How many years until Revit domination?

[Meical ap Gwaredd]

I work for a structural engineering company, a few years ago we began hearing about Revit and the cool things that it can do, but since we had no clients using Revit at the time, we really didn’t see a need to buy it. Today, we have one client who has made the switch, and so we purchased a single license for Revit Structure 2012 and hired a guy to come in and do some in-house training. Today we are working on our first project and we are finding that there are some advantages to using this new program.
Before I go to the boss and ask him for another couple of Revit licenses, I’m wondering, what does the future hold for Revit? When will the world let go of their death-grip on AutoCAD and move over to Revit?
I’ve been drafting professionally since I was in High School. I’ve made the transition from Pen-and-Ink to AutoCAD and I remember how resistant the industry was to that. I’m seeing that same kind of resistance to the transition to Revit.
So, final question: When will the transition become irresistible? When will so much of the industry be using Revit that those still using AutoCAD are left in the dust of progress?
Next Year?
5 years?
10 years?

I ask you, because my boss will be asking me. Thanks!

[MikeJarosz]

Random Rants:


It seems that every new release of Autocad brings it closer and closer to Revit.

At some point, Autodesk is going to announce that it's killing Acad because the products are so similar.

The transition from one system to another is difficult for older, more experienced professionals. The new kids on the block only know one thing......the latest.

It took tens years to move from paper and pencil to 2D CAD. The office I am in today doesn't have a single drafting table.

I think the same will happen with the transition to 3D. And, we are well into the ten years!

[ajayholland]

I've been using Revit for almost ten years, and 3D apps for more than twenty. I didn't think it would take this long. Yet I still see pockets of resistance, and whole segments of the AEC market that have not "seen the light!"

I believe AutoCAD will out last my professional career. I hope that I am wrong.

~AJH

[wmullett]

Some of the posters above seem to forget that Revit is for buildings and AutoCAD is for everything. AutoCAD will not go away because of everything else but Revit will dominate the AEC AutoDESK market very quickly as compared to the CAD acceptance.

[gtarch]

When you consider that Adesk controls AutoCAD and Revit,

I think that Revit will bury AutoCAD in the AEC market when Adesk decides that it needs to be so.

Bt

[Meical ap Gwaredd]

You know... I would have to disagree. This one is all market driven, and I think that the architects will be the deciding factor in the market. We, as engineers, decided that we would put our feet in the Revit pool when told to do so by our architect clients. I would imagine that as our clients convert their businesses over to Revit, we will as well until the day comes that we are all Revit, all the time.
Autodesk is going to continue to sell and improve programs that are selling. I doubt that it matters to them which one it is as long as they are turning a profit, and the buyers are happy.

[Mike Sealander]

It'll be a while, but I think the construction managers will force the change. Once virtual construction becomes the norm, everyone will need to step up to the parametric modeling plate.

[DaveP]

I agree with wmullet.
AutoCAD itself will be around for a long while yet.
The part I don't understand is why is Autodesk still selling AutoCAD for Architecture?
I mean that both in the software sense and in the philosophical sense.
I honestly don't know why they still develop and sell AutoCAD Architecture. It's different enough from plain old ACAD that you might as well use Revit, anyway.

We still have plan ACAD here, though. We have a few clients who either have CAD-centric standards that are difficult to replicate in Revit (e.g. we need to give them back dwgs with their blocks, or they insist on dimensions in Paper Space) or that have large campuses, multiple projects and - sadly - multiple Architects. So there are a few legitimate reasons that we are forced to stick with the old school. Our base rule is that if we are doing nothing more than drafting, its ACAD. Anything that requires 3D or any intelligence at all (scheduling) goes in Revit.

[Meical ap Gwaredd]

That’s Interesting.
Obviously we haven’t gotten to that point with Revit, but we can see it in the near future. Once we begin to get comfortable with the software, we’ve planned to do a “client tour” to see if we can’t get a couple of our clients interested in making the switch. We have a couple of architect clients whose projects are so complicated and complex, that we think that they could really benefit from the BIM concept.
Thanks for your input guys. I didn’t get a lot of responses to the pole, but probably enough to guess the final outcome of a larger sample.

[Michael.c]

The same old comparisons are still being made arn't they.
The "drawing board to CAD" phase verses the "CAD to BIM" phase!

Can someone spot the difference here:

Tool: Drawing board
Product: A set of flat, 2D paper drawings.

Tool: CAD
Product: A set of flat, 2D paper drawings.

