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Modeling
About Archicad's design tools, element connections, modeling concepts, etc.

Some archicad questions

Anonymous
Not applicable
Dear pals,

I have some questions would like to seek from you guys around.

1) Is there any other program similar to archicad? Can I know how many types of similar archicad software are there in the market?

2) What is the difference between autocad and archicad?

3) Which are the companies the main industrial players for autocad and archicad?

4) Is there such program that combines the features of autocad and archicad?
8 REPLIES 8
Dwight
Newcomer
Is this like a school project or something? Very clever of you to get me to write your essay. Better check it though, i could be fooling.

1) any other program????
Without speaking a bad, five letter word, there are outrageous cabbage-kicking claims by other, lesser programs with immense develoment money behind them, but Archicad leads right now. But who can say about next month? We live in interesting times as far as architectural software goes.

2) What is the difference between autocad and archicad?

AutoCad is an electronic drafting board adaptable to any drafting situation. Think of it as StupidOldFashionedCAD.
Archicad, on the other hand, has sophisticated tools specific to the design, analysis, illustration and construction documentation of buildings using a virtual building AKA building information model. It produces relationships in three dimensions that have meaning - they inform the designer about spatial qualities and conflicts from the getgo. You don't discover the confllict six months later that the headroom over the cycling path to the underside of the transit guideway is 1.8m like i did in 1983. What trouble that was! The information and productivity gained from modeling is made clear when editing or refining design and in the resulting accuracy of construction documentation. There's no faking it in Archicad. Think of it as SmartModernCAD.
3) Which are the companies the main industrial players for autocad and archicad?

Big architectural firms. Used to be that Archicad was something clever guys in their basements who wanted the productivity of five people all by themselves bought, but it is catching on with real architects, now, and they are forgetting their roots, abandoning essentials like ductwork.

4) Is there such program that combines the features of autocad and archicad?

Probably. If you are going to market to architects, you need buzzwords providing solace to archaic AutoCAD feifdom managers and techologic hope to those needing modern building descriptors. All applications make buildings to one degree or another, even basic CrayononthebackofanenvelopeCAD will do. But why bother to combine features since AutoCAD is not modern? Either you stay in "flatland" with AutoCAD, burdened by limiting concepts of linework and symbols, or you abandon that idiocy and adopt some kind of intelligent system that employs the three dimensional data management aspects a computer can provide. Many Archicad users feel that they produce documents faster, more accurately and more profitably than they ever could in AutoCAD once they stop bitching about the multi-faceted interface and get down to business with it.
Dwight Atkinson
TomWaltz
Participant
ray wrote:
Dear pals,

I have some questions would like to seek from you guys around.

1) Is there any other program similar to archicad? Can I know how many types of similar archicad software are there in the market?

2) What is the difference between autocad and archicad?

3) Which are the companies the main industrial players for autocad and archicad?

4) Is there such program that combines the features of autocad and archicad?
Spend a little while browsing/searching this forum.... almost all these answers are here somewhere...
Tom Waltz
Anonymous
Not applicable
Hi Dwight,

You have helped me in understanding certain issues on archicad and autocad. I was just doing some research understanding on archicad, autocad and any other cad programs where the architechs are using.

So can I say the main common cad programs most architechs used are archicad right at the moment?

As mentioned in a question stated by me the difference between autocad and archicad, so can I say actually autocad is a common tool where the architech used in the past and since archicad is out most of the architech made a switch from autocad to archicad due to its advanced features in archicad?

Can I just ask other than autocad and archicad these two common programs used by the architechs, which 2 or 3 more common programs the architech use as well?


Dwight wrote:
Is this like a school project or something? Very clever of you to get me to write your essay. Better check it though, i could be fooling.

1) any other program????
Without speaking a bad, five letter word, there are outrageous cabbage-kicking claims by other, lesser programs with immense develoment money behind them, but Archicad leads right now. But who can say about next month? We live in interesting times as far as architectural software goes.

2) What is the difference between autocad and archicad?

