Autocad among LT's Pros and Cons

[AcadAdamLT]

Here's the deal.

At my company we are a small group of Autocad LT users, 5 in fact. We constantly strife to better our tools and way of work, we are limited by LT, restricted from such use as LISP, Constraint parameters, Data extractions to table and Express tools for examples.

Now we are considering a purchace of 1 single Autocad Fullversion license.

How features in Autocad could we create/use in the fullversions that would also work for the LT users?

There are alot of advantage for us to better handle drawings from other consultants. Most drawings we "handle" comes from an external consultant and are created using full versions and also often 3rd party programs with entities based on Autocad Fullversion, these drawings often create problems for us in LT.

My thought is that with it I will be able to take care of these problems we are facing and also create tools (alot of dynamic block and data extraction tools) that benefits my colleagues who are using LT.

I know that many features in Autocad requires full version to use but some features can be used by LT users but not created by them.

There are alot of tools that I would really like to have that requires the use of LISP, having atleast one user with access to LISP routines could benefit us greatly *I think*.

I very much like to hear from you guys what you think about working with a full version in an LT enviroment, pros and cons. Have anybody here been working in a similar enviroment?

I want to bring my company in to the future of drafting, could this be a start?

Thanks for your time

/Regards

[Charles_Shade]

Simple answer: Download the Trial and see.

Long answer: That will come from others. You know the limitations of LT which is why you are asking the question. You know the issues you have: these will not change because you have one seat of full and four seats of LT. LT can manipulate a lot of Full content that it can not otherwise create.

Your question, I think, provides its own answer: The production is lagging because the equipment is lacking. It reads as though your investment will pay for itself in short order.

Don't get hung on the price if it can make your business better.

[pendean]

- Full AutoCAD will not handle 3rd party content or AEC content from vertical versions of AutoCAD any better than LT: same limitation of "not available, kick in proxy..." still applies. If you receive files from Verticals users (Civil 3D, Architecture, MAP3D, MEP or even Inventor/REVIT, full AutoCAD alone may not cut it.

- Is an LT long time user going to be in the "full" seat? You may not see any benefits from such a setup. If you are hiring a "full" user with demonstrated abilities in that product, you'll probably see more gain. In that one seat. Not the other LT users. Unless this "full" seat is just there to add content all day long for others to use (see your note abot "LISP, Constraint parameters, Data extractions to table and Express tools").

- Dynamic Blocks creation in LT and "full" are identical, there are no extra tools.

- SSM is in LT2013 as well as "full" AutoCAD: are you anticipating additional custmizations?

- LISP will only benefit the single user of "full' AutoCAD: unless their task will only be to service the other LT users all day long (and getting paid to do only that).

You might all benefit from downloading the AutoCAD trial for 30-days and test to see if you really gain anything from your single $4000 investment or not: beats the heck out of asking highly opinionated strangers 🙂

[AcadAdamLT]

Seems I'll have to make a trail run, the only problem is that I will not be able to test it fully.

Many of the advantages that I'am after takes time to develop and sitting down an entire month creating things that might not even be of use later is not efficient, I might not even be able to create all things due to lack of experience.

I'am pretty well aware of the advantages and disadvantages but hearing others oppinions helps, after this decision is made it will be on my head and I want to make the right decision.

But hey, it's only money... 

[pendean]

Which pretty much echos my second point: only in the hands of an experienced "full" AutoCAD user will that purchase be of any benefit, but then it would only benefit that one user.

Unless you all plan on hiring someone to do nothing but do things for LT users on their files day-in and day-out: in which case this you all have way to much money to burn and might find it better spent getting advanced training in AutoCAD/LT in general and even being current/on subscription with LT2013 if you are not (and if you are in the Architectural field, upgrade to the Revit LT/AutoCAD LT Bundle).

[AcadAdamLT]

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@pendean wrote:

Which pretty much echos my second point: only in the hands of an experienced "full" AutoCAD user will that purchase be of any benefit, but then it would only benefit that one user.

