ADT 2004 or Revit?

[Anonymous]

Looking for input from those cadd managers experienced in both ADT and Revit for opinions on which program to implement in small but growing architectural office. With the new release of ADT 2004 and an upcoming Revit release 5.1 the choices are becoming difficult. Staff is primarily from vanilla AutoCad background--no ADT or Revit experience other than myself.
Let's try to make this thread helpful and sincere--not another ADT-vs-Revit competiton. It's a serious choice and has profound economic and long-term implications for our office.(and everyone else's too.)
cbc

[Anonymous]

Depends entirely on how dedicated you are to the single model paradym in my
opinion. AutoCAD based solutions will give you more flexibility to work
with a variety of techniques. Revit, despite all the really cool
improvements in ADT2004, is probably still the better all in one model CAD
program. But for me and many others, we need the flexibility to work in
many different ways in many different situations.

If you don't have a lot of history or legacy drawings that comprise on-going
projects or client/consultant relationships, maybe you start start with a
clean slate and a new program: Revit. Otherwise, stick with AutoCAD based
solutions as long as you can.

--
Brian K. Harder, AIA
CAD Manager - RNL Design
http://www.rnldesign.com
-----------------------------------------
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"cbc" wrote in message news:f14e26f.-1@WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
> Looking for input from those cadd managers experienced in both ADT and
Revit for opinions on which program to implement in small but growing
architectural office. With the new release of ADT 2004 and an upcoming Revit
release 5.1 the choices are becoming difficult. Staff is primarily from
vanilla AutoCad background--no ADT or Revit experience other than myself.
> Let's try to make this thread helpful and sincere--not another
ADT-vs-Revit competiton. It's a serious choice and has profound economic and
long-term implications for our office.(and everyone else's too.)
> cbc

[Anonymous]

Check out the arch desktop customer gallery for
information on ADT 2004. Lot's of stuff there including screenshots and AVI's.

href="news://discussion.autodesk.com/autodesk.aec.arch-desktop.customer-gallery">news://discussion....

Chad

[Anonymous]

Brian,
Good comments-thanks. I agree, Revit's parametric ability is far superior to just about any cadd package I've seen. The "being used to AutoCad" factor is a biggie--but, if the pros outweigh the cons, and the software is so much better
in terms of overall parametric ability, and a "friendlier"
GUI, the Revit is our choice. We do, as most firms do, have "legacy" drawings, and are currently still using vanilla 2d AutoCad for production work. Could you elaborate on the flexibility issue? Can Revit be customized (like lsp in AutoCad) at all? Will this be possible in future releases?
Or does it really need to be? Perhaps one day, if Revit becomes the industry standard, then all of the traditional customizing we have been doing with AutoCad/ADT won't be as necessary? The other thing is, will ADT be around 10 years from now? Long-term planning is critical. We do not want to invest lots of time and dollars into something that will disappear in 5-10 years, meanwhile losing valuable time that should have been spent on the software that becomes long-term. I have seen lots of threads on this, and AutoDesk always jumps in and responds that ADT will be around for a long time--but define "long". Any thoughts here? Thanks.
cbc

[Anonymous]

Chad,
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I've seen the new screenshots and examples of ADT 2004-- a most impressive display, and a much improved release, for sure. However, the parametric ability in Revit's underlying database engine is superior to ADT. We still have to "force" ADT to do things that Revit does automatically. The VizRender addition is really great. I've been pushing for this for years. Geat job on that! Could the VizRender engine be incorporated into Revit as well, in lieu of AccuRender? Rendered animations inside the resident modeling software is a really great advance.
We are, of course also looking very hard at the production drawing abilities of ADT and Revit--and how easy or difficult it is to achieve our goals for Construction documents. ADT is very difficult to use for CDs. I've been a devout user since R14/Softdesk, ADT1,2, 3, 3.3. Would love to stay with it--but Revit just seems so much more powerful in it's parametric abilility, and the learning curve seems to be much faster and intuitive for newbies.
Any thoughts here?
cbc

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure I really want to go too much further into this again.
ADT/Revit has been pretty thoroughly cussed and discussed (grin) over the
last couple of years. Lest anyone think my "open-mindedness" means I'm now
a Revit fan, I'm not. But it's obviously the right application for some.
Personally, I don't find anything about Revit to be easy or intuitive. It's
not for this firm. But for others, more power to them.

If only we had a crystal ball....

We're hoping AutoCAD/ADT will be around in 10 years, but not if it's just a
redundant Revit. If we have anything to do with it or say about it,
AutoCAD/ADT will be around, as long as it's an AutoCAD based application.
That's really the bottom line with us, the AutoCAD engine underneath. But
frankly, I doubt that either ADT or Revit will be around in 10 years.
Something else will probably be the darling product by then. Hopefully I'll
have won the lottery by then and won't have to worry about which way the CAD
winds are blowing.

Cheers.

