...We are dumping Autodesk forever, unless....

[ACADManager]

Unless Autodesk comes up with some major breakthrough updates/new feautures for ACA 2016 - we are very frustraded with Autodesk and ACA (I have been using ACA since ADT 3.3.)  - We are a small residential builder who owns 3 AA licenses on subscription ($$$$$) and what does Autodesk do for us? A software that has not had any major/breakthrough improvements in more than 10 years. Even other programs like Chief Architect, Softplan, CadSoft and ArchiCad are years ahead of ACA ......RANT.....unless Autodesk comes up with some great improvements/updates on ACA, we are dumping their products for ever..........http://www.featurepics.com/FI/Thumb300/20070916/Frustrated-User-453893.jpg

[BillGlennie]

Hello Raul - thank you for this comment. The AutoCAD Architecture and MEP team members appreciate our long-time users, and you have been with us for more than 14 years. There have been quite a few features in the past decade, but perhaps they have not been relevant to your business.  In addition, there have been lots of features over the years in AutoCAD itself.  

Even though we have continued to develop AutoCAD Architecture, I respect your feeling that it is falling behind other products, and want to learn more.  I will send you a separate message to set up a phone conversation about features that you would find compelling for your business.

Regards,  

Bill Glennie

AutoCAD Architecture and MEP team

[pendean]

REVIT is the painful realist replacement for ACA.

[ACADManager]

...then I guess ACA is dying a slow and painful death....painful for us

[ACADManager · Accepted solution]

We've made a decision, we are leaving ACA for Chief Architect

[hjsanders]

My biggest concern, is that Autodesk has not made it so the data can be seamlessly shared across platforms. This to me is an affront to the very core of the extreme product loyalty that AutoCAD has inspired.

I learned AutoCAD in 1986 and to this day, I can still use commands I learned then. Now, all of a sudden, we are asked to alienate a large portion of the design community, and the rift is growing wider.

I think you will see a substantial long term exodus from Autodesk architectural products, in the same way Solid Works captured a large percentage of industrial design.

[BillGlennie]

Can you expand on the remark, "all of a sudden, we are asked to alienate a large portion of the design community."  I have many thoughts on this topic, but I'd like to hear more about your impression.  As a long-time AutoCAD user as well (started in 1984, while teaching computers in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania), I've seen a lot of changes in the field, and know this evolution will continue.  

Thanks,  Bill

[Oilymo]

Bill,

My main concern is what if I want to increase my company size?  Would I buy more ACA licences knowing that little or no more development is taking place and that ADesk are concentrating on other products.  For me I this is where I feel alienated.  Not one reseller in the UK is ready to offer training on ACA they all want to sell me Revit.  As for the commands argument I do understand it but for me it's not valid. I do however understand that ACA offers me one drawing package to work from, not everything I do is a new build house or a block of apartments so years of Acad knowledge can be called upon.

Side question:  If you're part of the Architecture team can I ask why you don't (or won't) incorporate the UK Content into ACA?  This is an amazingly flexible tool but Adesk UK have stopped it's use on ACA 2012 and this currently has me stuck and unable to use ACA 2015 which is a real shame.

Kind regards

Ben

[hjsanders]

Hey Guys,

The commands part of my post was concerning why I have personally stayed with AutoCAD products; I never had to learn a new system.  It did everything I needed and I could customize it, quite a bit. 

The next element in the "Product Loyalty" department was compatibility with newer versions, so designs we made 10 years ago, (not an outrages amount of time for a product life in the home building business) still work or could be easily updated to a newer design.

Now, we have homes being designed in ACA, and homes being design in Revit, and they are completely incompatible.  How can Autodesk in any way expect product loyalty in this enviroment.

So we either scrap ACA and it's more mature platform, with thousand of objects we already use, or we abandon Revit and reduce our access to future resources.

Not a position customers should be forced into.

[ACADManager]

Go to Chief Architect, we already canceled our subscription to Autodesk, not worth paying them $5100 a year for cute little GUI improvements....

