Call to Arms (Which one? Revit or Archicad?)

[mmolina]

Re: Revit vs. Archicad
I know I'm beating a dead horse but it's decision time.
Our firm is finally going to take a serious look at BIM.
We are going to have a committee on the subject and we are all
to have an open mind.
I'm personally very pro Revit. I'm currently going thru two of Cyril Verley's books.
(Excellent training by the way).
I have also gone thru some of the Archicad training, though it has some
nice features and is very powerful, I believe that Revit is further ahead.
Here's what I'm up against. We just hired the Archicad equivalent to Cyril.
So I hope the committee is not being set up.
**I need some legit testomonials from people that have switched from Archicad to Revit
and why. I need actual Archicad users to respond.
Not just heresay.
Feel free to call me or email me personally.

Thanks,
Mark Molina
mmolina@lgainc.com
(702) 263-7111

[andremiko]

Good luck! I would say put one of the deciding powers in front of a computer and get them to draw something. I know nothing of Archicad but I doubt that it is as easy to learn or as intuitive as Revit.

[hand471037]

I wasn't working here when they were using Archicad, but our firm made the switch just last year from ArchiCAD to Revit.

They were working in ADT, and wanted something more. They were thinking Revit, but the buyout was still pretty fresh (this was two years ago) and the local ArchiCAD reseller guy promised the moon with ArchiCAD V8- that it would be able to do everything Revit could. So they bought ArchiCAD, got V8, and started working with it in earnest.

What the firm got, however, with ArchiCAD V8 was a total mess. Folks here thought it too confusing, too cumbersome, too hard to learn, and too hard to make custom content for. We're a small office, no CAD manager, and as such we all take our part with making things work, CAD-wise (we do have part-time IT folks). We're also pretty CAD-savvy, not a bunch of old hand-drafters with no computer experience, everyone here is pretty sharp on computer stuff, and everyone knows and uses several different programs (Sketchup, Adobe Suite, Macromedia stuffs, ect)- so it's not like we've got a bunch of beginner computer users here. It was also very unstable, they felt that V8 was little more than a rushed Beta version to answer the Revit buyout. It had so many problems, didn't live up to it's hype and promises at all, didn't match Revit in the slightest, and was so unstable and hard to work with it was completely abandoned. The firm here is actually trying to get it's money back from the local reseller for they feel that he misrepresented the product completely. Pretty dire situation all in all, for when everything was failing the local reseller guy pretty much told them off and refuses now to even answer our calls, from what I overhear. However this is the same ArchiCAD guy, when I was working at the Autodesk reseller, that my clients told me was telling them that 'Revit was going to fail at larger products' and would even tell people that known Revit firms here were considering switching or had switched to ArchiCAD from Revit because of this, when no such thing was true at all; or he was stretching the truth very very far. So we might have just had a real bum of a reseller, your mileage may vary. :)

Now, I've heard that ArchiCAD V9 is better, more stable, and actually works. However, I've also heard that it didn't add too much new promised stuff, and really just fixed a lot of the problems introduced with V8. Much of the promised additions were put off for V10 or later, many of which are already within Revit or have been within Revit from the very beginning. Also I've been working with Revit for years now, and it's grown very quickly- much faster than ArchiCAD IMHO. Yes, ArchiCAD has been around for 20 years, and has some features Revit doesn't. Yet. And that's the real key point here: Revit's easier to learn and use, cheaper in the end (less overhead & no add-ons), and is growing much faster than ArchiCAD. I think we can expect a lot from them in the next few months, I think the new Revit 7 release just the tip of the iceberg... Whereas many of the things the ArchiCAD folks have been asking for are getting pushed back into later versions...

So I'd be wary. As always, download both and try them both out, on real projects, with real folks (no gurus on ether side) to get a real feel for the product.

Just my 2 cents.

[Wes Macaulay]

Wow Mark - your firm has some cool projects. And you're in Vegas, so you can go to AU and learn all the cool new features of Revit 7 :mrgreen:

Fundamental differences between ArchiCAD and Revit: as Jeffrey said, the ability to create your own content. Creating your own families is not hard, and there is no programming language at all in Revit. Some have said that ArchiCAD's components are more parametric than Revit's -- more customizable, more controllable, what with GDL programming and all. It all depends on how much work the Revit user puts into the family -- it's as parametric as you make it.

Sections and elevations in ArchiCAD can be live, but usually they're not since there's a performance hit for doing this.

We have several (not many - ArchiCAD is not big out here) ArchiCAD users here in Vancouver who tell me that Revit cleans up on ArchiCAD 8 but none of us have tried 9. My experience with ArchiCAD ends at 6.5, but have a look over at http://graphisoft.com/community/archicad-talk and see what the current users of ArchiCAD are saying. That's how I ended up using Revit to begin with...

Revit is easier to use and could be said to be running on better technology and programming. These Revit guys are geniuses... Leonid and Irwin's pet project has probably succeeded beyond their imaginations.

