Help convincing others

[khomburg]

We are in the middle of a bit of an internal battle and I would like to enlist the help of some others so help me in writing a response to a memo from another coworker on the Revit vs. ADT. I am trying my hardest to push revit in my company and I want to have some good arguments. I have attached a copy of the memo with some things taken out for a bit of privacy but would like some comments from the group. It seems to me that the author has quite a few misunderstandings about Revit.

[khomburg]

One other thing that I would like to point out is that we are moving from 2D line drawing for our projects to either ADT or Revit. We will have to train users one either package so if we stuck with ADT the only knowledge we would have is the underlying AutoCAD.

[hand471037]

Wow, yeah, he is a little bit misguided IMHO.

For his point number 1: That ADT is more 'compatable' and that due to Building Systems one proper Building Information Model can be generated and maintained, well, I ask him to put forth real-world examples of people doing this. Lots of ADT guys point to this as an example of why ADT is 'better' and yet they personally have never actually produced a full BIM model within ADT let alone tried to give that model over to a consultant using Building Systems to work on/within. While the marketing materials talk at length about the integration between Building Systems and ADT, what I saw while working at the Reseller about how these two systems interacted was less than stellar. It simply, IMHO, is a pipe dream that would only work if everyone's one the same page, everyone fully understands ADT, and your HVAC/Mech guys are in-house and under your control. Also, until your consultants begin working with Building Systems the whole issue is moot, you should pick the system that gives you the best abilities and that lets you communicate with your consultants the easiest, and that system, I believe, is Revit- not ADT.

For his point number 2: I'd ask for him to put up or shut up. Show concrete examples of how Revit lacks in Detailing Ability and Construction Documents. He has no idea what he's talking about here, we're using Revit to produce CD's all the time on large, complex, custom projects. And so are many other people, besides.

Sounds like just because he doesn't know how to use it he thinks it can't be done. :D

So what I would do is get a trial of both, and demand to see real examples of what this fellow's talking about. Demand to see ADT & Building Systems work together in the way he's talking about. Demand to see Revit *not* be able to detail something. Don't take any half-truths and don't assume anything...

[aaronrumple]

Cross Discipline Compatibility.
Does your firm do MEP/Structural in house? If not, then it is not likely that they are using either Revit or ADT. So the point is mute. In both cases you need to supply DWG which both ADT and Revit will do just fine.

If you have in house MEP/Structural. You might be using AutoCAD/Revit for now. We have in-house MEP. They have been using AutoCAD. Architects using Revit. It works. We're training some of the MEP so they can start working in Revit. MEP and Structural versions of Revit will be along in the near future. With ADT - you would need MEP using Building Systems. That is one really tough program to learn.

Pardon my French, but production of deliverables is 100% bullshit. There is this thing called the family editor. Revit details beautifully.

Oh ya - pay for my time and travel and I'll go head to head with him - Revit vs. ADT.

[J. Grouchy]

smack-down

[Scott D Davis]

My greatest criticism of Revit is the inability of this software to produce meaningful construction documents.
False - Revit produces CD's that are typically far better than the ADT equivalent, solely for the fact that coordination is not an issue. Tell the Freedom Tower team that Revit can't produce CD's.


It is very inflexible and components are limited to what is in the software database.
False - It is completely flexible, letting the user create any component you can dream of. It comes with a variety of preloaded components. Once again, I have to point to the Freedom Tower. The 'skin' of that project was no where near something you might find built into the database.


The product has been developed to produce generic components representing building elements such as walls, roofs, and floor systems that may or may not be suitable to our projects and offers no way to create specific components suitable to the types and locations of our work.
False - A 'generic' range of products comes with Revit out of the box, but each of these are customizable to fit your office's needs. There are several ways to create custom walls, roofs, and floors.


