AutoCAD MEP

[brian.muir]

Hello,
I am not positive I have posted this in the right place, if not sorry.
I am looking at adopting AutoCAD MEP for electrical design but I am finding that the MEP forums here and on the Autodesk site are quite dead. This is disappointing. I have looked closely at Revit and find that MEP is a much better fit for my needs. I expect for that for most electrical consulting engineers this is true also, since our discipline works almost exclusively in plan, and we have little need for 3D.
I'd appreciate some thoughts on the state of A-MEP. Is it a dying animal? Is AutoDesk actively supporting the product? Is there an active user community anywhere?
thanks!

[Wanderer]

Hello,
I am not positive I have posted this in the right place, if not sorry.
I am looking at adopting AutoCAD MEP for electrical design but I am finding that the MEP forums here and on the Autodesk site are quite dead. This is disappointing. I have looked closely at Revit and find that MEP is a much better fit for my needs. I expect for that for most electrical consulting engineers this is true also, since our discipline works almost exclusively in plan, and we have little need for 3D.
I'd appreciate some thoughts on the state of A-MEP. Is it a dying animal? Is AutoDesk actively supporting the product? Is there an active user community anywhere?
thanks!

Hi, Brian, I've moved this to the BIM Management forum, where you should be able to get some input on what people are using for MEP. Even if you don't feel you need the 3d benefits, any benefit of 'intelligent' objects and connected systems is probably going to be lumped in with BIM.

Personally, I started off with AutoCAD MEP, but, was waiting for Revit MEP to mature a bit, then moved on to that. I kept the Suite because I had plenty of AMEP content in my archives that need to be kept alive for the lifetime of the facility. Of course, we were embracing the 3d aspects of both our architectural and MEP models for large-scale analysis capabilities, as well as the ability to pull data (such as square and cubic footage, and equipment details) into our CMMS/CAFM down the road.

Personally, I would opine that, just because you do not see people actively posting questions in the forums, does not mean that there aren't some of us around with enough experience to help you troubleshoot the product (also, many of the AMEP problems are vanilla AutoCAD Problems, and we've definitely got plenty of those folks around).

[brian.muir]

Thank you.
We tried using Revit but gave up when we realized that it is very difficult to take advantage of the BIM for electrical without a 3d model initially. Most of the architects we deal with are supplying 2d AutoCAD drawings. We figured initially that would could still harness Revit given that starting point but my CAD Technician decided after a great deal of effort that he was "swimming upstream". I am not sure all the details but I know he is a capable guy and tried really hard to make it work.
So now we are experimenting with MEP. It does provide some advantages, but it is also rough around the edges and clunky. I would rather not tie my business to sunset software.

Some of my questions still stand. Is AutoDesk actively supporting and developing this product? If so, they like to work in secret!
I see no evidence that AutoDesk people monitor or participate in any of these forums (not just here, but also the forums hosted on the Autodesk site!
I've come across many MEP related posts that hang without even one response, and I have posted several such at forums.autodesk.com. The lack of response there has prompted me to check out these forums...

[Wanderer]

Thank you.
We tried using Revit but gave up when we realized that it is very difficult to take advantage of the BIM for electrical without a 3d model initially. Most of the architects we deal with are supplying 2d AutoCAD drawings. We figured initially that would could still harness Revit given that starting point but my CAD Technician decided after a great deal of effort that he was "swimming upstream". I am not sure all the details but I know he is a capable guy and tried really hard to make it work.
So now we are experimenting with MEP. It does provide some advantages, but it is also rough around the edges and clunky. I would rather not tie my business to sunset software.

Some of my questions still stand. Is AutoDesk actively supporting and developing this product? If so, they like to work in secret!
I see no evidence that AutoDesk people monitor or participate in any of these forums (not just here, but also the forums hosted on the Autodesk site!
I've come across many MEP related posts that hang without even one response, and I have posted several such at forums.autodesk.com. The lack of response there has prompted me to check out these forums...

I can definitely see his perspective with that. It's possible, but, there's a lot of hassling with reference planes, etc.

I'll admit that I didn't check into the AMEP beta too much this year, as I was busy working with other things, so I can't comment on it's development. I do not get any hint that it's going to be abandoned any time soon.

And, no, Autodesk people don't typically monitor any online discussion groups, the whole autodesk model has always been built upon the concept of the reseller channel being the support. All of the discussion groups are users helping users for free, I can't imagine any business providing free support. imho.