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AutoCad Architecture vs Revit Architecture which is better ?

35 REPLIES 35
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Message 1 of 36
goldcamaro
12850 Views, 35 Replies

AutoCad Architecture vs Revit Architecture which is better ?

Hello to all I have a question on AutoCAD Architecture vs Revit Architecture which is better? I have recently have been laid off after 15 years plus. I currently use AutoCAD Architecture 2010 and have DataCAD experience too. I started out on Board Drafting but love the CAD side of it much better. I'm looking to enhance my CAD skills and was wondering if anyone can tell me about Revit Architecture software? I have no experience and knowledge of it. Is it any better easier to use then AutoCAD? Where I worked we did not get into the 3D side for building renderings but with the economy bad I'm looking to enhance my CAD skills to better obtain a new job! I would like to possibly take a CAD course to learn 3D rendering skills. Any input on this will be most helpful.
Thanks! DJB
35 REPLIES 35
Message 2 of 36
Anonymous
in reply to: goldcamaro

Learning REVIT is a plus: many mid and large firms are at least introducing
the program if not starting to switch base building teams to it and running
it over ACA.

REVIT Arch, even more so that ACA, requires you to have a more intimate
understanding of how content/objects/details go together, and it is very
different from ACA, so expect an initial steep learning curve. Once there,
and with frequent use, it's easy to maintain.

But ACA still has a place and is widely used, so don't let that skill drop
off either.

Rendering, with either program, still also requires a bit of an artistic
eye, and a good ability to touch up images in Photoshop helps. Neither is
easier to use for rendering over the other.

--
Dean Saadallah
http://LTisACAD.blogspot.com
--
Message 3 of 36
jmcintyre
in reply to: goldcamaro

There are LOTS of threads on this topic, just do a search.
These days it's not so much about which is the better software, more so on where the industry is headed. If you do a survey of the employers in your area, you might find they prefer one over the other. If you learn both though, that'd make you even more valuable.
Message 4 of 36
Anonymous
in reply to: goldcamaro

Revit.

Matt
matt@stachoni.com
Message 5 of 36
goldcamaro
in reply to: goldcamaro

Dean Thanks for your reply! I have done some searching on the Discussion Group Site on Revit and was wondering does Revit handle doing details and sections well like ACA? From what I seen so far Revit appears to be more of a 3D rendering type software. Thanks David
Message 6 of 36
goldcamaro
in reply to: goldcamaro

Matt could you elaborate more on your choice? Do you like Revit better than ACA for doing details, sections and such? Thanks, David
Message 7 of 36
Anonymous
in reply to: goldcamaro

On Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:44:03 +0000, goldcamaro <> wrote:

>Matt could you elaborate more on your choice?

Dang, I had a feeling you were gonna ask.

Probably not without getting yelled at 🙂 I was hoping to keep the discussion
simple.

> Do you like Revit better than ACA for doing details, sections and such? Thanks, David

There are some things I like ACA/AutoCAD for. Details is - right now - one of
them. I _personally_ don't like drafting in Revit as much as ACA for details. I
just don't think the general linework drafting capabilities are as easy to use
as those in AutoCAD/ACA, but that's a side effect of knowing AutoCAD inside out
and being fairly new to Revit.

But that's me; plenty of people are the exact opposite and can produce exquisite
details in Revit. I just do not believe it is as easy - yet. I fully expect this
opinion to change within the next 6 months.

One thing I will say is that text editing in Revit is cruelty defined.
Formatting is almost non-existent. This has been a huge fix-it-now item for some
time, do here's hoping that 2011 addresses it (crossing fingers).

One of Revit's strengths are in how it forces you to rethink things. One common
complaint from newbies (including me) is that Revit's OOTB elevations may look
flat. But you have the ability to easily turn on shadows and edit linework in
ways that can create truly excellent drawings that are more communcative with
less effort. They can be a combination of a presentation and construction
drawing graphics, which I think is way ahead of what is normally done in
traditional CAD.

But what I love about Revit over ACA is how easy it is to do the "big picture"
stuff. Put simply, you can do 90% of your work much more easily than you can in
ACA. You can go from mass/conceptual modeling presentations right into
plan/elevation/sections with lighting speed, and keep it all under one roof.
Your workflow is very linear; you don't have to "drop out" of the process to do
a 3D rendering or a design option; it's all built in. Because the Project
Browser isn't an "option" as Project Navigator is with ACA, you are always
working under a comprehensive project context at all times.