Further, while the generic system of Revit may very well satisfy the needs of a small residential or light commercial project where the client is highly involved in determining the final details and components of the projetc, one in which our roe ios limited in scope to basic planning and component design, it is not suitable where our construction documents form the basis of a contractual agreement between an owner and a contractor.
COMPLETELY FALSE! What role did you say this guy plays in your organization?? He has proven that he knows nothing about Revit or it's capabilities, and should be the last person influencing your firm's direction. If he is making these kinds of generalizations now, I wouldn't trust him to shape the future of your company. In fact, I would show him the door....go help another company 'suceed'. (hopefully your competition) I would like to see the 'attachments' mentioned that are the "most recent comparative reviews."

[Wes Macaulay]

I agree with Aaron that the cross-discipline compatibility issue is moot. What are the odds that all of you are going to use ADT and ABS at the same time? on the same xrefs?

What are the odds that you will be successful with ADT - that people will learn it completely? even with a lot of training? And what about new people?

ADT is really boring. Property Set Definitions are really boring. Dealing with four levels of xrefs is really, really boring.

Dealing with people who don't have a clue about Revit but are making decisions about the software is also - you guessed it - completely, utterly and in all other ways... boring.

[khomburg]

He is an architect with our organization that has been with us for a year in one of our other offices. I should mention that I am an electrical engineer and I am involved in the discussion because I am the company's IT manager/help desk. I started learning about Revit one day on a whim when I had some free time I started playing around with it and was amazed how easily I was do some basic buildings. I have been using Building Systems for my electrical design and documentation work and am chomping at the bit for the MEP module in Revit.

As requested here are links to the articles that were attached to the memo. In addition to my opinion that he has not spent any time looking at Revit I don't think he even actually read these articles.

http://www.aecbytes.com/review/ADT2005_pr.htm

http://www.aecbytes.com/review/Revit7_pr.htm

[hand471037]

Also, if he's thinking there is less customization that has to occur when rolling out ADT than Revit, esp. in regards to Detailing and Standard office content, well, he's sorely mistaken. There's a HUGE overhead in implementing ADT. Sure, it comes with a nice Detail Componat Library. But there is so much more that has to be done that I don't think he understands about (or is letting on about). With ADT you've also got Sheet Sets Standards, Display Rep Standards, Construct & Project Manamgent Standards, on and on... most firms that I saw that had decided to go with ADT had a implementation process that was taking *years* while the users continued to just plug away using it like AutoCAD, and at most using Walls, Doors, and Windows...

There is overhead in implementing Revit too, however all you have to worry about with Revit is making & editing the Content to look and act the way you want, and that's something any Revit-savvy user can do. When I taught Revit, we even covered how to make simple content in the basic class, and at the end of the three-day 'advanced' class my students were able to generate intelligent, complex, custom content for Revit...

If you can't generate custom content quickly, and if several people within the office can't create custom content as-needed on the job, in the trenches, the BIM system will FAIL, no matter who's using it and which system you go with. So picking the 'Can Be BIM with a lot of extra work' system of ADT over the 'BIM with no extra work' system of Revit simply makes no sense. You're gonna need the most accessible system you can get if you're going to be able to make the jump from plain old 2D vs. full BIM.

Otherwise, you'll just wind up doing what you do now, with a few extra tools added. Which, if in the end that's what you find out you want then more power to you, use what works and all that, but if you're looking for BIM systems you shouldn't fool yourself into thinking that ADT is a BIM system. It *can be* a BIM system if and only if everyone using it is fully trained and uses it as such, something I've only seen in *one* office (and a small one at that) out of 30 using ADT that I saw while working for the reseller. And that one office switched to Revit, for their ADT-generated sections off the model were taking half an hour to regen due to complexity.

In other words, ADT was the one 'falling on it's face' in CD's. Serously.

