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

[Eduardo Rolon]

AC10 dimensions disappear problem

archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=66355&highlight=amazing+disappearing#66355

though I have not tried it with the new patch

[Anonymous]

gbley wrote:
All this discussion about "producing construction drawings" tells me that you are still looking at drafting as a separate discreet function. It isn't. It is a by-product of the modeling process. Once you grasp this concept and think about enhancing the drawing the model is producing, you will have made a big jump in understanding.

This is exactly the issue that I dont understand. Its very easy to say that in using ArchiCAD properly you have to 'look at detailing as a by product of the modelling process' but that one sentence has loads of problematic implications that I can immediately think of. If you are relying on the 3d model to show all of the detailing then you will effectively have to detail up the entire envelope! Surely you must understand that this would be extremely uneconomical in terms of time - the majority of the detailing would go unseen and be repetitive. You would essentially be doing worse than AutoCAD in terms of repetition. And apart from that how the heck can you do it when the archcad tools are so inflexible - walls blending together, inability to rotate walls and slabs in the x or y axis - all of this can be done far easier in 3d studio max for example. I can see trying to create 3d constructional details out of these tools could be almost impossible in terms of time!

Surely the way the program makers see the program being used is to end the 3d model at tender stage and go into 2d drafting separately after that? Why on earth would you want to detail up a building in 3d? I'm thinking here of complex buildings with rainscreen cladding, curtain walling, suspended floors and the like, not simple vernacular buildings. But then I can see a real problem in trying then to then relate the 2d detailing back into the 3d model. For example doesnt this mean you have to constantly go back and forwards between 3d and 2d trying to somehow correct the 3d model to suit the detailing? Surely that would be impossible.

So the question remains just how do you detail up in ArchiCAD? I can certainly understand going into AutoCAD after Stage E to do the detailing. But then if you arent using the model after tender theres almost no point in producing one at all apart from for visualisation reasons. And I could do a 3d model in 3d studio max far easier than in Archicad. Its almost as if you are using ArchCAD becuase its there and it looks good, then coming up with reasons for why its great to justify the time it takes. But what I can see is that there are significant problems with the way ArchiCAD covers detailing and constructional development that really ruins the whole concept of this BIM model idea.

[Eduardo Rolon]

nats wrote:
…Surely the way the program makers see the program being used is to end the 3d model at tender stage and go into 2d drafting separately after that? Why on earth would you want to detail up a building in 3d?…

IMO

Basic practice is that you model up to 85-90% of the project the extra 10-15 percent is working on the final 2d detailing. The concept here is you build the project in AC up to the point that it is practical but keep the model at alll times . That point is having all the major elements up to lighting and furniture. The trick that you get with experience is how to determine which stuff is modeled and which can be handled in 2d. A good guideline is that all the general drawings (floor plans, elevations, sections, wall sections, site, stairs, reflected ceilings) are linked to the model, the specific details are the ones that use the model as a reference since by that time the model shouldn't change in any major way.

[Anonymous]

gbley wrote:
If Autodesk believed that they could simply wait out this "3-d fad", they wouldn't have introduced Revit!

Even the maker of AutoCAD sees that 2-d flat-cad is on life-support.

I'm not a fanboi for AutoCAD or archiCAD and just because a cad manufacturer decides to change its tune doesnt mean I'm going to blindly comply.

The fact is that in the past visualisation and detailing have always been seen as two distinct and separate parts of architectural development requiring different mind sets, skills and tools. If software like Revit and Archicad are trying to combine both into one almighty process it could be considered by some as being as futile as searching for the meaning of life itself beyond '42'.

[Anonymous]

Nats,
I don't think anybody is suggesting that you completely construct the model to 100%. Maybe that is where the disconnect is happening. For me personally, I take the model to about 80% with all the assemblies etc. This is the reason that ArchiCAD has 2-d tools. No one is foolish enough to try and create a 100% complete model. After having generated a model that is 80 percent complete I then move to "enhancing" the drawings the model creates for you. "Enhancing" is code for adding additional 2-d information. Look for the 2-d detailing tools

Let me take a second to recommend a couple of books for you that certainly helped me transition from a 15 year AutoCAD veteran to BIM. These are Project Framework by Bill Rattenbury and Cadimage Solutions, and ArchiCAD for AutoCAD Usersby Langdon, Byrnes and Grabowski. ArchiCAD for AutoCAD users is a little dated as it came out in support of AC7 I believe, but there is still a great deal of useful information. Project Framework has been updated to AC9 and was instrumental in helping me understand how to efficiently use ArchiCAD.

Let me state again that NO ONE builds a model to 100%. You are absolutely right that it is unrealistic and at some point that last 20% of the model takes way too much time.

Buy those books!
Read those books!

If you still don't get it, move to a firm that will let you continue with AutoCAD up until you are obsolete. No Joke! At some point you are going to have to come to terms with BIM or not. At some point the complaints stop and you roll up your sleeves and work the problem.


Gary Bley

[KeesW]

Nats
Nobody has mentioned the FUN of using Archicad. I also trained in Autocad and got quite good at it. But I never liked it - felt like a CAD jockey instead of an architect. Although I was a director in a medium sized Autocad using practice, I purchased (at my own cost) an Archicad license. That was in about 1997 and it took me a year to unlearn Autocad. The first couple of months were awful. I remember destroying three weeks of work when I removed and severely altered some walls on working drawings of one elevation of my model. Of course, when I returned to the plan, it was completely stuffed. I redrew all the working drawings by hand in 2 days!