AutoCad is an electronic drafting board adaptable to any drafting situation. Think of it as StupidOldFashionedCAD.
Archicad, on the other hand, has sophisticated tools specific to the design, analysis, illustration and construction documentation of buildings using a virtual building AKA building information model. It produces relationships in three dimensions that have meaning - they inform the designer about spatial qualities and conflicts from the getgo. You don't discover the confllict six months later that the headroom over the cycling path to the underside of the transit guideway is 1.8m like i did in 1983. What trouble that was! The information and productivity gained from modeling is made clear when editing or refining design and in the resulting accuracy of construction documentation. There's no faking it in Archicad. Think of it as SmartModernCAD.
3) Which are the companies the main industrial players for autocad and archicad?

Big architectural firms. Used to be that Archicad was something clever guys in their basements who wanted the productivity of five people all by themselves bought, but it is catching on with real architects, now, and they are forgetting their roots, abandoning essentials like ductwork.

4) Is there such program that combines the features of autocad and archicad?

Probably. If you are going to market to architects, you need buzzwords providing solace to archaic AutoCAD feifdom managers and techologic hope to those needing modern building descriptors. All applications make buildings to one degree or another, even basic CrayononthebackofanenvelopeCAD will do. But why bother to combine features since AutoCAD is not modern? Either you stay in "flatland" with AutoCAD, burdened by limiting concepts of linework and symbols, or you abandon that idiocy and adopt some kind of intelligent system that employs the three dimensional data management aspects a computer can provide. Many Archicad users feel that they produce documents faster, more accurately and more profitably than they ever could in AutoCAD once they stop bitching about the multi-faceted interface and get down to business with it.
Anonymous
Not applicable
The word "architech" is spelt Architect.

Your welcome.
Steven wrote:
The word "architech" is spelt Architect.

Your welcome.
And the word "spelt" is spelled "spelled". http://www.thefreedictionary.com/spelt
And the contraction of "you are" is "you're", not "your". If you're going to correct someone's English, it is helpful to know it first.

Don't mention it.
Richard
--------------------------
Richard Morrison, Architect-Interior Designer
AC26 (since AC6.0), Win10
__archiben
Booster
Richard wrote:
And the word "spelt" is spelled "spelled". http://www.thefreedictionary.com/spelt
And the contraction of "you are" is "you're", not "your". If you're going to correct someone's English, it is helpful to know it first.

Don't mention it.
haha!

thanks richard! that made my morning. the whole your/you're thing make my skin crawl. (as does your country's butchery of the english language - but that's a discussion for the pub! )

~/ben
b e n f r o s t
b f [a t ] p l a n b a r c h i t e c t u r e [d o t] n z
archicad | sketchup! | coffeecup
Dwight
Newcomer
So is anyone actually going to answer cute Ray? I'm done on this topic.
Dwight Atkinson
stefan
Expert
ray wrote:
Hi Dwight,
So can I say the main common cad programs most architechs used are archicad right at the moment?
Nope. Architects use mainly generic CAD software to do mainly 2D Drafting, such as AutoCAD, MicroStation, VectorWorks and some others.

Then there is a minority (I've read it's about 10%) that uses BIM software, such as ArchiCAD, Revit, Allplan, AutoCAD Architecture, MicroStation Architecture etc...

So the answer is "no".
ray wrote:
As mentioned in a question stated by me the difference between autocad and archicad, so can I say actually autocad is a common tool where the architech used in the past and since archicad is out most of the architech made a switch from autocad to archicad due to its advanced features in archicad?
AutoCAD is still widely used today.
Many architects that use AutoCAD are slowly migrating to BIM software, but usually the software from Autodesk (the firm that develops AutoCAD): AutoCAD Architecture (used to be called Architectural Desktop) and Revit. Some might switch to ArchiCAD.

All in all, Revit and ArchiCAD are comparable: they have the same goal and are more or less capable of the same things, but do it in a quite different way.
ray wrote:
Can I just ask other than autocad and archicad these two common programs used by the architechs, which 2 or 3 more common programs the architech use as well?
That is answered above...
--- stefan boeykens --- bim-expert-architect-engineer-musician ---
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Archicad-user since 1998
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