elevations and perhaps 3D views as well.

I try to use a template's layer combinations from the beginning.
When the model starts to get advanced enough, I start to save views (use the view map in the Navigator). Then I create one or more master layouts, and then open the Organizer and place saved views on the layouts. Then i use the Organizer again and create publisher sets and include layouts in them using the create shortcut button.

I guess some people with more Revit experience can help you better.

Matthew L? Tom W?

[David Larrew]

I have a feeling that you are not alone (at least, will not be alone in the near future). I am directly hearing a growing dissatisfaction with Revit users who are struggling to make the switch to "BIM". Unfortunately, the users that are suffering with the software are not the ones that Autodesk has convinced that Revit is the right solution. This is why GS really needs to get a great marketing campaign going... But that is another thread.

In the end, software is a tool just like a pencil and paper. Once you learn the basics on how to use the tool, as long as the tool works, you will be able to utilize the tool to do your job.

As I tell any new user of ArchiCAD when they are first starting out... Forget everything that you know about your old CAD package, and don't fall-back on your old "reliable" way of doing things. Yes, it is painful to learn something new, but AC is really easy to get productive quickly.

Good luck, and welcome back to the "light" side.

[TomWaltz]

David wrote:
I have a feeling that you are not alone (at least, will not be alone in the near future). I am directly hearing a growing dissatisfaction with Revit users who are struggling to make the switch to "BIM".

I doubt they'll be much happier on Archicad. Right now, we get to see two products with different development histories providing very similar user frustrations: A lot of workarounds to achieve the something resembling the promises the vendor makes in their marketing material.

I've been hearing "my brother's roommate's cousin" stories about Revit and how bad it is almost from the day it hit the market. It's funny how they mostly occur on Archicad (or other competitor's) sites and not so much on the Revit ones.

Every software has stories about people who could and could not make it work. It's the stories about the people who succeeded that interest me a lot more than the stories about those who could not.

[Thomas Holm]

greenfin wrote:
... any tips on how to un-revit my thinking?

Can we get back to the subject of this thread, please? greenfin asked for practical advice, not general views on why or why not?

[Anonymous]

when i first used archicad back in 2000 (version 6) i had no problem learning it. i had no previous BIM experience back then so maybe that helped in that i had no preconceived ideas about how it worked. (i'd been using autocad but that's a completely different matter.) change of employment led me back to autocad until another introduced me to revit. learning revit wasn't a problem either, it just felt more intuitive somehow. another move will bring me to archicad country, hence the need to switch back. but either archicad has changed so much since version 6 or my brain has been completely altered from revit use or as i get older learning new things or even re-learning them gets harder.

is there an 'archicad for dummies' out there? would any of the ff be any good in my case?

'ArchiCAD: Best Practice: the Virtual Building Revealed'

'Training Guide for Archicad 11: Step By Step' by Simmons

[Thomas Holm]

I suppose you have worked through all these: http://www.graphisoft.com/products/archicad/ac11/ITG/

and http://www.archicad.ca/ is excellent. Google is your friend!

[Chazz]

Thomas wrote:
Can we get back to the subject of this thread, please? greenfin asked for practical advice, not general views on why or why not?

Thanks Thomas. Speaking as an occasional (some might say incorrigible) thread hijacker, this is an especially juicy topic to hijack. Everyone has an opinion.

. . .

The very best aid to learning ArchiCAD is not the tutorial or the DVD (though both can be helpful). In fact, the best learning aid for ArchiCAD also happens to be the best for Revit. The best learning aid is...... a deadline.

The truth is that it's hard to get fired up about someone else's tutorial exercise but there is no motivation on earth like a client and a deadline. Take it for granted that your first project will be an acid party in terms of process and product so you have to just get over your perfectionism but it is these mini fiascos that fuel your desire to do it right in future. As my touchy-feely professor at the U of California said "transformation only comes when you want it like that next breath of oxygen." To greenfin beta I say go for it.

[Thomas Holm]

Chazz wrote:
The very best aid to learning ArchiCAD is not the tutorial or the DVD (though both can be helpful). In fact, the best learning aid for ArchiCAD also happens to be the best for Revit. The best learning aid is...... a deadline.

I'd like to add that a day or two of hands-on training by a professional Archicad trainer is probably worth it's cost several times over. YOu know the small time-savers "do it in this order" etc.

And Chazz, I think it's time you change your signature! There are others that aspire for the negativity throne...

[Chazz]

Thomas wrote:
I'd like to add that a day or two of hands-on training by a professional Archicad trainer is probably worth it's cost several times over. You know the small time-savers "do it in this order" etc..

When I train, I request that users have a real project to work on (again with a real deadline) and that they have begun some work on it. The best approach in my experience seems to be 4 hour session (max) with the student banging his head on the project solo for the rest of the day. I suggest that they keep a clipboard with them to log questions. Doing that a few times per week is an effective regime, IMHO.

But Karl or Tom Waltz or Matthew or James or someone summed it up best when they said training makes no difference at all if the student only sees that ArchiCAD is different/harder/lamer than his/her last CAD tool. Attitude is everything. You need to want it like that next breath of oxygen.

[Thomas Holm]

Chazz wrote:
You need to want it like that next breath of oxygen.

