ArchiCAD is such a pain after AutoCAD!

[Anonymous]

I have only been using ArchiCAD for a few months after using AUtoCAd for ten years and so far I am finding it far worse than AutoCAD, I have to say.

Why anyone would actually choose to use this program over AutoCAD is beyond me especially as drawing 3d architecture is just plain ridiculous IMO!!

I mean does anyone here actually draw architecture in 3d? Because I find the 3d library so limiting in terms of my design wishes. What do I do if I want a certain glass staircase or somethign else that isnt in the library? Surely not design a new 3d model of it!?

And how can you draw a site using different levels, manholes, car spaces, drives etc all at different levels in 3d?

This whole fascination with 3d in architectrure really loses me - I just dont see the point in it and it definitely limits your design ability to waht is in the software.

Give me AutoCAD anytime!!

Anyone with any argument for using it? Please only respond if you are someone who isnt just doing houses or venacular buildings but 'proper' architecture!

Nats

[__archiben]

s2art wrote:
You'd think, then, that someone from the company would be able to give enough advice to supplement "nats" single day of training.

mate - have you ever worked in a UK architectural archicad practice?!

(that's why i asked nats who the company was)

[Anonymous]

Worked in London for 7 1/2 years, not ArchiCAD tho. TP Bennett Partnership. '89-'96

[Petros Ioannou]

Correct me if I am wrong but Nats point is that archicad restrains his creativity. That is the case in every CAD /BIM application as long as you start drawing directly on a blank screen....
IMHO nothing matches paper towel sketches or a very raw (but full of information) hand-drawn plan.
But that's my opinion, people say that they can be productive with just a PC.
What I am trying to say is that productivity and architecture have nothing to do with the kind of software, rapidographs or whatever you are using. It has to do with you (the architect).
Hell, architecture exists long before the introduction of CAD, layers, pen sets etc.
Petros

[Anonymous]

Link wrote:
I was debating whether I even wanted to read a thread with a title like that. But I thought I'd give it a shot and I see you've done the online equivalent of running into a room full of your fellow professionals and screamed at the top of your voice 'I don't know how to use this program so it sucks!!'.

It sounds like you're chucking a tantrum mate:

I've similarly heard that BIMs are the way the industry is heading and like I said I could maybe see it happening in perhaps 10- 20 years time. But at the moment it just isnt feasible

I'm just glad Edison, Einstein, Da Vinci & co didn't share the same foresight and vision as yourself

Get some training Nats and chill out. It's not uncommon for AutoCAD users to be resentful and sometimes close-minded about having to 'start all over again' and learn ArchiCAD. Trust me, you're not the first and you won't be the last. Some embrace the chance to better their lives, some repel it. You're obviously the latter. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard '...but in AutoCAD we can do this... I'd have $589.50. The truth is that most users who become proficient with ArchiCAD would *never* turn back.

Maybe it's a good idea to show this to your employer to help convince them that they need to invest an appropriate amount of time for you to either RTMF or getting some training.

First off I dont intend to offend anyone, the comment about him not being an architect was just getting across the fact that I was trying to get comments from architects not 3d modellers who obviously specialise in their 3d software whereas architects dont often have the time for such luxuries.

As for the rest of the above I do sound panicked and maybe I am - probably because I dont a have the required training and I can see how much is ahead of me in terms of a learning curve - it is quite scary. But I think everyone is right that once I do one project in full 3d I will have a far better appreciation of the program. Problem is it is still difficult finding the time to learn a new piece of software at the best of times never mind such a complex one.

Anyway no doubt I will need to learn how to use it properly eventually so it might as well be sooner rather than later.

Thanks for all your comments.

Nats

[Eduardo Rolon]

Well I am an architect, I also teach AC at a school of architecture. I am an user of Autocad since R11 and I also teach it. With that out of the way these are my recommendations to see if they help.

1) If you learned autocad by yourself, the main error a new user might have by switching to another app is that you are trying to work in AC as you worked on the previous one. This is a good thing since it means that you are willing to learn and you are not of the type of person that goes "This is the way I was taught and any other way is WRONG".
2) The main concept to learning either AC or Revit is to think that you are designing your project by building a cardboard model. You are selecting objects that you specify their characteristics and choose where to locate them. Avoid thinking "how do I draw THIS?" and switch to "Where do I need this wall, or "What type of window goes here?". This IME has been the best way to get students to conceptually understand AC.

Autocad's architectural drawing procedure is:
1) draw a floor plan
2) from this floor plan start generating other drawings
3) revise any drawing
4) identify and draw the changes on all affected drawings

Archicad's drawing procedure is:
1) build the model
2) define the different views that you need
3) revise the model
4) verify how the changes affected all the views

Another concept you need to understand is that every object that you select is not a symbol (or wblock) or a group of lines but is 3dimensional. This means that every object on a BIM app has a floor plan representation (that you can control) and it has section and elevation based on its 3d parameters (that you can control also). The result is that once an object is defined and placed you get all your drawings done, you might want to change its parameters and you can do so on any view where the object is present.
The result of this is that even if you draw 4 lines to represent a wall in Autocad "faster" than choosing the wall parameters in AC, you still have to keep drawing (or copying and pasting) those lines that represent the wall on all the drawings and if something changes you have to redraw all again. In AC once the wall is placed you are done.