I can't sell you the software, but I'm telling you: get into Revit now. There will be a window of opportunity for firms to get going with Revit now before it becomes widespread like AutoCAD. We sold 17 seats of Revit yesterday and this thing is beginning to take off :shock:

[Roger Evans]

Like Wes I Checked out your website .. it would seem to me that the ethos of your company is most in tune with Revit .. you should point the decision makers in this direction and ask them to listen to their inner voice ..

[ajayholland]

... and this thing is beginning to take off :shock:

An understatement, to be sure!

Many of the companies represented at the Large Firm Revit Implementation Group meeting last month in NYC were not users (yet), but their enthusiasm was at the highest level and the direction toward which the profession is moving is very clear. The two Revit user group meetings in Southern California are routinely attended by many new and prospective users.

~AJH

[Wes Macaulay]

It has been a difficult two years for our company -- firms weren't taking as much of an interest in Revit as we expected they would, and the resellers in town were pooh-poohing Revit while pushing ADT very hard. They're not architects though :screwy: so we've been the lone voices locally showing what it can do.

Now with SOM's webcast, and a greater take-up of Revit here in Vancouver, we feel like we're beginning to see some results from all our efforts.

We have half a dozen ArchiCAD firms (mostly on Macs) who have expressed an interest in Revit while acknowledging that they have not successfully taken AC thru to working drawings. I found that rather depressing given ArchiCAD's place as the first popular application to make use of the virtual building as a means of documenting buildings.

[MikeJarosz]

However this is the same ArchiCAD guy, when I was working at the Autodesk reseller, that my clients told me was telling them that 'Revit was going to fail at larger products'

The world's tallest building (tallest for a while anyway) is being done in Revit.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

[hand471037]

The world's tallest building (tallest for a while anyway) is being done in Revit.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

I know, that's the thing I just can't believe; the level of arrogance and ignorance from people sometimes.

Every day I come into work, and open up several projects within Revit that are all bigger than a city block. 100 units, 250 units, some with retail, some with parking garages, all of them large and complex...

And yet folks that have never worked with Revit at all feel free to go on and on, even here on AUGI, about the 'limitations' of Revit, and how it can't do something, when I'm doing those very things daily and have been for years now...

[ajayholland]

Last night I had the good fortune to attend an Autodesk "Vision to Reality" presentation here in southern California. Along with another local firm, compatriot Jim Balding presented the Revit success story to another conference room full of eager design professionals. Many prominent local firms were represented. (Anyone heard of Richard Meier?)

The presentations were preceded with an introduction by Autodesk Building Solutions Division VP Phil Bernstein. I won't attempt to summarize his comments, except to say that the focus was on the future of the design professions and the construction industry, and how each must evolve. The information was inspirational. I look forward to his presentation at AU.


~AJH

[christopher.zoog51272]

Last night I had the good fortune to attend an Autodesk "Vision to Reality" presentation here in southern California. Along with another local firm, compatriot Jim Balding presented the Revit success story to another conference room full of eager design professionals. Many prominent local firms were represented. (Anyone heard of Richard Meier?)

The presentations were preceded with an introduction by Autodesk Building Solutions Division VP Phil Bernstein. I won't attempt to summarize his comments, except to say that the focus was on the future of the design professions and the construction industry, and how each must evolve. The information was inspirational. I look forward to his presentation at AU.


~AJH
lol, you sure do get around don't you AJ ;)

[tbarnesarc]

I'll just say this, I was on Archicad for four years and was an avid supporter until my introduction to Revit. I have been using it for 7 months and have found it to be a lot more flexible i.e. making custom parts without having to learn Archicad's annoying programing language known as "GDL". I have looked at the demo movies of V8 & V9 of Archicad and it looks like they have made many improvements, but I still feel that Revit is the best choice.

[Scott D Davis]

I was fortunate enough to go to the same event as AJ....very cool presentation! Some great thoughts and ideas about wholesale change in the ways that Architects do business. We are on the cusp of some very big changes in how the process of architecture, design, and construction happen.

To summarzie Phil's comments: Autodesk sees its products as a ladder. Bottom rung: AutoCAD. Middle rung, ADT. Top of the ladder: Revit!

Another interesting point from Phil: In the 'electronic' age that we are in: Fed Ex estimates it made $500 Million last year, shipping paper plans for Architects.

I see the next ten years or so being very interesting and exciting in the world of Architecture.

[tbarnesarc]

Scott & Jay

I wish I had known about that meeting. I would have gone. How did you find out about it?

[MikeJarosz]

Another interesting point from Phil: In the 'electronic' age that we are in: Fed Ex estimates it made $500 Million last year, shipping paper plans for Architects.


On my last project, an airport terminal, we regularly had 10-20 FedEx tubes to send. Towards the end of the project we started sending plotfiles directly to the bluprinter via FTP. FedEx stock fell 2 points that day.

[ajayholland]

Scott,
Yes to your PM. (Your mailbox is full!)
~AJH

[stefan.boeykens]

I suggest you go and ask the same question on ArchiCAD-talk as well. Then you'll get at least the two sides from the story...

ArchiCAD has been used on enough realworld projects to prove it's maturity. Well, even 2D-AutoCAD is used on enough realworld projects as well...