[J. Grouchy]

Our firm is a textbook example of what you talk about Jeffrey...we bought ADT and for the entire time we had it the most we ever took advantage of its features was to throw in walls and doors and windows. We would've used stairs too, but they always seemed to completely crash our computers. Needless to say, we always just ended up referring to it as AutoCAD instead of ADT...which should tell you how much we thought of it. Now, I'm sure ADT has come a long way since we first bought into it (around '99 or so), but from the sound of it, people still have the same problem. I think I heard stories of companies having to hire fulltime people just to develop, implement and maintain the content and standards for the office. Good thing about Revit is we all are in charge of this to a degree (with some oversight, of course) and we've all taken to it quite nicely. And I also must say that our CDs are so much better since we started using Revit.

[hand471037]

Here's a snippet from a post from the ADT 2005 newsgroup that illustrates my point exactly:

"Just want to add my 2 cents: I am in charge of rolling out 20+ seats of ADT2005 here, we were previously on ADT2, then ADT3.3, and it's like learning a new program. While it seems that 2005 is a vastly improved program, the downside is that the large amount of customization I have done for 3.3 is now wasted because it seems just too much work, for example, to add the necessary material definitions and display representations to the old wall styles so they work like they need to in 2005."

"Is it not a bit arrogant for Autodesk to tout a $4000 program like ADT3.3 back then as an incremental BIM solution when in reality it was still a whole lot faster to draw beautiful usable elevations with lines than trying to make the elevation object look good? So the only fully implemented features in ADT3.3 - apart from the occasional rendered 3d-model that only I did - were walls, windows and doors in plan only. I was excited to now finally get into using the linked elevations and wall sections, but after initial evaluation, I have scaled back my ambitions because the wall sections are not flexible enough to be able to use them for more than initial backgrounds. Even the elevations are an up-hill climb. How am I going to justify spending the huge amount of time (mine and the other user's) it takes for everybody to learn how to model complex Window Assemblies, Wall Styles, Roof/slab edge conditions with integrated gutters, and other rather complicated details, such as spanning constructs, or the question of how to show the below-grade portion of a building in dashed lines and the above-grade as fully hatched elevation, when you have a grade line that slopes and steps up and down repeatedly - All of which is necessary to create decent elevations. I know how this all can be done, but I also know I am going to see principles wondering why it takes people so long to come up with usable elevations, and they are going to push for doing them "by hand" - meaning lines and hatches."

So there you go. We're all Architects and Designers here, and we really need to simply produce nice looking work quickly without the computer getting too much in the way.

[abarrette]

Well After looking at the attached reviews I can see that he has answered his own argument.

He initially states that he "...agree(s) with their (Karl and John) conclusion the Building Information Modeling is the future for architecture, engineering, and construction." and yet he completely ignores the most damning argument against ADT that is within his own supporting statements.

[Excerpt]
Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2005
AECbytes Product Review (April 22, 2004)
<snipit>
Cons: Full utility as a BIM solution limited by underlying object-CAD technology and AutoCAD platform; complex interface that requires a steep learning curve to master; elaborate drawing management system that is difficult for CAD managers to set up and enforce.
</snipit>

Just my take on it...

[The Sweg]

It's hard to add anything but agreement to what's already been said. I had to learn ADT 2004 basically on my own with some good books and implement it in our office within 9 months of learning how to turn on my computer without someone holding my hand. I was a carpenter who had one semester of drafting in high school, no college and a co-worker who's been drawing since AutoCAD ver. 3 or something like that--and still drawing with p-lines. It was a HUGE undertaking to say the least, and I'm still not sure we're doing everything the way we're supposed to. But! I convinced my boss to switch to Revit. I'm in the process of implementing it in our office (with some backlash, of course) but, after one training course, I can see all the advantages of Revit over ADT. The biggest for me: not having to wait 3 months for my elevations to 'refresh' after taking 4 weeks to reload all my x-refs! (OK--that may have been a little excessive, but those of you using the Project Navigator--you know what I mean).

[irwin]

I think that the most convincing way to demonstrate that Revit can produce good CD's is to show some examples.

khomburg, if you tell the group exactly what kind of work your firm does perhaps others in the group will post sample CD's of similar projects produced in Revit.