[tvisgood]

Bill, I have been researching the direction of the company and the ACA program for some time now, and have been using autocad since R13, I see a lot of businesses upset and understand why, I have recently purchased ACA 2015 for the rendering and large scale residential projects, BIM is pretty much useless unless working with multi-level buildings-5 stories plus/20,000 SQ.FT. etc., the new version seems to be going the direction of fads, what seems to "be in" right now, and has lost concentration where it matters most, POWER. The program lags - big time -, it cant handle the most basic of models without shutting down, and the requested minimum requirements are way off that are suggested by Autodesk, the real minimum requirements for ACA 3D modeling/rendering are something like: a nvidia k5200 or 6000 class video card, an i7 extreme 8 core or a 12 core processor, but really you should have dual xeon's operating at 3.0 or higher, 64 gigs of ram min. a SSD drive, and a massive cooling system. which puts the standard user at above 6000 to 7000 dol. for any computer. The program finally uses multiple processors for rendering but its still too slow. Every time the program gets an update it reduces its productivity level/capabilities, it becomes more complex and what I might be referred to as an "old school" user has to change the way i draw. I have put in the time to learn the new tricks etc. and it is paying off but again, the program cannot move as fast as i can draw, it stutters and shuts down. I have all of the updates and very clean and/fast computer, i shut down all other program processes that dont need to be running, quickbooks etc. and it doesnt matter,

the program craps out, and revit isnt that much better. i can make it shut down too. The rendering capabilities of ACA are amazing and most of the community is striving to achieve 3ds max quality renders in ACA, otherwise why have such a powerful rendering engine in ACA if you cant even use it, I can render a scene 20 times better/more realistic in ACA than the cloud, but the render times are ridiculous. 1024x1024 and filter settings at 8, and we'll see you next week some time. Power and speed is the most logical direction that ACA needs to go, we dont need any new updates to how the program gets used but how it operates when used. maybe the math needs to be re-written again, as with how the mesh objects were, the ribbon is a failure where speed is concerned and is only a fad by revit users, the introduction of revit without long standing customer comment was a waste of time, all the sudden we were thrown this new program and told about all the new things that it can do that ACA couldnt when ACA can do the same things. revit should just go away, all of my clients are purchasing ACA2015 and dont need anything like revit, even all of the large firms i know are staying with ACA.

I respectfully ask that you get in touch with me privately and go over the future of ACA, and the perpetual license/subscription options too, Autodesk is putting itself in a very bad position for the future of new purchasers of the program, and i dont want to see the program cut off/discontinued, just look online, the entire world of draftsmen/designers and single user architects are all upset with whats happening. as a resume, i single handidly changed the HP 110 back to a 430 type of workhorse (HP T120/T560 with one phone call) and a few other companies products as well. I can help save autodesk from the bad online comments everyone is leaving over the past couple of years. as you can see from my attachments below the capabilities are endless and we should all work together to achieve a program that lasts well into the future and blows the competition away.  🙂

[BillGlennie]

Thank you for the long and thoughtful post.  I will get in touch directly.  But there are a few things I want to post publicly. 

First, the images attached to your post are wonderful!  The Kitchen is a beautiful result of excellent model construction and rendering.  The content is well crafted, the materials are thorough, the lighting is subtle and dramatic at the same time.  The G image is quite a dramatic form, something that many people would look at and say, you can't do that with AutoCAD Architecture.  I know in theory how to create this kind of result, but have never actually accomplished it.  Well done!  But A must stand for Astonishing!  That's the kind of form that other users say cannot be done with AutoCAD Architecture, and I have not figured out how you could create it in ACA.  It looks more like something from a free-form modeling application. 

Second, when ACA (or Revit for that matter) crap out, are you sending the Error Report?  It's really helpful to have this information, not necessarily the steps, but please include your e-dress (which is stored in the registry, so you only need to type it once).  That allows us to connect a category of crashes with you.  If we need additional information about recreating this crash, that also allows us to get in touch directly.  I encourage everyone to send those reports. 

Regards,  Bill

[jcortelyou]

I've been a long time ACA, MEP and Vanilla CAD User in many different disciplines.  I love AutoCAD.  However - Raul is right.  This is rediculus.  You guys soak us for a decent chunk of money every year.  WE should not be the ones that should have to tell YOU how to make your software worth it's price tag.  Let's talk about HATCHING for a minute.  You think you could freaking fix this bug that's been around for years.  You rebuild the GUI you add a ton of additional functions but still regardless of what your work around is I can't expect the software will be stable when I run that command.  

Regarding ACA 2016 - DID YOU ADD ANYTHING???  WTF?  I know there are minor additions but I am not impressed.  The fact that I need to resort to Sketchup to make quick 3D models is rediculous.  As one of the people said below Revit is a painful alternative.  REVIT SUCKS just like ACA SUCKS.  We are stuck using your product because AutoCAD is industry standard - if you take that for granted your product will be obsolete in 5 years.

Time to be a little more innovative guys...

Jacques