AutoCAD VS AC

[Anonymous]

Can anyone chime in and help me with the age old question which is better?
Does Archicad have any conflicts with AutoCAD? What about vis-a-versa? I
work for a company that uses AutoCAD exclusively, we now have an employee
that wants to get two licensees of Archicad. Before I say no I would like
to
learn more about Archicad and here from users that used to use AutoCAD or
that use both programs.

Thanks

[Aaron Bourgoin]

Dear CAD Dog,

If you check my profile, you'll see that I sell ArchiCAD. That put up front, I would suggest that you try and speak to someone perosn to person or over the phone about what you want to do.

Your requirements are particular to your office and you will get responses from all many of good souls here who know nothing about save for the fact that you are located at the office.

There are plenty of people on this forum who work as consultants, who work in firms, who work in their basement. If you contcat me I would be happy to steer you toward someone near your office who can help answer your question.

In my mind, speaking an an ArchiCAD user formewrly repsonsible for integration between the two platforms in a 30 person office, I think ArchiCAD does a great job translating files back and forth.

You can reach me if you need to via private message.

Cheers

[stefan]

CadDog wrote:
Can anyone chime in and help me with the age old question which is better?
Does Archicad have any conflicts with AutoCAD? What about vis-a-versa? I
work for a company that uses AutoCAD exclusively, we now have an employee
that wants to get two licensees of Archicad. Before I say no I would like
to
learn more about Archicad and here from users that used to use AutoCAD or
that use both programs.

Thanks

ArchiCAD is very good in doing the whole model.

If you plan to generate sections in the ArchiCAD model and finish them as 2D-drawings in AutoCAD, then you are following the wrong approach.
However, making details in AutoCAD and connecting them in the ArchiCAD model & PlotMaker Layout might be a valid approach, IMHO.

I've worked at an office using VectorWorks, but they had ArchiCAD in the past. They used it for presentation purposes only and then did all plans in VectorWorks. This didn't work and they got rid of ArchiCAD.
Don't try to do the same.

What might be a problem is that ArchiCAD might not directly follow the traditional workflow in large AutoCAD-based offices, where different people work on different DWG's and then project-engineers link everything together with XRef's.
Sure, ArchiCAD will support this approach, but the power lies in extracting everything from the one Building Model.

I seriously suggest to contact a reseller in your area and ask them to give a personalised demo, making suggestions of how to introduce ArchiCAD in your workflow.

On a personal note, you might even like ADT more, because it sits inside AutoCAD, which is what you are familiar with. I'm not saying the ADT is as good as ArchiCAD (it is not), but it might suit your workflow better.

[Anonymous]

Hi, CadDog, I hope I could throw some light opon that problem.

I am both an ArchiCAD and AutoCAD user, having used both applications more than 8 years /AC since v.4.5 and AutoCAD since R12/. In my oppinion AC is definitely the better option to choose for work at a big office or working alone. It has almost every feature AutoCAD has (and many more it can only dream for ), it's more user friendly and makes collaboration between different designers easier.

What you have is a slightly different problem - to have two AC users in an AutoCAD community - it's happened to me and it's not very pleasant. Two way connectivity is ok between AC and AutoCAD, that's guaranteed. It is also easy to split the project among different designers - one does floors 1,2,3; another floors 4,5 and 6; another sections and elevations and so on. Of course it will be easier to do it using just one application! Tension is created not by different appications but by people who use them!

Should you give it a try? Yes, of course! In this way you will get the right impression what AC can really do and what better things it can offer exactly for you. The best way to learn it is to watch how it works in your own office presented by some of your own colleagues - what they show you at the resellers shops is just advertising . Even if you do not switch entirely to AC I'm sure you will find some areas of application in which it will be the best , if not only sollution. In this way you will have a choice!

I've converted some of my long-time-AutoCAD-users colleagues into AC users and at my previous job the firm officially swithed from Allplan and AutoCAD to AC because of two AC users - me and a colleague!

I am alwaus available for further advise in ICQ or by phone.

[TomWaltz]

If you really want a large dose of information, I would suggest the book Archicad Project Framework, available from objectsonline.com, or the Archicad Training Guide.

The book is intended to describe best practices for using Archicad, and in the process will give you a good idea of what is involved in using it. I think it's about $60.