--
Brian K. Harder, AIA
CAD Manager - RNL Design
http://www.rnldesign.com
-----------------------------------------
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[Anonymous]

    Just make sure you give both
products a try before you decide. Making ADT easier to use and learn
and was our #1 priority for ADT2004.  Most people who have been using
it for a while now can hardly stand to go back to ADT3.3 (me
included). ADT 2004 really is a huge leap forward in all areas. We are
looking forward to delivering more of the same for years to come. (And don't
forget that you'll be getting everything that goes into the base autocad
platform as well.)

    CDs are shaping up
to be the highest priority for the next big release... there's a ton
of stuff we are looking forward to doing in that area.

Good luck with your decision,

Chad

ADT Development

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"cbc" <cbc@kdginc.com> wrote in
message
href="news:f14e26f.4@WebX.maYIadrTaRb">news:f14e26f.4@WebX.maYIadrTaRb...

Chad,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I've seen the new screenshots and examples of
ADT 2004-- a most impressive display, and a much improved release, for sure.
However, the parametric ability in Revit's underlying database engine is
superior to ADT. We still have to "force" ADT to do things that Revit does
automatically. The VizRender addition is really great. I've been pushing for
this for years. Geat job on that! Could the VizRender engine be incorporated
into Revit as well, in lieu of AccuRender? Rendered animations inside the
resident modeling software is a really great advance.
We are, of course
also looking very hard at the production drawing abilities of ADT and
Revit--and how easy or difficult it is to achieve our goals for Construction
documents. ADT is very difficult to use for CDs. I've been a devout user since
R14/Softdesk, ADT1,2, 3, 3.3. Would love to stay with it--but Revit just seems
so much more powerful in it's parametric abilility, and the learning curve
seems to be much faster and intuitive for newbies.
Any thoughts here?

cbc

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your input.
cbc

[Anonymous]

Brian,
Thanks for your input.
cbc

[Anonymous]

> Can Revit be customized (like lsp in AutoCad) at all? Will this be
possible in future releases?

I will say NO.

I have use both ADT and Revit in the past, the problem is that we as
Architects want to have our own touch!, and the way this is going is not.

---
luis

[Anonymous]

Will there be a next version of ADT?

Many times people refer to MDT/Inventor in
ADT/Revit situation. I recently saw demo of
the new 2004 version of MDT. The product is still
being developed even if it's though to have been replaced by
inventor.

Jussi

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The other thing is, will ADT be around 10 years from now? Long-term
planning is critical. We do not want to invest lots of time and dollars into
something that will disappear in 5-10 years, meanwhile losing valuable time
that should have been spent on the software that becomes long-term. I have
seen lots of threads on this, and AutoDesk always jumps in and responds that
ADT will be around for a long time--but define "long".

[Anonymous]

Yes.  Please refer to many postings about ADT 2004 in the
autodesk.aec.arch-desktop3 newsgroup as well as many avi's and screen shots of
all the new features in the autodesk.aec.arch-desktop.customer-gallery
newsgroup.  This is going to be a blockbuster release (of course I am
biased 😉 ), and work has already begun on the next.

Cheers
--
chris yanchar
building solutions
division
autodesk, inc.

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"Jussi" <
href="mailto:jusu8.N.O.S.P.A.M@hotmail.com">jusu8.N.O.S.P.A.M@hotmail.com>
wrote in message
href="news:CC8AE836714C356B74AEBFD05E4B80E4@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb">news:CC8AE836714C356B74AEBFD05E4......

Will there be a next version of ADT?

Many times people refer to MDT/Inventor in
ADT/Revit situation. I recently saw demo
of the new 2004 version of MDT. The product is
still being developed even if it's though to have been replaced by
inventor.

Jussi

style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">

The other thing is, will ADT be around 10 years from now? Long-term
planning is critical. We do not want to invest lots of time and dollars into
something that will disappear in 5-10 years, meanwhile losing valuable time
that should have been spent on the software that becomes long-term. I have
seen lots of threads on this, and AutoDesk always jumps in and responds that
ADT will be around for a long time--but define "long".

[Anonymous]

Actually, you do customize Revit. In Revit, you customize the *content* and not the *program*. It's an important difference. Yes, sometimes you are limited in Revit in what you can cusotmize (like using a different tag with certain fuctions) but for the most part you can change all the tags & such to be completely cusomtized to your office's graphic standard. So your 'architect's touch' can be fully supported. You also set up the standard familys for things like cabinetry, doors, etc, as well as teh templates for your office's use. Also lots of the things that you would have to use lisp for in AutoCAD, like an automated plot stamp or a routine that inserts a properly-sized titleblock into a project (two examples of our in-house AutoCAD lisp routines) you can do within Revit out-of-the box, without any programming. What took us months in AutoCAd (an automated titlelbock system) took us ten minutes in Revit. So we've found that Revit has a much lower overhead in terms of 'customization' for anyone who's Revit savvy can create custom automated content, familes, and templates- we don't need a full-time AutoCAD programmer or a consultant, like we did with AutoCAD, to just make simple changes to the CAD system. So you do customize Revit, just not via Lisp tools.

Jeffrey McGrew

[Anonymous]

Thank you!