AutoCAD MEP

[#1]

I have been a Mechanical Designer for over 17 years and have been using AutoCad since early R12. I have been very heavely involved with 3D, and always been an advocate for 3D until now. Autodesk, you have driven me as crazy as I care to ever feel about your product at this point. We Designers and Drafters need to produce drawings for construction contractors and that is it!!!!! If you cannot develope software to make our job easy enough to create these drawings, please do not attempt to do so. Your trying to please everyone on this planet and forgetting about the importance of making the basic tools work for the majority. I am not in your shoes and I am sure it is difficult and frustrating, but if your frustrating me, you are sure is heck frustrating an entire community. I know what I need to get my job done quickly and with quality, and I will be looking for that tool in the near future!

Aaron
Advance Design
agray2@rochester.rr.com

[#2]

is there any reason you can't just continue to create 3D drawings with vanilla AutoCAD? -- It seems to me that if the level of frustration you're experiencing is greater than the results that you get by using the product that you should probably use the product that you get productivity with. -- I love Vanilla AutoCAD's 3D, I look forward to working with it when ever possible. -- on teh other hand... ABS has some neat features, and while they're probably not all perfect for everybody's needs.. they are probably part of teh evolution of a tool that might someday make most of us happy. -- maybe i'm just an optimist... I'm certainly not as experienced in building systems design as you are... I've admitted to being just a CAD guy. I do disagree with this statement though "We Designers and Drafters need to produce drawings for construction contractors and that is it!!!!!" -- I'm a big fan of online collaboaration... I'd like to see a day where the information in my design files are accessible not only by construction contractors, but anyone else involved in a project who is effected by that information. -- I imagine a world where my design files become a central point of data... and that is why I'm forcing myself through this learning curve that I find so frustrating at times. There will always be designers who only produce drawings for construction contractors... but some of us do want more and 5 years ago what did we have... well we have something now and hopefully in 5 years it will be exponetially greater... and perhaps the comments that you and I make today will halp shape that product. -- I did say that i was an optimist right? :^) -- there's my 98 cents.

[#3]

oh.. and I'm also learning how to spell "the" -- t h e not t e h.

[#4]

I have to insert my few cents worth also. 
Today, the engineer is the one with the easy part.  The plans go from the
engineer into the contracting phase where things get more complicated. 
After bidding a job, the next thing the contractor must do is design it. 
The 2d dwg is only good as a template because today engineers don't take
the time to overlay trades (at least the jobs I have been working
with).  We are the ones that must make sure everything fits.  We also
are required to move things around so that it does fit.  The 3d
functionality on a CAD program is important for coordination
purposes, sleeves, interference etc..  I get tired of those who are working
2d thinking they are the only people who matter in construction.  We worked
for a long time without a lot of things because AutoDesk felt the 2d designer
was more important, but we stayed with them, knowing that the product was worth
the wait. 

All I can say at this point is that if you are
dissatisfied with the product, then you should move on.  I think that
AutoDesk has done a great job and that they will continue to try to improve as
time goes on.  Don't think you are the only person out there that matters,
there are many who need 3d functionality.  Just wanted to air my few cents,
since every time I see a post about how important 2d design is, it touches a
sore spot.

Mike

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"advandes" <
href="mailto:agray2@rochester.rr.com">agray2@rochester.rr.com> wrote in
message
href="news:f17751f.-1@WebX.maYIadrTaRb">news:f17751f.-1@WebX.maYIadrTaRb...

I
have been a Mechanical Designer for over 17 years and have been using AutoCad
since early R12. I have been very heavely involved with 3D, and always been an
advocate for 3D until now. Autodesk, you have driven me as crazy as I care to
ever feel about your product at this point. We Designers and Drafters need to
produce drawings for construction contractors and that is it!!!!! If you
cannot develope software to make our job easy enough to create these drawings,
please do not attempt to do so. Your trying to please everyone on this planet
and forgetting about the importance of making the basic tools work for the
majority. I am not in your shoes and I am sure it is difficult and
frustrating, but if your frustrating me, you are sure is heck frustrating an
entire community. I know what I need to get my job done quickly and with
quality, and I will be looking for that tool in the near future!

Aaron
Advance Design

agray2@rochester.rr.com

[#5]

I believe your comments resonate along the same
very thread that a great deal of the "cutting edge" users that are trying to
make a constant stride forward. For all your comments I second the
motion!!

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"bil-with-one-L" <
href="mailto:cad1@mclaughlin-mechanica.com">cad1@mclaughlin-mechanica.com>
wrote in message
href="news:f17751f.0@WebX.maYIadrTaRb">news:f17751f.0@WebX.maYIadrTaRb...

is
there any reason you can't just continue to create 3D drawings with vanilla
AutoCAD? -- It seems to me that if the level of frustration you're
experiencing is greater than the results that you get by using the product
that you should probably use the product that you get productivity with. -- I
love Vanilla AutoCAD's 3D, I look forward to working with it when ever
possible. -- on teh other hand... ABS has some neat features, and while
they're probably not all perfect for everybody's needs.. they are probably
part of teh evolution of a tool that might someday make most of us happy. --
maybe i'm just an optimist... I'm certainly not as experienced in building
systems design as you are... I've admitted to being just a CAD guy. I do
disagree with this statement though "We Designers and Drafters need to produce
drawings for construction contractors and that is it!!!!!" -- I'm a big fan of
online collaboaration... I'd like to see a day where the information in my
design files are accessible not only by construction contractors, but anyone
else involved in a project who is effected by that information. -- I imagine a
world where my design files become a central point of data... and that is why
I'm forcing myself through this learning curve that I find so frustrating at
times. There will always be designers who only produce drawings for
construction contractors... but some of us do want more and 5 years ago what
did we have... well we have something now and hopefully in 5 years it will be
exponetially greater... and perhaps the comments that you and I make today
will halp shape that product. -- I did say that i was an optimist right? :^)
-- there's my 98 cents.

[#6]

To make this short, the 3d features of this software are real nice although the documentation is the worst I've seen for new software of this caliber. The catalogs are extremely lacking as well. Way too many fatal errors and "Defects" that I've personally come accross. I do not like wasting my time finding bugs & defects for software I just paid good money for. It appears that too much time has been spent on bells and whistles that add very little and not enough time has been spent making sure the basics are working properly. Production wise the software has a long way to go before it's actually useful and can be considered a beneficial tool for profitability.
I do like the direction this software is moving in, but knowing autodesk's history it's going to take way to many revisions to get there.