!Restored: Success = getting new customers

[Anonymous]

I saw some documents to compare between Revit and AC.
I study Revit from own website.
It is just copy from AC!!

I used to work with AC (and very satisfied, and like many friends from AC-forum).
As AC-user I hope, AC must be better than Revit for Architects.

I have not used Revit, but just seen from Website.
The web-site from Revit is so nice, that I must believe, Revit should be better than AC.

I like to know your opinions and also opinions from GS.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Krippahl wrote:
This leads me to believe that you used AC only for drafting.
So, my quest for a AC/Revit user continues...

btw, "As a Revit moderator and AUGI wishlist manager" puts you in a odd situation regarding you alleged "hate monopolies" situation, I would think. Because, after all, Revis IS Autodesk...

I used AC on some residential projects, but I don't think I had a PC up for the task at the time! Computing speed has improved so much since then (early 2001 or so).

[Anonymous]

glenn_peters wrote:
Similarly, another firm in Vancouver has been modelling an Arthur Erickson-designed tower with a complex curtain wall system where each successive floor rotates 0.75 degrees from the one below and this same individual working on the Convention Centre has heard that the Revit model for that project is beginning to encounter similar difficulties as their Convention Centre model.

Our firm has never worked on projects of this scale/complexity so I am unable to say how ArchiCAD would fare under similar conditions. Still, it is a bit alarming to hear of these kinds of Revit problems on large projects.

It was sometimes said of Revit back when it was first released that it was not well suited to large projects… is this still the case?

Maybe the underlying Revit “engine” is not so miraculous after all?

MCM is working on both projects, and I've been supporting both teams. The tower project is not having too much trouble -- just keeping up with the design changes seems to be their main concern! I'm satisfied with Revit's performance on that project.

The convention centre is another matter. The problem there is you have a large file and many users working simultaneously on it. Revit, like AC, uses a local file (on the workstation) and central file (on the server) concept. When a user Saves To Central their changes are pushed into the file and other user's changes are pulled down to the local user. There were also problems with the server's RAID array causing corruption to the central file.

Revit does not have a special app to monitor interactions when users save changes to the central file; and when a large number of changes happens between the times each user STC, Revit can struggle with reconciling the two files, which it needs to do to replicate changes made in the central and your own local file. So here, a large file is not as much of a problem as having a large number of users working on it. The answer here was to STC more often, but even then saves take too much time (8 minutes on average). This is a challenge for Revit's developers to deal with 😉

So where Revit struggles most is when you have a large database (over 150Mb) and more than four or five users working hard on the project. More RAM, Gigabit networking and blazing fast processors will help, but I would say Revit is not okay for REALLY large projects, because you'll have the problem of a large file coupled with loads of users.

In Revit you can link project files together, keeping the individual databases small. Revit 9 is offering major improvements in how useful this feature is, which may be why the convention centre team is wanting to upgrade the file. This is the only Revit 8.1 file I know of on the planet that has not successfully been upgraded to 9.0, but I'm not surprised. That file is a real monster.

So in reponse, the Revit engine is miraculous if your project isn't convention centre sized! And it's not even the file size that's the issue: it's the number of objects, the relationships between the objects (curtain walls attached to roof, etc) that generate the most overhead. If you can "componentize" your model to reduce the number of objects, and simplify the relationships between objects, you can go a long way to beat the monster. But the Convention Centre was their first Revit project (!!!) so these strategies were not employed. I personally did not recommend Revit for this project but still ended up being on it anyway. Sigh.

[Thomas Holm]

If I'm still allowed to humbly share my opinion in this thread, I think it sounds like neither Revit nor Archicad is fully up to handling really big projects on their respective own. If I'm not misinformed, this is the area where Microstation still has a significant advantage, mostly due to its flexible way of handling reference files (XREFs). That is why Microstation is so common in large projects like airports and the like.

[Anonymous]

@Thomas

AC is proper for every real architecture.
Now it is better with permanant development of AC.