You can get other similar documents at tr.graphisoft.com, under the Archicad 9 Learning Guide. This is a free PDF download.

[Anonymous]

We run a split platform in our office and just to put my thoughts in, once you get the processes set up, the two programs can work well together. The key to the whole process is the communications and translations of files between the formats. Autocad does not recognize AC files (or anyone elses for that) but through translations, they can co-exist.

My suggestions is to look at AC and Autocad and see the strengths and weaknesses of each. By changing some of the production processes, you may be able to get the most out of both programs and see a real benifit.

[glenn_peters]

We are also a multi-platform office (hardware & software) and use ArchiCAD and AutoCAD together without difficulty -- as others have stated, however, it does require some forethought and planning as to how you intend to use the different software programmes and what the flow of work will be.

There is also (dare I say it?) Revit as an option. I am not that familiar with this software, but the fact that it has been brought into the Autodesk "empire" may eventually improve its relationship with AutoCAD (up until recently I understood that it was less capable than ArchiCAD at the DWG import/export business).

I would still recommend ArchiCAD, of course! (been using it since 1991 after trying it out in the late-1980s).

[Daniel Lindahl]

CadDog wrote:
Can anyone chime in and help me with the age old question which is better?
Does Archicad have any conflicts with AutoCAD? What about vis-a-versa? I
work for a company that uses AutoCAD exclusively, we now have an employee
that wants to get two licensees of Archicad. Before I say no I would like
to
learn more about Archicad and here from users that used to use AutoCAD or
that use both programs.

Thanks

Dear CadDog

I used Autocad from version 9 through to 14 (still have a 2000 version for utilitarian needs).

Back in '98 I took on a complex 3D building project that I knew would stretch beyond ACAD's flatland limitations. OK, I had done some 3D Autocadding as well, but knew that would not cut it. So I got a copy of Archicad and taught myself to run it, designing what was to become the landmark building at Expo2000 in Hannover. (Image attached)

I have never looked back! Though I am a sole practitioner, I am also doing contract work for a larger practice that are exclusively Autocad. They have no problems with me doing the work in Archicad and publishing the end result as DWG files. All the drawings come through as regular paperspace and modelspace DWG files with all the right scales and layer combinations in the viewports.

As well as that they get the added benefit of all that the Virtual Building in Archicad has to offer in terms of visualisation along the way, and rendered views for the clients. I like to handle whole projects, but sometimes I just do the 1:200, 1:100, 1:50 plans, elevations, and sections, and others in the office do the detail drawings in Autocad, based on section cuts I give them.

That approach seems to work well in a mixed environment, as Plotmaker (Archicad's answer to paperspace) easily imports DWG files into its sheet layouts.

I have recently completed the full documentation including detail drawings for a $6M shopping centre extension, with old DWG's xref'd into the Archicad file.

Give it a try even if you only buy one licence, stay close to the process, and find out what Archicad is capable of.

Cheers
Daniel

[Scott Davis]

stefan wrote:
On a personal note, you might even like ADT more, because it sits inside AutoCAD, which is what you are familiar with. I'm not saying the ADT is as good as ArchiCAD (it is not), but it might suit your workflow better.

ackkkk! ADT?? If you are going to go with an Autodesk product, get Revit over ADT. Revit works seamlessly with AutoCAD, and you can even get Revit Series, which you get both softwares for a huge discount.

[stefan]

Scott wrote:

stefan wrote:
On a personal note, you might even like ADT more, because it sits inside AutoCAD, which is what you are familiar with. I'm not saying the ADT is as good as ArchiCAD (it is not), but it might suit your workflow better.

ackkkk! ADT?? If you are going to go with an Autodesk product, get Revit over ADT. Revit works seamlessly with AutoCAD, and you can even get Revit Series, which you get both softwares for a huge discount.

Scott, I know you're a Revit-devotee and I appreciate your presence on this forum, but you have to be reasonable: if someone has a workflow based around AutoCAD (including Lisp & ARX-programs), not even Revit will fit the bill.

All in all, he's talking about adding ArchiCAD into an existing AutoCAD workflow, not about replacing AutoCAD. And in this particular scheme, adding ADT might work better then adding Revit or ArchiCAD (which would have about the same result, except that the employee he's talking about has experience with ArchiCAD, so it seems.

(Never thought I would ever defend ADT over ArchiCAD or Revit...)