[mlgatzke]

I'd be happy to help in this arena too.

By the way khomburg, three points for this person to investigate and play with if they're so stuck on ADT - 1. ADT Multi-view blocks vs. Revit Families (creation AND versatility) and 2. ADT Display Reps (ooo, that one gave me chills just typing it) and their limitations AND 3. (If you do commercial work) curtain wall creation and modification in ADT vs. Revit.

Believe me, if this person attempts these three topics and compares ADT and Revit - Revit will win - hands down.

IMHO, anyone stating that ADT is superior to Revit in ANY category is displaying an obvious lack of time in ADT and is reading the wrong material.

I teach AutoCAD, ADT, and Revit at the college level. My students create 50% more work in Revit and only spend about 75% of the time in Lab doing it than they do in ADT for the same project (a 20,000sf office building). I'd be happy to put one of my student's Revit CDs against ANY of your AutoCAD or ADT documents. I do my own residential design and documentation work using Revit. I'd put any of my residential CDs up against ANY AutoCAD or ADT documentation anytime. Hell, let's see an AutoCAD or ADT user create an accurate perspective view for a client in under 5 minutes. Most ADT users don't even use it for it's 3D capabilities (probably because it sucks at 3D) (sorry for my language - but it's very true). I ought to know, I teach it and used it in the professional world since it's inception. I traded my professional license of ADT for Revit 2.5 years ago and haven't even looked back. It's been GREAT.

[Chad Smith]

2. ADT Display Reps (ooo, that one gave me chills just typing it) and their limitations
Yeah, I think that one sends shivers down the backs of anyone who has used ADT. I'd like to know which sick twisted ******* thought Display Reps up. :banghead:

I used ADT for 2 years and still didn't get the whole system up running smoothly within the office. I've achieved far more from Revit in the same time. :mrgreen:

[Gadget Man]

To convert or not to convert?

The question shouldn't be "If..." but "How soon we can do it...?"

Fortunately I don't need to ask anybody for permit...

[khomburg]

Some examples of CDs would be great. We are a full service firm (Arch, MEP, Civil, Surveying, Environmental), but most of the architectural work is light commercial and institutional. We typically work on low-rise office buildings, 1-2 floors, and do a lot of work for smaller public housing commissions with approximately 100 to 200 units in a building.

Thanks for all the responses. It has been quite helpful.

[khomburg]

Mike,


Would it be possible for you to post some of your student's CDs of that 20,000 square foot office building? We just wrapped up an office building of about the same size using ADT It was a nightmare and the plans really don't look that good. I would like to see how yours come out.

Thanks again for all the help.

[edited: to address Mike Gatzke instead]

[ppelegrin]

Well Khomburg,

You really are up against it with that report circulating.

Its clear, regardless of the 'facts' that the writers of that report are mindless to the realities.

Although it is easy to dismiss, we have to appreciate that many people under estimate the success and ability of Revit. Quite frankly, reading that report, these people have already made up their mind what Revit can and cannot do, its obviously they haven't seen it (or seen it properly).

Can you get a 'good' demonstration from a reseller, even if you first test them yourself, checking their knowledge and ability to stray at least a little from a canned demo, showing an ability to answer tougher questions. And my goodness if you were able to put someone in front of your people for a Revit demo, they would want to be able to answer questions confidently - I suggest this because otherwise they will be torn apart and you will be in a worse position than before. I wonder whether a sample drawing is enough evidence to them on its drafting abilities?

In that Report, the comments regarding BIM and Revit with a future is IMHO, simply a beggars handout, it was not stated authentically - because it defies all their points against Revit. Also I personally suggest that the term BIM, is a superfluous concept to them, in this case I would not use these terms and get back to the basics, because Revit is so good at drafting, more than enough to impress them on their primary concerns. Of course, if they have not seen ADT properly, then they can still contest that ADT is still better - not that I would neccesssarily encourage a presentation on ADT?

