Hesitant - or, working with others - or, some help?

[arg617]

Hello,

I've been lurking this forum and others for a few years now. I've been using AutoCAD for over ten years and would love to switch to a more efficient work flow. As an essentially sole practitioner I have great hesitations actually making the switch.

I am familiar with AutoCAD, everyone I know that freelances for me knows AutoCAD, and most have not even heard of Archicad.

I am wondering how all of you did it. If you were to choose today would you still choose Archicad or Revit, or Vectoworks for that matter. I have briefly tried all three. Like I said, I really want a more efficient work flow, but I also don't want to alienate myself from the rest of the architectural community that I must work with.

My projects vary in size and scope. From high-end housing, multi-family/multi-use, hotel design, restaurant design, interior apartments, but even bathroom or deck legalization's at times.

It seems the world is moving to Revit, but to me, after taking a class and spending a couple of weeks with it. I just don't feel like I'm drawing when using it. It feels more like a spreadsheet to me, and very unintuitive.

Archicad felt better, but there are no classes and so far the tutorials are kind of lacking. I made it to Chapter 4.2 but still have no idea how to place a wall at an exact location once the red arrows the tutorial uses are gone........

I am now trying Vectorworks, which feels more natural but I'm still hesitant to jump ship.

So, how did you do it? How do you handle working with others, finding help/employees, keeping coordinated sets with a relatively small user base? What do consultants say when they receive a converted DWG file from you? Are you able to get your drawings looking the way you want, or are lineweights not quite refined (as I've found in Revit)? Is Archicad OK for the wide range of projects I tend to work on? What would you choose today?

[Brett Brown]

arg617 wrote:
If you were to choose today would you still choose Archicad or Revit,

Revit, If you had been reading posts here you would have seen what Archicad can't do and what Revit can. GS could and should release a new version of all the little everyday things that have been asked for and sorely needed time after time. Along with those and to get Archicad even close to Revit you have to buy Add-ons which are full of bugs (Cadimage) months after release.

Revit is more organised, more logical, and has relationships if you want to use them, just to name a few.

The lack of replies shows you how many people are passionate about Archicad and are willing to write about it.

[Eduardo Rolon]

My 2 cents.

Single practitioner, when I made the switch Revit was still an independent company. Evaluated both chose AC have not regretted it. I still keep checking Revit but the "spreadsheet problem" amongst other things still keeps me away.

IMO AC is still better for an Architects workflow.

Brett, the lack of replies might be a function of the title of the post not necessarily a measure of the enthusiasm of the user base.

[Anonymous]

Brett wrote:

arg617 wrote:
If you were to choose today would you still choose Archicad or Revit,

Revit, If you had been reading posts here you would have seen what Archicad can't do and what Revit can. GS could and should release a new version of all the little everyday things that have been asked for and sorely needed time after time. Along with those and to get Archicad even close to Revit you have to buy Add-ons which are full of bugs (Cadimage) months after release.

Revit is more organised, more logical, and has relationships if you want to use them, just to name a few.

The lack of replies shows you how many people are passionate about Archicad and are willing to write about it.

This reads dangerously like trolling. You make some sweeping statements that don't, in my experience, stand up to scrutiny. Do you have solid examples to back up your claims?

I use both Revit and ArchiCAD regularly. I often even move models back and forth between the two to take advantage of the strengths and avoid the weaknesses of each (or simply for compatibility with my clients). While I find advantages to both ArchiCAD is far and away superior for the work that I do. It way outperforms Revit on large models, is much faster for editing and revisions, and is far more interoperable.

[NCornia]

ArchiCAD is the better solution from my experience. I am biased though as I have spent the most time in ArchiCAD. But that is because the learning came so easily. It is great for all the the scales of projects you have described. My work is mainly on a residential scale and as you can see from Graphisoft's website it can handle massive buildings too.

I have tried to dive into Revit several times but I feel like the user interface is clunky and more for someone with a software engineer's mind. You mentioned the "spreadsheet" feel. I am a graphical person and want graphic feedback as I am creating, which ArchiCAD excels at providing for all of its objects.

IMO Revit's strength is model integrity (ie. ability to create complex parametric relationships with constraints), full bi-directional associativity (change a temporary dimension and the object will adjust with it) and some enhanced tools to create freeform shapes easily inside the software. This is great if you are creating conceptual designs with bizarre geometry but that is not what most people are doing.

ArchiCAD's project navigator is essential for me to keep everything organized and move from the modelling phase to layouts. Revit seems to fall short in project organization (a single tree of folders to sort through all the views, layouts and families is too cumbersome)and its 2D drafting tools are not as intuitive or flexible. In the end my product still ends up on paper and it should look elegant and it should be intuitive to make it so. This is where ArchiCAD surpasses Revit at the moment.

Coming from an AutoCAD background I feel that the 2D drafting tools in ArchiCAD are a much friendlier transition and in some ways the line tools are superior such as being able to trim with a simple "Ctrl-Click". The offset tool takes a bit of a trick to get used to though. Lineweights are easily controlled in pts or mm and color schemes can be modified or created as needed.

And sometimes Revit's strengths can be a huge problem. We had one colleague using Revit run into a problem when the ground floor of a building needed to be lowered at the clients request. The building was already into final submittal and this request was holding up the building permit. The Revit model was so constrained that they needed to virtually rebuild the entire ground level whereas in ArchiCAD all it would have taken was lowering the 1st floor slab a couple feet.

ArchiCAD has flexible parametric objects, meaning that you can customize a door panel or change a door handle very simply. In Revit you need to create a new "family" if you are to change the individual attributes of an element.

I have also tried Vectorworks 2010 but the user interface seemed convoluted. I think I would need to give it more of a chance but my intro to ArchiCAD was much simpler and more intuitive out of the gates.

Look into the product documentation for each software title as well. I have found Graphisoft's manuals, tutorials and other support resources to be excellent and reference them often as needed.

In sum, it is good that you are evaluating the range of BIM products. In the end you need to find what you enjoy the best. A tool that is no fun to work with is not worth it, especially in a creative pursuit.

[arg617]

Thanks for the replies (and private messages). I hope to dig a little deeper than just the difference/pros/cons between Revit and Archicad and try to shift focus on your everyday workflow.

What I mean is, has using Archicad caused any issues when looking for employees? Do you have issues when dealing with consultants (MEP, Structural)? What about just sharing drawings with colleagues?

There is probably more but I'm too busy manually drawings elevations and sections to continue now

[Anonymous]

I come from a background using only AutoCAD so I've never used Revit and can't speak of the pros/cons. I can say, in regards to your last post, that none of the consultants we've dealt with use ArchiCAD and that's never been a problem. You can always turn the drawings into DWG's and you can import DWG's. I don't think there will ever be a time when the architect, structural, mechanical and landscape firms will all be using the same software all the time, at least not in my area...