[Anonymous]

Thomas wrote:
If I'm still allowed to humbly share my opinion in this thread, I think it sounds like neither Revit nor Archicad is fully up to handling really big projects on their respective own. If I'm not misinformed, this is the area where Microstation still has a significant advantage, mostly due to its flexible way of handling reference files (XREFs). That is why Microstation is so common in large projects like airports and the like.

Microstation does handle uberprojects well. It's hard to learn it -- and are you thinking about using Microstation in 3D -- Triforma and all that? -- because that's a different matter. It's really hard to learn and use. We sell it too... but no one's buying it here.

I don't know what AC is like on large projects. I know if you can find logical breakpoints to split a project into multiple Revit files, you would be fine. But sometimes, as with the convention centre, this is not always an option. It might have been had we started with Revit 9, which allows the annotations from the linked files to show through.

[Anonymous]

@Metanoia

AC has Team Works function.
This function is already enough proved worldwide.
For example the company Kajima (the biggest construction company in Japan and in the world) has proved AC.
Module is also very nice function for big or high scrapper projects.
With module you can put one storey as you put one chair in plan (small file system with link function)

[Thomas Holm]

metanoia wrote:
Microstation does handle uberprojects well. It's hard to learn it -- and are you thinking about using Microstation in 3D -- Triforma and all that? -- because that's a different matter. It's really hard to learn and use. We sell it too... but no one's buying it here.

I'm not surprised. I switched, didn't I? 😉 I don't think there are many Triforma users left in this country either. But the strength of Microstation in managing large projects hasn't much to do with Triforma, more about the superior (also to Autocad et al) reference file capability. Microstation is 3D from the bottom up, as opposed to Autocad.

I think Kajima uses Navisworks to integrate project parts done in Archicad and other software. I think it gives Archicad users the same or better integration and analysis capabilities of large projects as Microstation can do with the right applications, but it's still third-party software and not a part of Archicad.

I'm not sure how Graphisoft's Virtual Construction suite compares to these offerings - it might be better, but it's new to me.

[Anonymous]

samsung wrote:
@Metanoia

AC has Team Works function.
This function is already enough proved worldwide.
For example the company Kajima (the biggest construction company in Japan and in the world) has proved AC.
Module is also very nice function for big or high scrapper projects.
With module you can put one storey as you put one chair in plan (small file system with link function)

If you want to use AC in a multi-user environment you have to purchase TeamWorks right? Revit is multiuser right out of the box, and you can use linked files just like in AC. The problem with this is that Revit users aren't comfortable with this idea because they like to be able to edit these modules more readily. Plus, you will see a joint line between these modules in elevation whereas if you don't use linked files, Revit can clean up these lines.

[Anonymous]

metanoia wrote:

If you want to use AC in a multi-user environment you have to purchase TeamWorks right? Revit is multiuser right out of the box, and you can use linked files just like in AC. The problem with this is that Revit users aren't comfortable with this idea because they like to be able to edit these modules more readily. Plus, you will see a joint line between these modules in elevation whereas if you don't use linked files, Revit can clean up these lines.

If everybody can edit module, than it is no more module, and can be very confused to controll.
If you copy it instead of to make module, than you can edit it(This is functon with storey in AC)
Just authorised person can change module to keep controlling.

One of the most important function for big project is also Layersystem and Navigator and Publisher in AC.
3D part is just basic figure for further work process.
It must be very interresting to compare not only 3D function but also Layer structur system and navigator system for Revit and AC.

In my opinion (or as I see in the website demo.) AC must be better for this point.
3D is good, organisation is better.

[TomWaltz]

metanoia wrote:
If you want to use AC in a multi-user environment you have to purchase TeamWorks right? Revit is multiuser right out of the box, and you can use linked files just like in AC.

Nope. If you buy Archicad, it includes Teamwork.

The problem with this is that Revit users aren't comfortable with this idea because they like to be able to edit these modules more readily. Plus, you will see a joint line between these modules in elevation whereas if you don't use linked files, Revit can clean up these lines.

Modules clean up extremely well. Walls that are part of a module clean up just as easily as walls that are not in both plans and elevations.

The editing is not as easy as I would like on them, but given the module system we use, I like maintaining control of all the modules in a project from a single PLN source file (that is published to MOD files).