Good luck in this project.


Regards,
P Pelegrin

[Martin P]

I would like to see the reviews - and also to which releases they related. But to make a statement stating that you cannot create any components of your own is quite frankly a lie or a real lack of knowledge of what Revit (infact any CAD software) can and cannot do, but I really find it hard to believe that anyone involved in using any sort of CAD software would really make a comment that you cannot create your own components!!?? - to my mind Geoff is blatantly lying for all to see, or this is a hoax.... If this is not a hoax, then somebody in your firm ought to have a word with Geoff - about his common sense if nothing else - by so obviously putting sheer nonsense in writing to his employers .

[khomburg]

I only wish this was a hoax but that is the actual memo.

One good thing is that we have both software packages that can be used tested and evaluated. We took advantage of a promotion that gave us licenses to Revit while upgrading our ADT licenses. All of them are now on subscription and we can cross-grade our ADT licenses to Revit for a couple hundred bucks down the road. So I think I have already been able to do the hardest part in buying the software but now that we have it I have to convince them to use it.

The hard part is going to get the person to actually take a look at the program.

[Steve_Stafford]

Do you design/draft too? If you're up for it, install both...take the same project program and give yourself two days to start and end. See how far you are after two days with each software. Then show them the difference.

[Rols]

Karl,
I think you've seen here already that Revit is the better choice.
The problem you have now is how to actually CONVINCE others in your office.

I have just run that gauntlet myself. We had our Autodesk reseller give us a demo of Revit. Some people were wowed, but many others had their doubts, claiming that a "canned demo" didn't really prove anything.

I had to bite the bullet and do a small "parallel pilot" project on my own time. I found a small, manageable project that was already being worked on in ADT and I took some plots home and I recreated the project on Revit, trying to make the drawings look identical to our standard ADT drawings (including titleblocks!).

When our people saw that the same drawings on the same project were created in Revit and that they could lay the drawings next to the ADT ones and not really tell the difference, I had their attention. When I told them that I had done it in far less time (even as a novice) than it had taken in ADT, I really had their attention. When I showed them the 3d views and the schedules, it was just icing on the cake.

It's kind of funny that people really have to see a head-to-head, apples-to-apples comparison, but if that's what it takes, then that's what you have to do.

[mlgatzke]

Would it be possible for you to post some of your student's CDs
Please PM me your email and I'll send it directly. I'll send it as a multi-page pdf. I just don't want to post the file as the designers might not appreciate me posting one of their designs to a public forum.

[Kirky]

I think how most people end up using ADT is as a ‘beefed up’ drafting tool and so you really never enter the world of BIM, so the argument is probably more about which software is more likely to allow you to embrace the BIM philosophy, now and into the future. Revit feels that it can only improve whereas ADT feels it is an unwilling participant in the BIM paradigm.
Apart from anything else Revit is actually fun to use, it is the first software that I have been confident enough to take to lunch with a client and develop ideas on the fly. (Call it the lunch test? need to be able to drink 1/2 bottle of wine, eat 2 course meal, operate software (one hand only) and be able demonstrate your ideas and changes without as much as a pause in proceeding. :-)

[Cathy Hadley]

Just a few cents here...

I am currently training a large firm with four locations. The decision was made to start the Revit Revolution, and now we are beginning the implementation. When I start each class I find out what processes they use to produce their work. Interestingly so far, each office is completely different, but that is another topic.

This last office is an ADT house. So I ask the question, do you use it to create sections, schedules, elevations, etc... 5 of the 6 say NO.

During training the other 1 keeps on with "ADT can do that"... "ADT can do that"...etc.. so finally I ask? Then why isn't your office doing it ?, you've been on ADT for years? No response... I think that says it all.

Needless to say... by the end of the 3 days there was excitement in the room and even the 1 guy (tho skeptical) was excited about the possibilities.

CZH