Architects: Revit or ArchiCad?

[DGSketcher]

Archicad offers flexible working & adaptable tools from a company that cares about its users.

Revit - If you are happy supporting greedy corporations.

Seriously, you should try both before you make a choice, but a grounding in Archicad won't hurt.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Background updating works if you have the Tab open so that one lessens the issue but in Rvt you can have 4 windows open at the same time and they are constantly updating which AC cannot do. It is a subtle detail and IMO it can slow down a project to unacceptable levels.

[Anonymous]

I have set the W/E selection time to 0 secs. You still watch Archicad draw the circle around your inference point. Revit does not do this., nor Autocad or a number of other programs. If anyone has a way to lessen this, it would be great. It is a minor thing. I never thought about using a shortcut. I will explore this.

[Eduardo Rolon]

With the shortcut you don't have to wait and as a bonus if you hit the shortcut on top of one of the blue circles it removes it.

[Anonymous]

You can play Tetris in Archicad so it wins.

[Anonymous]

oh folks,

Waiting for new projects to start up, so i am testing out (again) ArchiCAD. Coming from Revit since 2013 seems like a millennia of time spent on families and all manner of curious things. But in many aspects am in awe of features . . . however, try doing it on an iMac!

Hence my curiosity : :

Also getting tired of renting Revit (after all two years of what the full version of Revit takes out of my pocket = buying ArchiCAD eh?) and not freaking out about the $225/monthly rental when the phone isn't ringing makes me like being an owner.

But i digress; i shall post things as i see them in comparison between these two amazing softwares.

First thing that hit me (years ago when i first got student version of Revit for $150 hee hee); was that I liked very much the Architectural mindset that created ArchiCAD; especially in comparison to the way Revit appears to be created by a room full of Engineers. Certainly powerful but oy vei the steps involved >> give me push/pull please (I first got form•Z in 1992 and MiniCAD to do the CD's. So i go waaaaay back. But always on a Mac and often doing visualization.

Nowadays nobody hires me to do that, so i make submittals and construction documents utilizing BIM. Every once in a while i get to visualize in raytracing but that is rare.

Second thing i see regarding ArchiCAD ; is site creation (blessings to see poly lines instead of points (revit). But Revit does make creating a site model rather less of a fuss and love the site survey point & project point metaphor. Also like the ability to easily go back and forth on true north in Revit. Seems more involved over here folks.

Nice to hear your thoughts after those Revitoids 🙂

More later . . .
RO

[Christophe Fortineau]

Ohcad wrote:
... true north in Revit ...

Fantastic !

I love this kind of subtlety in Revit. If we agree to a true north then what about "other" north? The question seems absurd and it is. there is only one in the world, only one, the other is not north

[DGSketcher]

UK mapping has three values for North. True North - The North Pole, Magnetic North - Where a compass points and Grid North - Relates to the National Grid mapping system which was based on perfect squares. I haven't swotted up recently on how GPS impacts these options. There may be some scope for error between survey systems.

[Christophe Fortineau]

Nobody builds from the model but from the 2D deliverables. The idea of ​​getting 100% dynamic 2D deliverables by the model seems to me more important than to play with concepts of North that do not contribute anything to the project. And finaly no one understands the operating rules of this labyrinthine system any more.

I invite you to imagine this type of consideration before launching the GPS in your car

The art of confusing what is simple

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Ohcad wrote:
........

First thing that hit me (years ago when i first got student version of Revit for $150 hee hee); was that I liked very much the Architectural mindset that created ArchiCAD; especially in comparison to the way Revit appears to be created by a room full of Engineers. Certainly powerful but oy vei the steps involved >> give me push/pull please (I first got form•Z in 1992 and MiniCAD to do the CD's. So i go waaaaay back. But always on a Mac and often doing visualization. ....

That might be because Revit was literally re-purposed from an Engineering program known as Pro-E back in the early '90's.
That's why it still feels (and acts) like an engineering program or like it was designed by a room of engineers (like the fact that you can only work in isometric projection in 3D view like the way they do in other engineering MCAD or product design software like Solidworks and the like - and not in true perspective view like we were taught in Architecture school, for example. Or the spreadsheet-like, 'Tax Form'-like interface and GUI navigation).

ArchiCAD was built from the ground up as an architectural design software, for architects and by architects,....as the saying goes.
It mostly remains true.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Bricklyne wrote:
That might be because Revit was literally re-purposed from an Engineering program known as Pro-E back in the early '90's.
That's why it still feels (and acts) like an engineering program or like it was designed by a room of engineers (like the fact that you can only work in isometric projection in 3D view like the way they do in other engineering MCAD or product design software like Solidworks and the like - and not in true perspective view like we were taught in Architecture school, for example. Or the spreadsheet-like, 'Tax Form'-like interface and GUI navigation).

ArchiCAD was built from the ground up as an architectural design software, for architects and by architects,....as the saying goes.
It mostly remains true.

AFAIK, it was not re-purposed from Pro Engineer. It was developed by people who previously worked on Solidworks (and maybe Pro Engineer), but it is true, they were much more engineers than architects. And I agree that it really shows in how Revit looks and works.

About isometric vs. perspective: they have made a few improvements in that area so now you can move around in Perspective as well, and there are also several editing operations you can perform there. So it is no longer true that you can only work in Axonometric Views in Revit (it was true a few versions ago).