Archicad vs. Sketchup

[David Bearss]

I am transitioning into a phase of more design work and less drawing production. As an "old timer" I tend to design and think on sketch paper and a drawing board. I have embraced CAD since only about 1997 but have gone with model based programs all along. Don't make me list the software vendors I have in the file cabinet and had to self learn. No un-intelligent 2D programs for me! I am thrilled with Archicad and have briefly explored maxonform as a design tool but find it fantastic but too unrealistic for the slab world of design and construction.
I pose a question; should I transition my design thought process from: sketch paper and Archicad into: sketch paper and sketchup? I question the learning curve and the lack of the existence of slabs in the sketchup environment. Would another product that I might not know of, serve the architectural design environment better? Is the another program, or addon, that might take better advantage of my archicad experience?
I look forward to feedback, comments, and of course, opinions.
If this topic needs to be somewhere else, so be it, lets move it.

[Anonymous]

I have used sketchup for the last 4 years and find it indispensable for quick 3d work. I do early schematic design, concepts, and details like complicated concrete work and furniture in sketchup. However, If you want to produce any kind of construction documents, you will have to export drawings out of sketchup and import them into a cad program. The new layout book will allow you more freedom to present views of your sketchup model but you still have no lineweight, no fills, limited annotations, etc. I used vectorworks and sketchup together for a long time and the import of both 2d and 3d into Vworks is great, but this only applies for simple objects or details. Trying to design a house entirely in sketchup would end up being a nightmare, objects have no intelligence and the more detail you model, the more time you spend developing and changing the model. However, if you are used to producing traditional 2d sets, you could develop in sketchup and then base your 2d set off of exported drawings. This is exactly what I didn't want to do, and what led me to Archicad. I estimate I save 25 to 30 percent of my time per project over using Sketchup and Vectorworks. HOWEVER, I still find sketchup is the best tool for several types of exploration and 3d detailing. My only complaint with archicad is that is does not make it easier to import 3d objects and create GDL objects from them. I would reccomned learning sketchup as it is very fast to pick up and see if it could work in your process. Even if you still use archicad, you will be glad you have sketchup for many design tasks. Matt

[David Bearss]

M Clark
A hybrid going back and forth between sketchup and production cad is what I am hearing others are also doing. I have been experimenting and admit that the aditional design tool is empowering.

[Djordje]

The times when you could do anything in Archicad in less that three hours are gone with Archicad 7 ...

... therefore SketchUp, until we get similar set of tools in Archicad (hint? wish?) is the pick of the season!

However:

I have felt compelled to do too much in it occasionally, and have to literally get up from the table, walk around the office, and then go back to it. Does well for the muscles, too 😉

The model goes to Archicad or wherever it should go after this.

The plus: intuitive, fast, conceptual, architectonic

The minus: addictive, pulls you to do more than you should (walls with thickness, dimensions, yada yada), horrible slowdown on large poly count, less than manageable handing of the curved surfaces

Still - for the quick response to an inquiry and a sketch for the initial meeting, nothing better exists!

[Brad Elliott]

I'm glad to see this topic come up as I am once again exploring Sketchup after having given up on previous versions.

Typically I hand sketch for early schematic design and then move to ArchiCAD sometime in mid to late schematic design. Frequently though throughout the design process I will print out a plan or view and start sketching over it by hand. I just feel that I can review ideas more quickly that way.

When working in Sketchup I like the obvious benefits of working in 3D. However since I am doing fairly complicated residences I find I almost always have problems with roofs. So when I bog down spending as much time to get three or four roofs to work as I did on the rest of the design I get frustrated and tend to give up. The other issue I have is that when designing for me it tends to be an iterative process. Move this wing, pull this room out, push that space in. When I try to do this with a fairly developed model it falls completely apart and I find myself starting from scratch which is too time consuming. I have also had very limited success with importing sketchup drawings into ArchiCAD and usually end up redrawing in it from scratch as well.

So my questions are, is this just growing pains and the roofs, etc. get better as you get more experience or do they always have problems? and, does the import work better now? and, is there really an easy way to work with iterative design or do you always have to start from scratch?

I would really like to here from Sketchup users because it seems like it should be very useful and it quite frankly is fun to use, but I never feel like it is paying off in productivity.

[David Bearss]

Pursing more information on my original query, I interviewed members of a production architecture firm I have been working with. I posed the same question to them. They are using a hybrid of Sketchup and Auto*** working back and forth and often simultaneously. Initial building model concepts in Sketchup and plans in CAD. As the building refines, the two programs are used simultaneously. Building sections are generated in sketchup and jpg images are incorporated into the print set. Seems a little convoluted but knowing when to do what in which program is what seems to be working for them.

I must admit I have been using a similar process for a while by scanning my original design sketches, and my structural engineers details and incorporating them directly into plotmaker.

[Dennis Lee]

I used to use SketchUp for all my modeling, then did CD in AutoCAD. Even though SketchUp could export to DWG, I usually had to redraw everything in 2D in AutoCAD, for plans & sections, & sections, & sections... That is why I started looking around and ultimately came to know & use ArchiCAD.

I still use SketchUp for some massing studies & very initial sketch ideas, but go straight into AC as early as I can. I was actually hoping that when (if) my AC skills become as second nature as I used to be with SketchUp, then I can let go of using Sketchup completely.

To answer your question, if you get over the intial frustrations and learn some inferencing - find some ruby plugins - and practice, you can get quite good in doing whatever you want in 3d pretty easily. As with any software though, you have to be disciplined, take notes, & be organized to really be efficient (look into saving components & building libraries..).

I think though, once you start to model past the massing stage in SketchUp, you will eventually have to re-do your work again if you need to document your work for someone else in a traditional drawing format, because of the fundamental differences of the 3d entities themselves between SketchUp and AC.

[Djordje]

It should be very clear that SketchUp is, to put it mildly, dangerous beyond mass modeling! Proper documentation - although they have included a very PlotMaker like LayOut, and a separate softweare at that! - is still very far away, and it should stay there IMHO.

Some of the landscapers, swimming pool designers and furniture specialists that work as a subcontractors for us use SketchUp and submit design for approval in it - perfect, and quite enough.

Don't try to do the house in it. You can, OK, but what then?

Although the conversion to Archicad still has something to be desired, it is quite usable as it is. PROVIDED you don't go too far in SketchUp - otherwise you spend too much time cleaning the model up.

[stefan]

I agree. I'm a big SketchUp fan for mass modeling and for quick 3D modeling, but I seldomly load the SketchUp model into ArchiCAD. I want the Virtual Building to be correct, so I rebuild it from scratch in ArchiCAD. It's almost as fast, since I don't have to twiddle all the corners that are not correct.

I suggest to use SketchUp for 'sketching' and not for construction modeling.