ACA or Revit LT... That is the question

[Irish2]

I am looking to upgrade and am not sure which way to go. Just looking for thoughts and perspectives as it can all be so confusing. Here is where I am at:

I am self employed

95% of my work is residential

I provide a drafting service for others as well, typically small commercial and, on occasion, a mid-rise structure

I presently use ACAD 2011LT so everything is basically hand-drawn on the computer

ACA, being acad, I am much more familiar with but there is much to learn. It is built for the architectural community of which I am a part. There doesn't seem to be many training options out there though. The little learning videos autodesk puts out are nice but not too terribly informative.

Revit is totally new. Different. Have to learn everything. Having talked with 2 different resellers, neither of which provide ACA training but they do Revit, their pitch is ACA is old-school and Revit is where its all headed. There suggestion is to buy the Suite and then I can have it all. I then asked if they would pay the difference. Hah!

Anyway, I have downloaded both in order to "play around" and get the feel for it. Revit is foreign. Nothing feels right but I realize that is just because it is so different. Training would probably take care of that. ACA is much more familiar but, of course, much more robust than what I am used to. Training would help as well but not sure where to get it.

While the cost difference between the two is quite a bit, Revit LT being much cheaper, I am much more concerned with the learning part because I need to limit the "down" time. I have been in this business for over 20 years and pretty much know how the learning curve/ productivity graph works. I think it really comes down to what would be better for the residential work I do both now and into the future. All thoughts and insights are very welcome!!

[pendean]

Do the folks you provide drafting services to use either? Both programs will add content to the DWG file they may, or may not wish to have or use (expecially if they are not up to the 2013 level, you get into the whole AEC downgrade and Proxy Objects issues).

Are you also aware that REVIT will require you be on subscription? the program does not 'save down' to a lower REVIT format, so you will need to stay current along with those that receive your REVIT files. DWG files from REVIT are fine from the few I've had to interact with, but it is a translation process and not perfectly seamless to recipients.

[jmcintyre]

My 2c worth.

I used acad for 23 years and ACA for 12 of them. I am now using revit because I have to to get a job in my region. If you do collaborate with small commercial firms and they do move to revit, you may also be forced to. I not going to say which I think is the 'better' software. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but both have steep learning curves. Will ACA do the job, yes. With revit do the job, yes. Try doing a google trend on "autocad architecture" and "revit" for your area and see what pops up. If you only have a few year until retirement then maybe it's OK to stay with what you know, but if you have more than a few years, you might want to consider remaining flexible.

[Irish2]

Thanks Dean. Yes, I am aware of the different file structure for v2013 and with Revit not being backwards compatible and yes to knowing about subscription as well. That is actually not an uncommon thing with 3D programs. The engineer I do some work with uses Revit and he is on subscription so always stays current. An architect I sometimes work with uses General Cadd so dwg is the only important thing. A couple of architectural firms I would like to connect with use ACA and yet another uses plain ACAD.

Trying to plan for what others use, as you can see, would be impossible since they, and others, are all over the board. That is why I was hoping for thoughts and opinions based upon others experience and their choices of software since I am coming from a different type of program. 

Which programs do you use Dean as I see you on a couple different boards here?

[pendean]

Looks like you've done your research and are ready to dive in: excellent.

Unfortunately we not ready to pick one over the other for now, so I am brushing up on my REVIT LT skills at the moment to keep up with the teams we work with all over the place: AutoCAD/LT/ACA/REVIT are our default go-to software in our office, depending on the client/project needs and requirements

[PRSS]

I am shocked & really surprised to know that REVIT could not save to an older version. I bought the Building Design Suite Premium (cross graded from AutoCAD 2013)  mailnly because AutoCAD 2013, Revit 2013 and 3ds MAX Design were all included in this pack. I bought it very cheap in a special aggressive promotional offer here in India. I had always thought that Autodesk CAD products (other than 3ds Max) would save to an older version.

Had i known that REVIT could not save to an older version I would have definitely skipped this offer. Because if i wanted to upgrade REVIT, I have to upgrade the entire Building Design Suite Premium and that would be an expensive recurring expenditure.(the upgrade cost would not consider the original price i paid for the promotional offer, but would be for the full pricing of the Suite) I think I got myself into a real fix. My God! I do not know what to do now. What a grave mistake I have made! My practice falls into the category of SOHO setup with 4 staff only.

I do not intend to upgrade for quite sometime to come. I used to upgrade my plain vanilla AutoCAD every three years just before the product gets retired. So two years hence if i received a Revit file with a newer version I CANNOT OPEN IT IN MINE. This info has really made me shaky and worried. May be I was too ignorant on this aspect and committed a grave mistake so I have to repent for it and also undergo punishment for my ignorance.

Anyway many, many thanks for the valuable info Dean, for making me aware of this (even though it was not my posting of this thread).

[Irish2]

Thank you for your thoughts. Yep, they all have plusses and minuses. These decisions can be difficult. Not sure how to do a "google trends" search though. In fact, I don't even know what that is!

[jmcintyre]

www.google.com\trends

[pendean]

I saw that statment in the fine print when that promo was out there and the main reason we skipped it: just one of those ".. if it looks too good to be true..." moments for me.

Just realize everyone on REVIT is in the same boat, so your partners are doing it too on REVIT projects.

[cddrafting]

I have a colleague who is an Architect who uses ACA and has done so for many years. He recently (in the last 5 years) purchased Revit and I was talking to him about how I was being pressured to convert from ACA to Revit.

During our discussions he mentioned to me that revit was not the easiest to use but over time became more user freindly, also in the comparrison he did say that Revit was good for presentation drawings but was not really geared up for Architectural building works and was not anywhere as good as ACA for building.

I found this strange as they are pushing Revit for building works !

[Alfredo_Medina]

---

@Irish2 wrote:
...Revit is totally new. Different. Have to learn everything. 

.. Training would help as well but not sure where to get it.

  All thoughts and insights are very welcome!!

---

If you are still interested in finding training on Revit, you may want to consider my services.