HTH

[Anonymous]

Nats,

I, like many others here, can understand your frustration. When i started with my firm a few years ago (as an architect, not a 3D modeler) i had hardly even heard of ArchiCAD and was a AutoCAD stalwart since college days. I got thrown in the deep end, did the tutorials, asked lots of questions here and now i wouldnt question its abilities to do what i need.
That is not to say i am an expert, there is loads that still confuses me and i'm quite sure i dont use the package to its full yet either but i know, and more importnatly understand, what its capable of which is the key i think.
Keep going and you'll understand it too, the initial learning curve i found relatively quick, it then takes a while to get to know the real bones of it.

If its any consolation however, we had an experienced architect join us who had only ever worked in 3D, and he had to start learning and using 2D AutoCAD, and he had the exact same problem as you but in reverse - weird huh.......

[Anonymous]

interesting discussion.....but not to get off the subject....if Autodesk is such a great product.....why does 85% of their profits come 3d studio....

I see more and more firms veering away from it....

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

I would guess 98% of ArchiCAD users have first been pretty decent 2D drafters with Autocad or Minicad or whatever.

So we have all felt the frustration nats feels, when you are learning and can't control the damned thing (this applies to any program, and is harder when you already are comfortably doing what you intend to do in some other program). I would guess having a sense of direction would help --if you have checked out ArchiCAD, decided this is the way to go however painful the transition is, etc., you have more chances of making it through than in the situation nats is describing.

If you still want arguments for thinking the thing through, nats (as opposed to reshuffling prejudices, which is what typically goes for thought), one fact I find very significant is that I have never been aware of *a single* ArchiCAD (or for that matter Revit) user that somehow made it through the transition and decided to go back to the 2D world. That is to say: the transition, especially if mismanaged, may require too much of an effort and defeat you, but if you make it through you will never want to come back --in that possible future you are looking at yourself today and thinking 'omigosh the days I was stuck in the flatcad world'.

[Anonymous]

nats wrote:
Did I mention that the firm mainly does church work ie restoration work and conservation. .

Nats

So the architect of the church is obviously dead!
As a result, you are not even a draftsman but a copyist.
Just kidding but you sounds pretty snobbish.
Talking about Churches, Gothic Builders did not use perspective drawings.
Brunelleschi uses them, even mechanically. Just to show what was in his brain.
Real architects. Maybe you need to take some credits in history of arch before AC training.
Who said AC replaces your brain? It's just a tool, another tool.
Bad or good architecture, there is a time you have to materialize your design.
Personally, I like the process of progressively materializing my preliminary drawings with walls column, slabs. I feel, I am more able to preserve the design this way.
But my brain always needs my little sketchbook. Maybe you prefer your yellow tracing paper roll…
But drawing lines and circle (as you said about Acad) instead of walls and slabs does not make you a more "real architect".
Very approximate English but a master degree, if you care.

[Anonymous]

Philippe wrote:
Just kidding but you sounds pretty snobbish.

??Why is stating that a firm does churches to be considered snobbish? I dont like doing churches and havent got involved in them yet. I prefer hi-tech architecture myself! I can't see how doing a certain type of architecture is above any other type.

Anyway the whole point of this thread was to argue how architectural draughting is changing and how until now it was difficult enough getting architects to use 2d CAD programs (I know many who dont some quite young). The thing that becomes immediately apparent from using ArchiCAD is that it takes a huge leap in terms of technological knowledge to even try to create what you want to. With AutoCAD its as simple as drawing it and isnt too far removed from a drawing board. But ArchiCAD is reliant so much on the capabilities of the program, that if you want something else that isnt in the program you have to know about scripting and all manner of other things. Most architects just arent interested in this stuff. So that will limit your creativity.

And needing to do things that arent in the program arises all the time:

For example Ive just been trying to create a window with sloping jambs which has different angled jambs on both sides in AC9. Can I do it straight from the window utility - not a chance! Ive found the only way to get something that looks right is to do an opening with sloped jambs, then insert a wall that is narrower than the opening, and then to insert the window into that wall. But the whole thing still looks strange on plan.

Now many people here who are specialists may know how to do this easily. But I cant and will need to learn specifically how to do it. ANd there are millions of other aspects to the program that need learning in the same way.

Anyway Im sure you get the gist.

I like the program and particularly creating nice 3d images. I actually prefer it over AutoCAD in some ways and can see the capabilities. But AutoCAD provides you with flexibility and enables you to get anything done quickly. ArchiCAD doesnt unless you know it inside and out. I dont even know AuotCAD all that well and Ive been using it for ten years!

This is why, despite what Autodesk and Graphsoft think, I cant see 3d BIM models taking off in any form for years yet, probably not until the new generation of architects arrives that have been trained on them from the start.

Personally I would prefer to go back to drawing boards they were far more pleasant to use than CAD anyway! I dont think that makes me a dinosaur. Perhaps if many people here had used drawing boards as architects they might agree.

Nats