But now, I wouldn't go back. I used to enjoy building cardboard and balsawood models of projects. Archicad is just like that - when you are using it, you are building a real thing and it is incredibly exciting and stimulating! If you are content to be a draftsman, stick with Autocad because it's very good for 2D work. But if you have creative urges - want to see what you are drawing and want to check if it can actually be built - give Archicad a serious go. You must get some training though - face to face is best. I endorse the books already mentioned - esp Framework. The first editions contained amazing working drawings and details which convinced me that Archicad could be used for documentation.

If you have to relinquish your beloved drawing board, Archicad is much better than what you have gotten used to.

Go on, give it a try!

KeesW

[Anonymous]

Nats,
I must thank you for making me stumble on to this thread.

In fact I have been facing similar questions with the firm I am consulting to.

As I read on I was so charged up by the discussion that I decided to become a member JUST to be able to post you a reply.

In one short sentence, maybe Archicad just won't cut it for you. Ever. There have been umpteen replys to your original post and if that hasn't convinced you nothing will. Maybe the intention of those replys as is of this one was not to convnce you at all, but defend/justify/explain the stance that people who use and love Archicad (including I) take.

I have never undergone training for Archicad, or any other software (including Autocad) for that matter. Everything I do in Archicad is self learnt, by trial and error most times or by referring the Help file. I wasn't even aware of this forum untill today. It took me some time to understand and apply the software to whatever work I was doing (which is a mix of 'residencial and vernacular'; to schools and shopping malls & multiplex theatres). No churches, so no 'real' architecture I suppose.

It's too bad you don't really have the drive or the time or whatever it takes to learn the software.

Granted there is not a sigle software that'll do EVERYTHING you want it to do (or rather, you TELL it to do); but for architects, Archicad comes close.
there are different facets to the programme that one discovers everytime one runs it.

Remember that the Architect is at the helm of the project and is responsible for the entire thing, including smooth deliverence of all kinds of drawing at all stages of design. I've used the 3d capabilities of the software to not just render, but to design & detail projects as well. In fact one of the only limitations I find in archicad is inability to give dimensions in 3-D for which I have to export to models or parts of models to Sketch-Up.
(some things JUST CANNOT be explained in 2d)

Remeber that all drawing is just a mode of communication, that's all.
And the first person that the designer need to communicate with is HIMSELF. This is where I find Archicad most useful. It lets me design in the 3rd dimension unlike Autocad. I maynot even print out the 3-d drawings in a particular project, but there are two distinct advantages here.

1. I'm not going to have any surprises at the construction level simply because my building is resolved ( I've had this happen on complex structures)
&
2. If I change anything, ABSOLUTELY anything, it reflects in all the parts of the project, without having to spend the already minimal drafting time.

Just for these two thing I'd burn autocad at a stake if I had the chance.

I have not forgotten the good old drafting on tracing paper and blue print days, and maybe you haven't too. In that case revisit your paper drafting days and consider the advantage you felt/feel in autocad. Now think that Archicad/Revit has the same advantage over 2d Drafting.

There you have it.

Perhaps I said things that are more or less repeating all that's been said before, but I had to say it.

& a big Hello to all the members.

ta,
ashy

[Rod Jurich]

Ashy wrote:
Nats,
I must thank you for making me stumble on to this thread.

In fact I have been facing similar questions with the firm I am consulting to.

As I read on I was so charged up by the discussion that I decided to become a member JUST to be able to post you a reply.
/.........
1. I'm not going to have any surprises at the construction level simply because my building is resolved ( I've had this happen on complex structures)
&
2. If I change anything, ABSOLUTELY anything, it reflects in all the parts of the project, without having to spend the already minimal drafting time.

Just for these two thing I'd burn autocad at a stake if I had the chance.

/.......
There you have it.

Perhaps I said things that are more or less repeating all that's been said before, but I had to say it.

& a big Hello to all the members.

ta,
ashy

Welcome Ashy, you put it very well.

Let me be the first to throw another match onto that stake. ':wink:'

[Anonymous]

Ashy wrote:
Nats,
I must thank you for making me stumble on to this thread.

In fact I have been facing similar questions with the firm I am consulting to.

As I read on I was so charged up by the discussion that I decided to become a member JUST to be able to post you a reply.

In one short sentence, maybe Archicad just won't cut it for you. Ever. There have been umpteen replys to your original post and if that hasn't convinced you nothing will. Maybe the intention of those replys as is of this one was not to convnce you at all, but defend/justify/explain the stance that people who use and love Archicad (including I) take.

Its my pleasure to have made your day.

I dont need to be convinced by others about Archicad, after doing several tutorials etc and messing around with it I can tell its far more pleasent to work with than AutoCAD and it has lots of good features. I can see why people like it. I suppose my intention in this whole post is to convince myself that the package can do what GS says it can and that it will not limit my architectural creativity in any way and will be able to detail up the building properly and not just produce fancy perspectives. Im still not convinced about this at all by the way - but will need to try doing a full building project in 3d to find out for myself, which is just what I am about to do.

Ive never liked using AutoCAD much so I perfectly understand peoples views on it.

Now I dont think we need to waste any more bandwidth talking about ArchCADs brilliance or this post is in danger of becoming sickening!

[Anonymous]

Nats,
You've just endured the equivalent of an intervention and 12 step program for AutoCAD users. We invested the effort because as an AutoCAD user you had hit rock bottom and had nowhere to go except up.

Remember, we will never be just ArchiCAD users. We will always be recovering AutoCAD users. Now go out and help others to see the true path

Gary Bley