ABS or ADT? Need some guidance.

[bbacker]

I work for an AE firm. We are in the midst of a huge upheaval in our firm as we are acquiring another AE firm and implementing new software at the same time. :o
My boss has asked me to look into ADT vs. ABS.

Here are my thoughts:

1. ABS is an all in one package. No need for different licenses.

2. Communication between the disciplines would be enhanced if we were all on the same page. There would be no problem with our software not being compatible.

Currently, we are running ADT 3.3 and the engineers have straight Autocad. We have had serious problems with our software talking to eachother.

Granted, I only loaded a trial version of ABS 2005 on my machine today so I am not that familiar with it. But I do know that it was built on the ADT platform. If it operates in the same way as ADT does, I don't see any issues with our adopting ABS instead of straight ADT.

Is my thinking incorrect? Are there other issues that I am not aware of?

Thanks!

[RobertB]

If you are doing MEP work, it would not make sense to only provide ADT.

[mark.kiker]

Having ABS would give you ultimate flexibility. You could run it as ABS, or ADT or and vanilla AutoCAD.

[Steve_Bennett]

When choosing to install ABS, you have the option to create profiles in ABS & desktop shortcuts that will activate the profiles for AutoCAD, ADT & ABS, respectively. It would be a huge program to push out to everyone, but you would have the ultimate flexibility.


One thing to note though is that for everyone to benefit from the PN used in ABS, they'll need to use the ABS profile which will load the full PN & the functionality for all ABS objects. If they use the acad shortcut, they won't have access to the PN (Sheet Set Manager only) and they wouldn't be able to edit any objects created by ADT or ABS. Same for the ADT profile - they wouldn't be able to edit any ABS objects.

Hope this gives you some guidance!

[bbacker]

When choosing to install ABS, you have the option to create profiles in ABS & desktop shortcuts that will activate the profiles for AutoCAD, ADT & ABS, respectively. It would be a huge program to push out to everyone, but you would have the ultimate flexibility.


One thing to note though is that for everyone to benefit from the PN used in ABS, they'll need to use the ABS profile which will load the full PN & the functionality for all ABS objects. If they use the acad shortcut, they won't have access to the PN (Sheet Set Manager only) and they wouldn't be able to edit any objects created by ADT or ABS. Same for the ADT profile - they wouldn't be able to edit any ABS objects.

Hope this gives you some guidance!

Yes, it does, thank you. I will need to check that out. Are the ABS objects limited to MEP objects? That is fine for us in architecture. I don't want to mess with ductwork anyways.

So basically, we need to make sure everyone uses the correct profile.

The reason why I am considering ABS is to eliminate problems that we have with every project here. Architecture uses ADT as vanilla AutoCAD but we pull items from design center as we need too. (ie toilets, sinks, grab bars). However, our engineers are using Vanilla AutoCad and they continuously have problems displaying proxy images. We always end up going into our base plans and exploding all AEC objects. I know that seems like a minor problem but for us it has created serious problems.

I also like the idea of having all of us, all disciplines, on the same page software wise. There won't be any "this was created in another program and we can't use it". Plus the sharing of knowledge is increased.

Of course, ultimately, the choice will come down to the bottom line with management. Is ABS more expensive than ADT? If it is...ADT will be purchased for Architecture. And that is fine too. I am totally smitten with both systems.

[bbacker]

Having ABS would give you ultimate flexibility. You could run it as ABS, or ADT or and vanilla AutoCAD.

That was my thought! One software package that can multitask for multi-disciplines.

[bbacker]

If you are doing MEP work, it would not make sense to only provide ADT.

For the engineers the decision has already been made to purchase ABS. But for the rest of us...Architecture and Structural no firm decision has been made. I was thinking that since managment is already purchasing ABS for the engineers why not for everyone. One software package for the whole office, well except for civil. Civil is using LDT.

Thanks!