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Is it worth getting the Autocad Architecture??

14 REPLIES 14
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Message 1 of 15
LeaAllenDesign
1069 Views, 14 Replies

Is it worth getting the Autocad Architecture??

I am currently working with AutoCAD Lt and heard that the Cad Arch is easier with construction docs and things in general with this field. Is it true?? Please help!

Also- does anyone know if I can upgrade from 08lt to Cad 09 arch?? Is that possible?

Thanks guys.
14 REPLIES 14
Message 2 of 15
gt1000
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign

Yes it is worth it. I don't see how anyone would choose to do arch plans using plain ACAD, when you have the ADT/Architecture option. It will save you lots of time and money.



You might look at Revit as well. Either of these programs will be faster and better than plain ACAD.
Message 3 of 15
Anonymous
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign


I believe you can buy lite anywhere so you possibly
don't know a reseller.

Autocad Arch and Revit are only avail thru the
reseller channel

Post what area (country) you are in and maybe
someone can recommend a good (sic) reseller in your area.

Your reseller would more than likely recommend
Revit but both can do the job and Arch will be a little cheaper.

Both will take a serious learning curve and some
investment in training.


style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
I
am currently working with AutoCAD Lt and heard that the Cad Arch is easier
with construction docs and things in general with this field. Is it true??
Please help! Also- does anyone know if I can upgrade from 08lt to Cad 09
arch?? Is that possible? Thanks guys.
Message 4 of 15
jmcintyre
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign

Using ADT is a huge productivity gain, but there is a steep learning curve. Try downloading the 30 day trial and have a look.
Message 5 of 15
Anonymous
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign

Contact an Autodesk reseller in your area and inquire about pricing and if
there are any specials in your region to get you into ACA from LT (there
have been lately but I think they all expired).

--
Dean Saadallah
http://LTisACAD.blogspot.com
--
Message 6 of 15
JayMoore
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign

Absolutely ACA is a platform you should look at investing into. The benefits to you are getting the opportunity to simply leverage your existing knowledge of AutoCAD upwards to full AutoCAD and AutoCAD Architecture vs. having to learn an entirely new platform. Because you already know the basics of AutoCAD you know the core design skills of ACA. Then ontop of that you get to begin leveraging the object intelligence of a BIM platform. Remember, BIM is not software it is a process. Which means the more programs and industries you can connect your intelligent data with the greater opportunity you have to expand your organizations competitive advantage above and beyond the "norm" of 2D lines, arcs and circles.

You can indeed upgrade from ACAD LT to ACA but much of the pricing and opportunity depends upon how far back you are for the most current release of ACAD/ACA. The further back you are the more the cost, the closer the less. You know how it goes. As Dean said you will need to contact you reseller. Economic conditions are tough for all so "barter" for a price that you can afford but gets you to a more current version of Autodesk software.

One option I recommend you look into is the AutoCAD Revit Architecture Suite 2009.1 platform. This opportunity affords you the latest release of AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architecture and Revit Architecture. This will allow you to totally avoid the "heated" debates between ACA and Revit. It not only allows you the best of ACA and Revit but also brings the foundation of AutoCAD to your doorstep.

Then regardless of what Autodesk does with AutoCAD, ACA or Revit you are well positioned to take advantage of any future changes to any of these platforms.

Happy hunting and never trust a salesperson (for the record I am one), take their advice but in the end trust your own review and at the end of the day select the option that best fits your needs today and in the near future.

Cheers,
Jay
Message 7 of 15
cadman009
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign

We just started using ACA back in April and wish we would've looked harder at Revit. From everything I hear and have seen Revit appears to be the much stronger of the two programs. The features of ACA are a little easier to grasp for AutoCAD users, but in the long run I think you may get a lot more productivity from Revit. We're considering switching, but need to look into it more before making the leap. Just take a close look at both programs before making your decision. It helped me a lot to look at what's being said over on the Revit forum by users who have tried both.
Message 8 of 15
JayMoore
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign

"Hear and Seen"...that would be mistake #1 in making a decision. You have no idea who anybody is in these groups and its best to assume the guy touting one solution is a saleperson or somebody that would make a buck off you picking the product they are promoting. "Tried and Tested"...now that is your path to true enlightnment. And don't just do the minimum and draw a simple little structure, see a model rotate it around go whooooo and think you are in the Garden of Eden.

Run any platform you are testing through its full paces. Last time I looked nobody builds a structure from a 3D model. The 2D construction docs are still (and will be for many years) the bread and butter of building. So get a nice model to play with but see it through and find out if it can finish the race for you or not. Can you get eveything you need to build that structure (Model, Framing, BOM, Graphics, Const Docs, etc.) in a timely and efficient manner? If not or if you don't know then you better assume that what you hear and see in groups might be a simple case of fanning the flames of hype. You alone are the only and best judge of what program best fits your needs. These groups are good for "side-item-discusions" and to provoke thought but do your homework all the way through before you jump to any conclusions.