From a day to day management side, you don't have half of the issues to deal
with under Revit. You don't have layers, which is particularly valuable
considering the thousands of hoops you have to jump through when dealing with
materials and display representations in ACA. You don't have to deal with
Property Set Definitions, which I have always had a hard time wrapping my head
around. Instead you deal with fairly-easy-for-humans-to-comprehend Parameters.

Aside from handling installations, template creation, and family content,
there's almost zero CAD management to deal with. In fact I think Revit is
revolutionary for the way that normal users can easily take on pseudo-CAD
Management roles inside an organization without tripping everyone else up in the
process. With ACA, you really need a strong hand behind the tiller to keep
everyone from driving off into the tall weeds.

However, what I absolutely love about Revit is how HARD it is to draw
incorrectly. With temporary dimensions, onscreen graphics, and constraints, you
are much more likely to draw something right than wrong. In ACA and AutoCAD it's
almost the reverse.

Matt
matt@stachoni.com
Message 8 of 36
clauspkinder
in reply to: goldcamaro

Do you believe that Revit will ultimately displace ACAD?
Message 9 of 36
Anonymous
in reply to: goldcamaro

Not vanilla Autocad itself, which has a much broader market way beyond just
architecture. But I think Autodesk is trying to get Revit to replace
Autocad Architecture, and it may succeed.
Message 10 of 36
David_W_Koch
in reply to: goldcamaro

I agree with much of what Matt has said, but I would take issue with the statement on drawing incorrectly. In addition to the fact that nothing is foolproof (because fools are so ingenious), I find drawing acurately in Revit to be extremely difficult, particularly placing an object where I want it the first time. The temporary dimensions can be useful, but they always seem to go to a different object than the one from which I want to dimension. I find myself drawing a lot more temporary construction lines to be able to figure out where things should go. (It does not help that the first Revit project on which I am working has a radial structural grid - both long-side exterior walls are convex, so the wall angles change from room to room on the exterior rooms.) The automatic alignment thingy (equivalent to Object Snap Tracking in ACA/AutoCAD) is nice, when it works, but I find it often does not choose the alignment point I want, and I have yet to find a way to control it (if it can be controlled - I use the Shift to Acquire option in ACA to avoid getting points I do not want). And it appears that text only aligns with other text, not linework, which is really frustrating. View clipping and sheet composition also is all eyeballing, no precision or ability to reproduce the exact same results.

Perhaps much of my frustration stems from my newbie status with Revit, but I really miss having an exposed coordinate system. The project I am on has multiple linked files (created by others outside my firm), and we have had a hard time getting them aligned properly (no insertion points!).

I am still too green to comment on the control of graphics and visibility, but currently find this somewhat frustrating. But I am liking the way you can create parametrically driven content.

David Koch
AutoCAD Architecture and Revit User
Blog | LinkedIn
EESignature

Message 11 of 36
Anonymous
in reply to: goldcamaro

My sentiments exactly.

David_W._Koch wrote:
> I agree with much of what Matt has said, but I would take issue with the statement on drawing incorrectly. In addition to the fact that nothing is foolproof (because fools are so ingenious), I find drawing acurately in Revit to be extremely difficult, particularly placing an object where I want it the first time. The temporary dimensions can be useful, but they always seem to go to a different object than the one from which I want to dimension. I find myself drawing a lot more temporary construction lines to be able to figure out where things should go. (It does not help that the first Revit project on which I am working has a radial structural grid - both long-side exterior walls are convex, so the wall angles change from room to room on the exterior rooms.) The automatic alignment thingy (equivalent to Object Snap Tracking in ACA/AutoCAD) is nice, when it works, but I find it often does not choose the alignment point I want, and I have yet to find a way to control it
(if it can be controlled - I use the Shift to Acquire option in ACA to avoid getting points I do not want). And it appears that text only aligns with other text, not linework, which is really frustrating. View clipping and sheet composition also is all eyeballing, no precision or ability to reproduce the exact same results.
>
> Perhaps much of my frustration stems from my newbie status with Revit, but I really miss having an exposed coordinate system. The project I am on has multiple linked files (created by others outside my firm), and we have had a hard time getting them aligned properly (no insertion points!).
>
> I am still too green to comment on the control of graphics and visibility, but currently find this somewhat frustrating. But I am liking the way you can create parametrically driven content.
Message 12 of 36
goldcamaro
in reply to: goldcamaro

Does any one have a guess at how long it would take to pick up Revit Architecture coming from a ACA (3 yrs), DataCAD (13 yrs) background? I know it depends on several things constant use and one's own ability too. I'm kind of looking just for a possible ball park figure. And I thank everyone for there input on ACA to Revit! David J. B.
Message 13 of 36
Anonymous
in reply to: goldcamaro

