Building Explorer VS Navisworks

[cek]

Any one had the opportunity to compare Building Explorer and Navisworks?

I attended a web cast demonstrating Building Explorer, which seemed very robust and clean with a very nice graphical interface and open-GL model manipulation. I also saw some of the interface of Navisworks. I’m not sure how old the Navisworks output was but it seemed more unrefined than Building Explorer.

With the recent acquisition of Navisworks by Autodesk this question is rather tilted toward the hope that someone will clarify that the Navisworks application is far superior as I would hate to invest in a software package (like B.E.) that will ultimately become defunct.

[Steve_Stafford]

One element that separates them is that BE includes costing projections at the same time as the phasing concepts it handles. I don't believe Navisworks is tackling estimating at all. As for becoming defunct, BE is a venture capital project (like Revit was once) so its future is uncertain. It could be wildly successful, fail or become acquired perhaps. These things are possible with all software, even those you think are secure and industry dominating.

I saw a demo of BE a couple months ago and found it to be pretty impressive. The models have to be pretty well defined because the BE analysis uses both ODBC and IFC exports of the data. Elements that lack Assembly Code definition would end up ambiguous and require clarity.

[dimitri]

I did a walkthrough demo of Building Explorer yesterday and it seems very impressive. There weren't many things our team found lacking in the programme at all. We're actually running a 30-day trial on it to see if we should invest in it in the near future. Haven't checked Navisworks yet, but i'm sure we'll look into it as we're looking at investing in a programme that merges the 3D model with estimating and project scheduling on the fly.