Thanks,
Jay
Message 9 of 15
cadman009
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign

Have you tried and tested both Revit and ACA? I'm anxious to hear from anyone about the strengths and weaknesses of either. Like I said I'm not convinced one way or another. One thing I know is that ACA is much harder to use than I was hoping it would be. We're getting our floor plans to work ok, but we're still learning the ropes on most of the other functions which I would have hoped would be basic and much easier to implement. For instance putting views on a sheet so that they link through the project navigator takes a really long time on my computer. So far I haven't seen that it's worth the pain. Every view I try to drag into a sheet causes the computer to pause and think for minutes at a time. Because of that I'm still just xref'ing and labeling my views manually. Not sure how Revit compares. I guess I'm not as cynical as you. I don't necessarily think the majority of posters favorable to Revit are undercover salesmen. How much more money are they really going to make by putting down one Autodesk product and touting another? You'd think they might want to sell as much as they can of both. I am however not jumping to any conclusions about Revit until I've had a chance to try it. One of the members of our team is planning to take a Revit class for her own personal benefit. I've decided to wait till she takes the class and gets a chance to evaluate it very thoroughly before taking any other steps toward a switch.
Message 10 of 15
Anonymous
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign

My reseller pushes Revit. They don't even know how to use ACA. I have a
subscription to Revit MEP which comes with Acad Mep and ACA. While going to
their Revit training I realized how much faster ACA is at drawing details,
at least ten times faster. Also at adding mutins to doors & windows, at
least ten times faster. When I make changes to the model in 3D realistic
view with clients, it looks realistic, unlike Revit which looks like a
plastic model unless you render it. I also add details in elevations in 2D
for clients to approve that I don't want to model until approval, that is
also faster in ACA. I also have my engineer give me excel files that are
linked when inserted. I can draw a 3D model of a house in a few minutes
with ACA as well as with Revit so any advantage for production is a mute
point.

Below are other issues.
1. The door number can match the room number automatically.
2. Creation of muntin and mullion patterns is easier in windows and doors
3. The section/elevation object allows for a gradation of line weights as
you
get farther from the cut line
4. Wall type assemblies allow for elements to have a bottom and top height,
making the stacking of components in a wall relatively easy. In Revit this
process is a little convoluted as it requires the making of sweeps, etc.


"cadman009" wrote in message news:6077155@discussion.autodesk.com...
Have you tried and tested both Revit and ACA? I'm anxious to hear from
anyone about the strengths and weaknesses of either. Like I said I'm not
convinced one way or another. One thing I know is that ACA is much harder to
use than I was hoping it would be. We're getting our floor plans to work ok,
but we're still learning the ropes on most of the other functions which I
would have hoped would be basic and much easier to implement. For instance
putting views on a sheet so that they link through the project navigator
takes a really long time on my computer. So far I haven't seen that it's
worth the pain. Every view I try to drag into a sheet causes the computer to
pause and think for minutes at a time. Because of that I'm still just
xref'ing and labeling my views manually. Not sure how Revit compares. I
guess I'm not as cynical as you. I don't necessarily think the majority of
posters favorable to Revit are undercover salesmen. How much more money are
they really going to make by putting down one Autodesk product and touting
another? You'd think they might want to sell as much as they can of both. I
am however not jumping to any conclusions about Revit until I've had a
chance to try it. One of the members of our team is planning to take a Revit
class for her own personal benefit. I've decided to wait till she takes the
class and gets a chance to evaluate it very thoroughly before taking any
other steps toward a switch.
Message 11 of 15
JayMoore
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign

Both of these BIM programs have major pros and major cons. The pro on ACA is its AutoCAD base but at the same time that is its con. The pro of Revit is it not AutoCAD based but at the same time that is a con for it as well. Without question AutoCAD is the worlds leader in efficient and timely 2D construction document development. Yeah, I know AutoCAD can now show 3D views but it has no intelligence attached to that data so that puts it out of contention for us.

Yet both programs are greatly hindered by their "hybrid" quality of trying to appease the build gods of commercial and residential standards. That is a very difficult task to do. Just because they both build structures does not mean they can use the exact same software, process and get the results they require. In my opinion, the greatest contributor to Autodesk customer loyalty and support is that we have all been rolled into one solution and that just does not work. What works great in commercial situations does not have the same effect for residential. Commercial has months to years to develop a project. Residential has weeks, days and sometimes only hours to complete projects.