Tool: BIM
Product: An electronic, intelligent, co-ordinated, 3 dimensional model containing architectural, structural and engineering data and much much more


When will it be realised that these are completely unfair and unrealistic comparisons.
We are not comparing apples with apples.....we are more like comparing apples with orchards!
Clearly at the end of the day, with Revit, different people with different job descriptions are producing a COMPLETELY different product, whereas when we all switched from the drawing board over to CAD back in the late eighties, we still ended up with an identical product ( a bit neater perhaps, but the same documentation),

I started using Revit back in 2007. I clearly remember my manager telling me that within 5 years we would all be using Revit and no-one would be using AutoCAD anymore.

In services, we are not even close. It is going to take much, much longer.

[fcgibso1636447]

Unfortunately, Revit CIVIL is missing and it's unclear whether or not Autodesk is actually working on adding it or not.

[Revitaoist]

Bring your 2D elevations to the RFP and I'll bring an animation of the building rotating and solar study animations complete with floor plans that cannot contradict the elevations, and we will see who gets the job. Where's the button for last year???

[MikeJarosz]

Unfortunately, Revit CIVIL is missing and it's unclear whether or not Autodesk is actually working on adding it or not.

I have a project in the mountains of New England. The site contours are unbelievable. Our civil engineer has only AD Civil and isn't familiar with Revit. I have acquired coordinates from the civil dwg file, but I'm no land surveyor and I find it hard to double check the results.

Revit Civil would certainly put an end to the confusion, if only.....................

[StDoodle]

Coming from the subcontractor / manufacturing world, I don't see my office using Revit in the near future. If we could EVER get architects to share their CAD data with us, it would be hugely beneficial on multiple levels to switch. However, I've been able to get CAD drawings twice in 5 years in my current field; without the reference drawings to start from, doing shop drawings in Revit seems like it would just add to my workload.

[cadclips]

Eagle Point now has Siteworks for REVIT. http://www.eaglepoint.com/products/siteworksforrevit/index.html And Landcadd for REVIT. http://www.eaglepoint.com/products/landcaddforrevit/index.html

[MikeJarosz]

Eagle Point now has Siteworks for REVIT. http://www.eaglepoint.com/products/siteworksforrevit/index.html And Landcadd for REVIT. http://www.eaglepoint.com/products/landcaddforrevit/index.html

Eaglepoint presented a very effective demo for the NYC Revit User Group. I can't help musing to myself that one day we will read somewhere that Autodesk bought them out. Next day Autodesk announces site tools for Revit, something everyone has been begging Autodesk for years now.

On the other hand, regarding Revit dominance, I attended a lecture given by an attorney responsible for the AIA BIM documents. He says that the AIA keeps track of CAD statistics and by their reckoning, the tipping point has been reached. More projects are starting in Revit than Acad.

[Patrick Schroeder]

I would agree that the tipping point has been reached, but I don't think that 100% (or even 75%) Revit use in all AEC projects will ever be a realistic goal. You're always gonna have the throwbacks and the "Brand X of CAD/BIM is better because..." believers.

[gbrowne]

I'd say there are many old non-subscription copies of ACAD/ACAD LT out there in the wild working away independently for it to be 100% for quite a while. Single seat 'one man band' operations building little extensions and garages for whom Revit/3D is an irrelevance.

[johncubed209967]

AutoDesk would really help it's case by hiring some software designers from Apple to improve the feeling of flow when using Revit, to troubleshoot all the glitches and inconsistancies within the program, and in general improve the user experience. Right now the learning curve is way too steep and isn't helped by poor and inconsiderate software organization and design.

[MikeJarosz]

This has a steep learning curve too.............




88510

[gbrowne]

Wow! What is this? The Catia interface?! ;-)

[irneb]

Don't know if it's possible to say Revit will dominate at all. It might dominate in some industries, but I don't think something like ACad will ever become useless.

Revit as is, still falls short of all needs in even the construction industry. E.g. Its site tools are infantile in comparison to C3D (e.g. no way to model / even indicate underground excavations). E.g.2. Its modeling tools (Extrusions / Revolves / Blends) are inferior to even Vanilla ACad - not to mention its modeling editing is a lot less efficient than acad's, which in turn is inferior to Inventor. There are some things which I like in ACad Arch above Revit (e.g. the ease of editing wall nibs), but ACA falls flat as it's not a true BIM and doesn't handle huge projects well.

I personally would love to see something which brings the benfits of both (or even all 3) together. A convergence of Acad, Inventor & Revit, but I don't think it will happen (as others have pointed out Revit=Construction, Inventor=Mech, ACad=Everything). At best we can hope that Revit would incorporate acad's easier to use vanilla tools. At present I find myself modeling strange shapes in acad then importing them as masses in Revit - I'd have liked to be able to model these direct in RVT. As for 2D details, drawing them in acad is faster, but once you've setup your families with included detail components in RVT - it blows acad's spee out the water.