So true.

[Chazz]

Thomas wrote:
And Chazz, I think it's time you change your signature! There are others that aspire for the negativity throne...

I heard an interview with William Safire the other day (he is the original author of the expression and used it in a speech he wrote for Richard Nixion). I shuddered when I heard that I had misquoted the expression. It should be "nattering nabobs of negativism" Typical linguistic sloppiness on my part.....

Did someone say thread hijack?

Edit Safire wrote it for Nixion's VP, the infamous Spiro Agnew.

Edit Edit Though others may try, none can be as truly negative as me and therefore I'll never relinquish the throne willingly. It must be pried from my cold dead fingers....

[Thomas Holm]

Chazz wrote:
Did someone say thread hijack?

Yes. You. But This time, I hope Mr. greenfin has got what he needed.

Safire wrote it for Nixion's VP, the infamous Spiro Agnew.

You mean he put those words in his mouth? Was he even capable of pronouncing them?

Though others may try, none can be as truly negative as me and therefore I'll never relinquish the throne willingly. It must be pried from my cold dead fingers....

I simply don't believe that.

[Anonymous]

While you bash Revit ... this software is silently consolidating the future 😉

[Chazz]

refs wrote:
While you bash Revit ... this software is silently consolidating the future 😉

who's bashing? I think the consensus of this list is that Revit is developing at such a rapid rate that Autodesk will make tremendous inroads into the BIM market ArchiCAD included.

[Anonymous]

refs wrote:
While you bash Revit ... this software is silently consolidating the future 😉

I can not begin to guess what "consolidating the future" might be, sounds like a cheap space opera, but one thing you can not accuse Autodesk of being is silent in their push for the BIM gold mine (now they have dried out the flatCad one).

As for the best way to learn a software: Get someone who knows and is willing to share, get his/her skype number, and squeeze him/her as far as you can.

Worked with me

[Anonymous]

thanks for all your advice, tips, words of encouragement... since my destiny with archiCAD is still a few months off, i guess i'm procrastinating and not really trying my best. i know that archiCAD has some features that are superior to revit but revit is a hell easier to learn. i challenge you guys to download their trial version and after going through the basic tutorials, you'll be good to go. it's simply much more intuitive i tell you. i'm not trying to 'win you over' to revit, i just want you to see how frustrating it is for me not being able to come to grips with the basics of archiCAD. and i had even worked with it before!

why can i not simply click on a wall and stretch it or specify its length or change the level heights in elevation view by clicking on the level lines or change the values by clicking on it and typing the new value? why? or more like why not?!

sorry for ranting and raving ... that's how frustrated i am.

p.s. mr greenfin beta is a she.

[Anonymous]

greenfin wrote:
why can i not simply click on a wall and stretch it or specify its length or change the level heights in elevation view by clicking on the level lines or change the values by clicking on it and typing the new value?

Click and stretch is doable.
Heights you can change in elevation by specifying the height (wasn't that you wanted for length of wall?)

greenfin wrote:
p.s. mr greenfin beta is a she.

You should have told that right in the first place. My bet is you would have gotten a lot more help 😉

[Anonymous]

Hah! I was at the end of the BIM Experience Chapter 2 exercise when it told me to:
"Now switch to the View Map in the Navigator and locate the
worksheet on which we placed the original DWG floorplan."
It was nowhere in the View Map but I figured it has got to be somewhere so I looked in the Project Map, where it was, of course. Then I had to
"Right-click on it, and from the upcoming context menu, select the
“use as trace reference” command."
Did that. No problem there. Then the tough part:
"In the trace and reference palette, switch on the feature called “visual compare”. With the help of the 4 handles on the 4 sides of your floorplan, you can “peel back” your ArchiCAD floorplan - similar to
physical tracing papers - and compare it with the DWG floorplan."
I passed the cursor over all the icons in the palette but there was no "visual compare" anywhere. So I started clicking away at the icons I was unfamiliar with and, lo and behold, "Show/Hide Splitter" did what "visual compare" is supposed to do.
I wonder if the terms used on Macs and on Windows vary. The graphics is slightly different so that's possible. I'm using Windows, btw, but the BIM Experience Kit I downloaded seems to be for Macs although I definitely clicked on 'for Windows' when I downloaded it.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Now, I do not think this is different between Mac and Windows.
The instructions were not correct.

[Anonymous]

laszlonagy wrote:
Now, I do not think this is different between Mac and Windows.
The instructions were not correct.

Thanks. Good to know that as we'll be using Macs... So is there really a 'visual compare' icon somewhere or is this 'splitter' thing it?

And the saga continues (I can only do one chapter a day as I'm still working with Revit)...

Create the Slabs called for by the “3.2.3 Slab-04/03” pre-set
View. After creating the outline using SPACE-click,
SHIFT-click the newly created Slab while the Slab Tool is
active, and click the polygons that are pointed to by the other
Labels to create the holes within the Slab polygon. These
holes will be cut into the body of the Slab.[/color]

I followed the instructions as described above but the holes do not appear. I clicked on 3D to see if maybe they're there somewhere where I can't see them on the plan, but there was nothing on the 3D Window, not even the slabs I'd been working on. I zoomed in, zoomed out, panned. Nada! What did I do wrong?