Presentation Tools/Software

[marcosf]

Hi everyone

I downloaded an evaluation copy of M Color and managed to make the attached .pdf presentation plan working with Autocad and M Color very quickly. The M Color software works from inside Autocad.

The original plan in itself I did in Revit and exported to Autocad for presentation purposes.

I am very happy with the results, but found the price tag a bit too steep (USD 595.).

Before going ahead and buying, I decided to ask the forum. Does anyone here have a suggestion of how to get the same results but with a not so expensive software?

Thanks

[AP23]

If you already have a copy of Adobe Create Suite or just Photoshop or Illustrator, I would just stick to those two. You can get the same result or even better with both as they use filters, layers styles and effects etc. However, if you dont have any adobe products the M Color is a good alternative and it is relatively cheap.

[Scott D Davis]

I would do something very similar to that from within Revit, using the materials of objects and shaded views, in combination with Color Legends. The only thing different would be the gradient colors.

[zanzibarbob7]

I agree with Andrew. Photoshop can do these things easily and it should already be in your software arsenal. The floor color and most other blocks are using a gradient. Easy to do in Photoshop.

I reason that if I can have a choice of programs for architectural output they would be in the following order:

Revit
Photoshop in CS2, so you get Illistrator and Acrobat, plus others
Viz

I have all three but haven't had the time to give Viz the attention it deserves...but I am making time later this spring. I figure that if you can run these programs well you should be able to turn out what you want.

[marcosf]

Thanks for the replies.

Scott : I think that the hand drawn effect would also not be possible in Revit. Please correct me if I am wrong. If at least the gradient fill were possible, then I would keep everything in Revit.

For the time being, I will spend some time exploring Photoshop.

Thanks again.

[AP23]

For the time being, I will spend some time exploring Photoshop.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Photoshop is pixel based, so your cad file will be rasterize. This may cause huge file size and when you scale your drawing the edges get jagged. Illustrator is al vector based so you maintain your lines and lineweight which equals to smaller file size.You can even change lineweights and line colors in a snap, not to mention the fill changes. However, Illustrator does have a learning curve and it could be frustrating in the beginning.