Thanks for that observation. That's probably similar to what I find
difficult about Sketchup. I love the simplistic nature of that program, but
it drives me crazy too because its always snapping to stuff I don't want to
snap to. Call me a control freak, but control is what I like about AutoCAD
based solutions. I want to be the one who decides what where and when every
last element of the design is placed; not the software and not some
programmer, no matter how skilled and talented that programmer may be.
-Brian Harder


wrote in message news:6256809@discussion.autodesk.com...
I agree with much of what Matt has said, but I would take issue with the
statement on drawing incorrectly. In addition to the fact that nothing is
foolproof (because fools are so ingenious), I find drawing acurately in
Revit to be extremely difficult, particularly placing an object where I want
it the first time. The temporary dimensions can be useful, but they always
seem to go to a different object than the one from which I want to
dimension. I find myself drawing a lot more temporary construction lines to
be able to figure out where things should go. (It does not help that the
first Revit project on which I am working has a radial structural grid -
both long-side exterior walls are convex, so the wall angles change from
room to room on the exterior rooms.) The automatic alignment thingy
(equivalent to Object Snap Tracking in ACA/AutoCAD) is nice, when it works,
but I find it often does not choose the alignment point I want, and I have
yet to find a way to control it (if it can be controlled - I use the Shift
to Acquire option in ACA to avoid getting points I do not want). And it
appears that text only aligns with other text, not linework, which is really
frustrating. View clipping and sheet composition also is all eyeballing, no
precision or ability to reproduce the exact same results.

Perhaps much of my frustration stems from my newbie status with Revit, but I
really miss having an exposed coordinate system. The project I am on has
multiple linked files (created by others outside my firm), and we have had a
hard time getting them aligned properly (no insertion points!).

I am still too green to comment on the control of graphics and visibility,
but currently find this somewhat frustrating. But I am liking the way you
can create parametrically driven content.
Message 14 of 36
Anonymous
in reply to: goldcamaro

Depends on how good your teaching environment is, and whether you use it
every day or not. It takes about as long to "get" as ACA under comparable
conditions: what was your experience there?

--
Dean Saadallah
http://LTisACAD.blogspot.com
--
Message 15 of 36
goldcamaro
in reply to: goldcamaro

Thanks for your reply.
We were on DataCAD 11 back in 2006 and switched over to ACA 2006 that year. I had some AutoCAD before that R11 & R12 so that helped with ACA 2006. It took me about 1 1/2 years to get comfortable with ACA. My last ACA was 2010 and it was nice.

I just started this Morning an online course for Revit Architecture 2010 Core Concepts thru Avatech. I have 3 days of it cramming down my throat. My head is swimming with just what I learned this first day. It is different but not to much just learning all the commands is overwhelming and trying to remember everything is daunting. I'll have to practice with the Student version I downloaded to sharpen my skills. I'll or I hope I get a better feel of Revit after Wednesday. I'm still liking ACA but I have to give Revit a chance!
David
Message 16 of 36
Anonymous
in reply to: goldcamaro

I agree w/David as well. The inability to finely control placement of objects as
well as you can in AutoCAD is irritating. For non-orthogonal stuff I use the
spacebar to acquire the correct angle (for placing a bed along an angled wall,
for example). I also use the ALIGN command like crazy.

But for drawing large-scale things (like walls), I generally find it much easier
and accurate than AutoCAD/ACA; what I don't see as much of is the teeny-tiny-
off-by-1/256" crap that I did previously.

Matt
matt@stachoni.com


On Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:19:22 +0000, Anthony Mason
wrote:

>My sentiments exactly.
>
>David_W._Koch wrote:
>> I agree with much of what Matt has said, but I would take issue with the statement on drawing incorrectly. In addition to the fact that nothing is foolproof (because fools are so ingenious), I find drawing acurately in Revit to be extremely difficult, particularly placing an object where I want it the first time. The temporary dimensions can be useful, but they always seem to go to a different object than the one from which I want to dimension. I find myself drawing a lot more temporary construction lines to be able to figure out where things should go. (It does not help that the first Revit project on which I am working has a radial structural grid - both long-side exterior walls are convex, so the wall angles change from room to room on the exterior rooms.) The automatic alignment thingy (equivalent to Object Snap Tracking in ACA/AutoCAD) is nice, when it works, but I find it often does not choose the alignment point I want, and I have yet to find a way to control it
> (if it can be controlled - I use the Shift to Acquire option in ACA to avoid getting points I do not want). And it appears that text only aligns with other text, not linework, which is really frustrating. View clipping and sheet composition also is all eyeballing, no precision or ability to reproduce the exact same results.
>>
>> Perhaps much of my frustration stems from my newbie status with Revit, but I really miss having an exposed coordinate system. The project I am on has multiple linked files (created by others outside my firm), and we have had a hard time getting them aligned properly (no insertion points!).
>>
>> I am still too green to comment on the control of graphics and visibility, but currently find this somewhat frustrating. But I am liking the way you can create parametrically driven content.
Message 17 of 36
JayMoore
in reply to: goldcamaro

