ArchiCAD and Revit Evaluation Criteria

[Anonymous]

Greetings,

We're a mid-size architectural firm (50-75 people) located on the East Coast of the US specializing in commercial, educational, higher education, retail, and corporate markets. We've been using AutoCAD and ADT for quite some time now with SketchUp being used almost exclusively for all SD and DD imaging. We've come to the conclusion that these tools have out lived their usefulness.

We've started an evaluation process looking at both ArchiCAD and Revit. Our team (8 people) will be professionally trained by outside consultants so they can competently evaluating both tools.

We need suggestions on what type of information gets included in our evaluation criteria. Has anyone gone through this process with both programs? If so, can you give us any tips or directions on what we should be looking for? What are the current advantages and pitfalls to using either program?

Is ArchiCAD generally better than Revit?

Thanks I advance for any replies. We’ll keep everyone updated on our evaluation process.

mj2

[Anonymous]

Wait for official release of Constructor 2007 though. Way better.

[Anonymous]

Miki wrote:
It is hard to say - Revit structure is barely used (I don't know one single company that is really using it it is steel in early development phase) Steel guys use they own tools anyway...Now Revit easier to learn, hmm I don't know. We had classes of Revit with Paul Aubin (ADT & Revit guru - and really nice guy) and it is not that straight forward as Autodesk paint it. Some guys over here prefer Constructor learning curve. Schedules works better? Again - unfortunately not AC nor Revit have this area really developed. Transport to Excel and compiling data is a must. There is quite bright light in Constructor Tunnel. Estimator. It looks impressive. You will be able finally to create real estimate out of model - finally, but ... it is still in development.

Revit has built in clash detection... between Revit models only though. And our best structural engineering firms in Vancouver are all using Revit Structure for modeling/drafting, and connecting the model to RISA or ETABS for analysis. Revit Structure is well developed, though Revit Systems is not as far along.

People are connecting Revit to scheduling apps via the API but I daresay someone at Autodesk or Primavera ought to make that connection easier.

[Anonymous]

Looks that Canada is adopting to BIM faster than US. It is good to know. Can you tell something more about this API connection? How is it done?

[Anonymous]

Vancouver might be faster at implementing the virtual building, but I'm sure there's still more Revit users in the US!

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=2484975
The Revit API allows you to edit objects from outside, create objects, extract data, attach data, etc. Quite powerful, if you don't mind digging in 😉

[Anonymous]

@Metanoia
Can you imagine to have AC? instead of Revit...

[Anonymous]

Yes, I could. I would seriously consider AC if Revit didn't exist.

But I think Revit is the best thing that's happened to AC, and the other way round. Revit got much better database sharing because of Teamwork; you folks are getting tighter connections in your software because of Revit (elimination of Plotmaker, etc.)

Now all we need is for Autodesk to follow suit and give us integrated modeling like you folks have with Maxonform!

[TomWaltz]

metanoia wrote:
Yes, I could. I would seriously consider AC if Revit didn't exist.

But I think Revit is the best thing that's happened to AC, and the other way round. Revit got much better database sharing because of Teamwork; you folks are getting tighter connections in your software because of Revit (elimination of Plotmaker, etc.)

Now all we need is for Autodesk to follow suit and give us integrated modeling like you folks have with Maxonform!

I think Wes is right. Competition improves both products and validates the market. One product could be a fluke. Two in competition mean somebody's buying them

[Anonymous]

@Metanonia
Database sharing is very important thing.
The existance of Revit is also good thing to AC.
The best way to develope is to compare with other things.
The competition between AC and Revit is pure advantage for AC - and Revit user.

[March_ Bruce]

Lack of all but read only pmk support in v10 (all legacy projects from v4.1 are now read only) has been the straw that has broken my back & I am now looking at options like REVIT.

How Graphisoft can drop it's own historical primary output format is beyond explanation - that & the still seemingly nonsensical menu & shortcut revisions shows a seeming lack of respect for the installed user base & has for me dramatically & needlessly increased the complexity of working with my design 'inventory' in an already complex software package...

It has been a disappointment...

[Richard Morrison]

March, wrote:
Lack of all but read only pmk support in v10 (all legacy projects from v4.1 are now read only) has been the straw that has broken my back & I am now looking at options like REVIT.

How Graphisoft can drop it's own historical primary output format is beyond explanation - that & the still seemingly nonsensical menu & shortcut revisions shows a seeming lack of respect for the installed user base & has for me dramatically & needlessly increased the complexity of working with my design 'inventory' in an already complex software package...

It has been a disappointment...

I'm scratching my head trying to understand what you're upset about. Why would you WANT to write PMK's if you're working in the current version? At any rate, the old projects are still perfectly usable.

And you are perfectly free to reorganize the menus and shortcuts in whatever way you want. I believe there are even "legacy" Work Environments that are importable, if you wish.

Do you think the current REVIT is going to write back to REVIT v2.0 format? All those old projects in REVIT are "read-only" - once you've opened them in a current version, you'll be in the current version from then on.