So back to the main question at hand. For our residential work we find ACA to be the best solution because it is based on AutoCAD. This allows us to continue to create the same 2D docs quickly and efficiently. ACA also has the "foundation" for BIM data but never achieved full status for our needs because it lacked items to allow us to create a full model and docs in a timely manner. But that con lead to a pro for ACA because it has a wonderful programmers interface that allowed us (and many other organizations) to custom build solutions to take ACA from its base to a fully functional BIM solution. So we can utilize ACA 3D objects, still access and complete our 2D data without leaving our BIM environment and when we need a quick detail (that does not require 3D intelligence) we can quickly knock that out with AutoCAD.

From our experience with Revit we found the model capacity to be very good. It (just like ACA) was greatly lacking in many residential functionality and while the roof object is a bit better than ACA slabs it still was lacking for many of the complex roofs we come across. The biggest problem for us was when it came to the 2D documents. It seemed every time we could get to about 80% completion on docs in Revit but to finalize them we would have to jump out of Revit and finish the work in AutoCAD. This does not make any sense as you just broke any intelligence that was between the Revit model and now the 2D AutoCAD docs. Then if we had a quick detail we needed to complete you have to make a "family". I get it, once it is done one time you don't have to do it again but there is no access to the family editor programmers interface so we had no way to automate any work so creating family after family for something that takes a few minutes in AutoCAD again does not work for our timeline. It killed our revenue return and timelines to the customer.

So that's my 2 cents from our experience thus far. If you only design and have no regard for 2D docs (or other downstream users that need to access and edit those docs) and are not focused on the economics of your production time then Revit is certainly worth your time for a look. If you still share 2D data with downstream users (subs, etc.), want to access robust 3rd party products, and have tight economics to adhere to then AutoCAD and ACA are still the king of the jungle. In my opinion of course 🙂

Thanks
Jay
Message 12 of 15
cadman009
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign

Oh, I get it. You're an AutoCAD Architecture salesman, aren't you? (jk) 🙂 But seriously, thanks for the info!
Message 13 of 15
JayMoore
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign

Actually I can sell both ACA and Revit I just have the luxury to push the best one for the customers needs not because I get a bigger discount on one or the other. But the previous input is from our architectural services research into the best solution for service work. And as I always say gather information here then do your own testing all the way through.
Message 14 of 15
gt1000
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign

I have been rolling through some test project with revit, after using ADT for the last few years. We did fully implement ADT, 3d, scheduling, PN, etc. We got most of it to work and were pretty happy with it.



Revit on the other hand is totally more organized and efficient in places that ADT will just never manage. The single file structure allows for the most elegant no-fuss integration of model, plan and schedule, which all works very well. That is a 100% win for Revit. A lot of what works well in Revit works really well, much better than ADT will probably ever manage to.



But Revit seem to have a more limited 'tool set' for a lot of the production sort of work that real projects can run into. Like the odd fact that there is no coordinate system available. You know that the coordinate information is in there, but you can't see it. So there is not support for the most basic coordinate entry, or even relative entry from the keyboard to set a point. There are other similar omissions and missing tools that have been a part of any CAD program since 1980. I think the Revit notion is to make a clean break to 3d and BIM. But there are a lot of things that are more graphical and or diagrammatic in a set of plans. The text tools in Revit are just really primitive. I still have not found the fence stretch type command, and I don't think it is in there. There is a lot like that in revit.



So in the long run, I'd like to see Revit Acquire some of the drafting, graphic and analytic tools that are the strength of good old CAD. That would be the ideal package.



for now, both programs seem to be not quite what we'd like. But we are never happy are we?
Message 15 of 15
Anonymous
in reply to: LeaAllenDesign


Thanks for offering a refreshingly honest review of
both programs.

Personally I have been working on the one file
approach in ADT (something that visionrez have down) for smaller
projects.


style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
I
have been rolling through some test project with revit, after using ADT for
the last few years. We did fully implement ADT, 3d, scheduling, PN, etc. We
got most of it to work and were pretty happy with it.

Revit on the
other hand is totally more organized and efficient in places that ADT will
just never manage. The single file structure allows for the most elegant
no-fuss integration of model, plan and schedule, which all works very well.
That is a 100% win for Revit. A lot of what works well in Revit works really
well, much better than ADT will probably ever manage to.

But Revit seem
to have a more limited 'tool set' for a lot of the production sort of work
that real projects can run into. Like the odd fact that there is no coordinate
system available. You know that the coordinate information is in there, but
you can't see it. So there is not support for the most basic coordinate entry,
or even relative entry from the keyboard to set a point. There are other
similar omissions and missing tools that have been a part of any CAD program
since 1980. I think the Revit notion is to make a clean break to 3d and BIM.
But there are a lot of things that are more graphical and or diagrammatic in a
set of plans. The text tools in Revit are just really primitive. I still have
not found the fence stretch type command, and I don't think it is in there.
There is a lot like that in revit.

So in the long run, I'd like to see
Revit Acquire some of the drafting, graphic and analytic tools that are the
strength of good old CAD. That would be the ideal package.

for now,
both programs seem to be not quite what we'd like. But we are never happy are
we?

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