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That part will be covered.

[Charles_Shade]

Currently Full would allow the creation of DynBlk's with Constraint Parameters that LT cannot.

These would be able to be used across the LT platforms.

Again, is that one item the tip of the scales?

[pendean]

IMHO, since they have 5 LT users, that's five months of Full AutoCAD trials (one PC at a time for a month each) available to the entire firm to really test and decide if they really and truly need one single seat of full AutoCAD vs. upgrading the entire office to full AutoCAD or just LT2013.

I think the OP has the wrong end of the stick about what a single seat of AutoCAD can contribute in an office full of LT users. Unless this really is about the OP/someone there wanting the perceived "status" inside the firm of running AutoCAD 🙂

[Charles_Shade]

I agree that the learning curve cost would need to be included in the startup of Full if that knowledge is not available.

It seems to me that if a tool can provide a better and quicker solution to somethings then it should be considered.

From a carpenters stand point one Sawzall can keep four others busy during a demolition. Not everyone needs to wield the power; only take advantage of its use.

[AcadAdamLT]

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@pendean wrote:

I think the OP has the wrong end of the stick about what a single seat of AutoCAD can contribute in an office full of LT users. Unless this really is about the OP/someone there wanting the perceived "status" inside the firm of running AutoCAD 🙂

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No need for insult.

The reason why I'm still considering to push this through is because many parts of our work process are just dead time, things we have to do over and over again. These parts are to due to the line of work we do, most companies like mine (this line of work) does not spend time learning Autocad, Autocad is actually just a small part of what we do. Our goal is to eliminate as much of the time spent in Autocad  as we can, this our goal because Autocad is the one product in our process that can actually be modified to save incredible amounts of time.

Since I started here we've been spending hours every week just developing our way of work to minimize the time spent. We use alot of excel and we have a guy that excels at using excel (pun intended), he makes most of our excel tools. I'm the most experienced user in Autocad at the moment, so I make most of the tools and ideas for Autocad.

During my 3 years at this company developing our work process I have had alot of bumps due to LT limitations, our work process requires us to repeat work over and over because in LT there is no command or easy way to do this, the things we do are not rocket science to must Autocad based line of works, actually it's more of the basics. But compared to our rivaling companies, we are both fast and efficient due to the fact that we actually take the time to improve our way of work, we see that big picture and we aim for the longrun, not just rushing 'till next months results.

The point is, I think, note; I think, that with LISP, I can elimate hours of deadtime work both for me and my colleagues.

this is why I think it could be a wise investment.

But Dean, your also right about one thing, having only 1 Autocad among 4 LT's is not the most optimal. I would much rather like 5 Full versions, but I think 1 full-version is a start...

Considering all that's been said I think I'm going to push for this investment, thanks Charles and Dean for your insights.

/Regards

[AcadAdamLT]

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@Charles_Shade wrote:

Currently Full would allow the creation of DynBlk's with Constraint Parameters that LT cannot.

These would be able to be used across the LT platforms.

Again, is that one item the tip of the scales?

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That is one of the Features I've been missing, add them up with the rest and I think it tips the scales, time will tell.

[pendean]

No insult intended, hence the 🙂

Sounds like you all need Full AutoCAD, not one seat: Autodesk offers low-interest financing often, and occasionally 0% for +/-12-months financing (AKA free loan): no sound business owner will turn down a free loan as long as you can demonstrate a marked increase in productivity. See my recommendations of a 5-month long "testing" of AutoCAD to demonstrate that ability: a one time +/-$4000.00 purchase is not the way to loosen the money purse upstairs for the other seats/users.

[AcadAdamLT]

Gonna have a talk with "the people upstairs" and see if I can't shake some money loose.

I also did a talk with my "superior" and right now he needs me for productivity, testing is now low priority ='/

We'll see how this turns out, thank you for insights, I'll take it with me when the decision is to come.

Regards