A word of caution with either platform. You need to take into consideration who you share your files with downstream. Many, many, many contractors are still on R14 and 2000 platforms so if you are driving the Ferrari and they are expecting you to show up in a crew-cab Ford truck you will have plenty of problems. Do a short survey with your downstream users and find out what they are using so you can be pre-prepared to handle their objections to your BIM world interfering with their good ole boy CAD world 🙂

Also, consider any 3rd party application enchancements you use or like to use in the AutoCAD or AutoCAD Architecture world. Revit still lacks a robust API for developers to work with so your enhancement potential outside of Autodesk will be limited vs. that in ACA. I hear some say Revit needs no 3rd party enhancements but I have yet to find any program that provides everything that all niche industry needs require from the primary developer.

My personal recommendation would be to work with what you know can make you money today and through the next 3-4 years. If you don't share your docs with many downstream users and don't require many or any 3rd party enhancements, have longer timelines to complete construction docs, do primary commercial to light commercial work, then I think Revit would be a good choice. If not I would think you want to keep your 80% attention on AutoCAD / ACA with 20% on learning the basics of Revit and preparing for the possible future that it may bring.

Nothing is a given and right now people need assurances and I believe that for the greatest majority of persons in the building industry that AutoCAD and the DWG file still offer the most assurance in a very challanged economic period. And anyboyd that tells you ACA cannot BIMit they are playing on the oldest marketing / sales game of fear mongering. ACA and Revit are both excellent BIM programs that have different paths to BIM use but for all practical purposes the are simply different sides of the same coin.

In short, it is not really a case of "which one is better?" They are both better. Is is really a case of "which one is better for you?"
Message 18 of 36
Anonymous
in reply to: goldcamaro

Yes, Revit's solution to this problem is so much more elegant than
AutoCAD's SNAP sysvar.

Matt Stachoni wrote:
> what I don't see as much of is the teeny-tiny-
> off-by-1/256" crap that I did previously.
Message 19 of 36
Anonymous
in reply to: goldcamaro

A person who works said that Revit Architecture is the BIM program of
Autodesk for architects and ACA is an AutoCAD based CAD-program for
architects. Furthermore he said that e.g. HVAC applications for BIM are
developed on Revit platform.

"goldcamaro" kirjoitti viestissä news:6255423@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hello to all I have a question on AutoCAD Architecture vs Revit Architecture
which is better? I have recently have been laid off after 15 years plus. I
currently use AutoCAD Architecture 2010 and have DataCAD experience too. I
started out on Board Drafting but love the CAD side of it much better. I'm
looking to enhance my CAD skills and was wondering if anyone can tell me
about Revit Architecture software? I have no experience and knowledge of it.
Is it any better easier to use then AutoCAD? Where I worked we did not get
into the 3D side for building renderings but with the economy bad I'm
looking to enhance my CAD skills to better obtain a new job! I would like to
possibly take a CAD course to learn 3D rendering skills. Any input on this
will be most helpful.
Thanks! DJB
Message 20 of 36
Anonymous
in reply to: goldcamaro

(correction..)
A person who works FOR AUTODESK said that Revit Architecture is the BIM
program of
Autodesk for architects and ACA is an AutoCAD based CAD-program for
architects. Furthermore he said that e.g. HVAC applications for BIM are
developed on Revit platform.

"goldcamaro" kirjoitti viestissä news:6255423@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hello to all I have a question on AutoCAD Architecture vs Revit Architecture
which is better? I have recently have been laid off after 15 years plus. I
currently use AutoCAD Architecture 2010 and have DataCAD experience too. I
started out on Board Drafting but love the CAD side of it much better. I'm
looking to enhance my CAD skills and was wondering if anyone can tell me
about Revit Architecture software? I have no experience and knowledge of it.
Is it any better easier to use then AutoCAD? Where I worked we did not get
into the 3D side for building renderings but with the economy bad I'm
looking to enhance my CAD skills to better obtain a new job! I would like to
possibly take a CAD course to learn 3D rendering skills. Any input on this
will be most helpful.
Thanks! DJB

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