BIM=Revit??

[Anonymous]

I went to a BIM seminar last week organised by the Australian Institute of Architects sponsored by Autodesk so very Revit centric. Not a bad presentation but aimed more at what BIM adoption means to your firm e.g. if the Client wants a full BIM delivery then they will have to pay extra. Fair enough. But to many there (about 200 architects) the message was BIM=Revit especially that if coordination with stuct+MEP is required as IFC’s “do not work very well” and you need to swap native .rvt files. Maybe so.
Archicad, Generative Components etc got scant mention. It really was about the Revit workflow (either native export to other consultants or to 3DMax for presentation.
I spoke to a director of a mid-size firm who was concerned that they would miss out on the BIM bandwagon and they run 4 Archicad licences!
I try and get the message out that Archicad is a viable BIM platform (I use Revit as well) but the might of Autodesk is indeed a mighty beast. Graphisoft do well in WA with user groups etc and have a good share of the housing design market but need to start to target the AIA etc. One architect who is advisor to the State government suggests that soon all Government architecture delivery is BIM (they mean Revit). Graphisoft have to work to ensure that BIM standards are generic and not written to Autodesks criteria (as is currently the case with 2D dwg etc). There are work-arounds with 2D delivery whatever software is used. Hopefully this will remain the case with BIM

[Anonymous]

I really don't want to write this and I hate feeling this way but Graphisoft's marketing (or lack of it) I feel will eventually make them loose to REVIT.

Around here it's... "REVIT, yeah, I've heard of it and/or used it." and "Archi-what?"

When it comes to marketing, at the very least, you don't have a customer if they don't know about you.

And it sounds like AutoDESK woke up and they plan on stealing the BIM identity from AC.

[Anonymous]

For the very reason I didn't go to that seminar...I knew it would be a sales pitch for Revit.

[Anonymous]

I attended this seminar in Adelaide yesterday and did not think it was really all Revit focussed (other than the obligatory sponsors sales pitch before the presentation).
It was really about what to expect from BIM, what the clients are expecting, setting protocols in-house and with consultants, and engagement with contractors.

[Anonymous]

Yes we find this all the time We work with across all the platforms AC, revit, vectorworks etc.

Autodesk are putting the message in the market that BIM=Revit, even though everyone knows BIM is a concept/process not a piece of software.

Last time I saw the marketing budgets though I think it was something like $8m AC vs $80m AD so they have the money to make more noise a shame really.

Interestingly companies like Foster + Partners use Bentley BIM, so often it is a lot of noise about Revit, but with usage stats that say otherwise.

[Anonymous]

The State Government (Western Australia) have confirmed that all large government hospital projects HAVE to be delivered using Revit, or at the very least deliver *.rvt files which is tantamount to the same thing. Some of these projects are very large in the 100’s of millions of dollars. How long before all large Government projects go this way?.

Some larger firms in WA have already committed to Revit (in parallel with Autocad). Those running both Archicad and Revit (some do) will have their IT and bean-counters wondering why support 2 similar (and they are) software platforms. There was always a work-around before in that, with a bit of effort, Archicad could deliver the project in the highly prescribed DWG format (line weights, colours, layers etc)

Its only the Archicad diehards within those firms that are providing resistance. You know who you are guys, (Archicad users can be very one eyed, just like Mac users) and will transfer to Revit kicking and screaming, if at all. Given a choice I’d prefer to use Archicad (on a Mac) but if I want to keep on working I have to be flexible.

The message at the Autodesk sponsored presentation was that *.rvt files transfer much better than IFC between consultants if all are on same platform- probably true. Elec do not need to document in 3D but there is a slow adoption of Revit MEP by mech. Same with Struct, they will use Teklar etc for design but document in Revit if this gets them the work.

If Graphisoft cannot get Archicad to export successfully *.rvt files via IFC then the use of Archicad within large firms will diminish even faster, at least in WA. BTW I was asked to do outsourced Design Development on a reasonable large project by one of the larger firms and asked would I prefer Archicad 15 or Revit 2012. I chose AC15 and they agreed as they still had the staff to finish off the project.

Other BIM platforms such as Digital Project and Bentley GC don’t seem to be in the running, at least in WA

[Anonymous]

very true. i was talking to a large firm in Melbourne last week who were using both AC & Revit, their management has decided to transfer them all to Revit - the main reason being that it works better with consultants.

Graphisoft should release an ArchiCAD Structures - this is what Autodesk has done with Revit and hence they are grabbing a lot more engineers.

Sharing a Revit file (rvt) between Revit consultants works a lot better than IFC (currently), just the same as sharing a .pln file between AC consultants works better.

[Anonymous]

In Europe (EU) when it comes to government, you are not allowed to say "You should use Revit or ArchiCad". There are some that does it, but if an office with other software are will make an offer, then they could appeal against the contract and probably will win in a court and then they will have to restart the process from the beginning.

I'm now working on a big (in swedish terms) housebuilding company and we are working in ArchiCad (architectural and construction drawings) and DDS Housepartner (production drawings & cutfiles for our internal precast production). And propably in a near future, we are going over to BIM in our bigger projects, and then our consultant are needed to deliver in formats that ArchiCad could read! We have no plans to work with any kind of Autodesk products (or other softwares) in our firm or other, we get all we needed from ArchiCad, ofcause there are some functionality that could be alot better but what software doens't have bugs or bad working functions?

[Anonymous]

I agree- this is non-competitive practice that Governments are not supposed to enter into and should be contested. But by whom, Graphisoft? Most large firms in WA are mostly Autocad with a few Archicad/Revit/3DMax/SketchUp seats etc so they won’t care much about giving up a few Archicad seats. There are large firms in Eastern States with a large Archicad user base who might fight harder (and some do very large hospitals). Until such time .rvt become ‘generic’ (unlikely) then IFC should be the only file exchange that can be stipulated by Government tender. After all, .dwg, .doc, .pfd etc are all generic now and you don’t need to use Autocad, Adobe, or Word to produce them

sdb- I (almost certainly) know the Melbourne firm you mention having worked for their Perth branch. If it’s the same firm they had some of the best Archicad users within their organisation who will either be forced to switch across or move on-and not a great time to quit a job.

[Anonymous]

@Harry yes I agree as a government they should support the open one, sadly that comes down to education about the sector/area and sadly I'd say Autodesk is the one in their helping them with that.

Yes I'm sure it's the same, sadly from a management point of view it is much easier if they are all on the same platform..but a shame.