Revit Building vs ArchiCAD

[Umta Wollis]

Is Revit Building better than ArchiCAD or not?

[sbrown]

Your asking a biased forum. I think the answer you will get is YES in all aspects except rendering.

[Anonymous]

I came across this discussion over in the Archicad forum.
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=10348 They seem to give
a fair assesment over there and actually folks here in the Revit group
generally give fair assesments as well. I try to avoid discussing Revit in
the ADT group. They will bite your head off if you say anything negative
about ADT.:)


wrote in message news:5497761@discussion.autodesk.com...
Is Revit Building better than ArchiCAD or not?

[taythebay]

I have used both. After 9 months of using ArchiCAD I was still struggling to do the most basic things. Everything seemed to me to be a work around. Yes it is very powerful but the learning curve was very steep for me and I am good with software. Within two weeks I was productive on Revit. Don't get me started on the required add ons. Things you will take for granted in Revit such as making a parametric door or window requires you to either be a programmer of GDL or buy add ons in ArchiCAD, which you must pay to upgrade individually from each vendor upon each new release of ArchiCAD. Read the AC forums for a while and you will see what I mean. Try a search for stairs and decide if you can use the AC stair builder or need to buy the add on.

My opinionated view.

[aghis_no]

I've been using ADT and Revit for several years, as an architect and a cad manager. I also used archicad 9 a little...
If you have to invest time and effort on learning a software my advice will be to choose between adt or revit. Both of them are newer softs, more professional, and belonging to software platforms that are not only "architecture" oriented as archicad.
In general Autodesk products (adt or revit) have a main advantage, of being much more powerfully in dealing with complex real life problems and projects. Both adt and Revit have some disadvantages, but they are both able to deal with demanding situations of collaboration, modeling and document production. Don't forget that BIM is a question of efficiency and you will be needing a software able of handling intensive 2d work as well as 3d modeling and parametrics, not only for small housing projects but also on more complex buildings.
Most of the times people look for "aec object intelligence" thinking that this will help them gain productivity. However according to my experience the problem that occurs more often in real life is dealing with constant project or program changes or handling 3 or more design options in an efficient way (without having huge files or several ones all over your hard drive). An of course I should not forget to mention the question of large collaboration teams (20 and more people) exchanging large drawing files (ex. site plans of 20megs etc.). Archicad cannot handle these issues easily, although some efforts are made in that direction (on the last version) it still remains a software for students. In other words ADT or Revit are products focusing on professional efficiency capable of dealing with both, small or large amounts of data, and this is why it is worth spending some training time to master them.

aghis

[marekstoklosa]

Hi there,
I am familiar with Archi CAD and can say it is a very good tool however the learning curve is a chore, even with the instruction classes. Revit allowed me to run with it in about one month. The tutorial that comes with the software is just great. It does mean you will still need to try things twice to get it right. In my office we used Vector Works and it is a sweet program but has a lot of limitations, so we switched at the end of last year to Revit. We could not believe how easy it is to learn and it is a very complex program. We find it much more intuitive than ArchiCAD. Also ArchiCAD was purchased by Nemetschek a German software behemoth so I think the program could be placed in a dust bin of software history soon. And hey! buy American! 🙂

[cfrafihbari]

I had to work with 2 companies, one using revit and another archicad. i have to say Archicad is far superior.

Main advantages are -

basic 2d drafting, custom hatch creation, custom linetype creation etc

basic 3d transformations are easier, move, rotate, copy multiple etc. it becomes a big deal cause we have to use these all the time.

for team projects - the adminsitrator has full control, he can assign what each of the other team members can work on or not..

family (or Object) are separate files in a object folder. this way for a company, different project can use the same objects, and once object is changed in the folder, it updates atomatically in all projects. It also allows for continuous improvements of the same object. I used to do GDL object creations, editing so its a big deal for me. In revit someone has to be assigned just to maintain familis, especially when dealing with different projects. Revit basically detaches from the template families once a new project is made. this to me is important in order to maintain company standards.

Call outs and drafting views are 2D, and can be updated if necessary. this way the details drawn will not have to be adjusted each time the walls change.

there is vector units, zero zero point on all details, worksheets etc. this makes importing and exporting easier, rather than drawing in space.

sheet view is better. one detail can be taken to multiple sheets. each view can be cropped in different shapes.. its not just a rectangle box. view can be rescaled to any sizes, not just custom sizes.

rightclick has useful functions specific to the elements. in revit rightclick is practically useless except if you want to delete an element.

the drawing space to sheet - model, view, sheet.. i just find it more intuitive in archicad

command interface is very customisable, similar to classic autocad. i find ribon annoying.

trace reference is very powerful and easy. can trace reference sheets on plan, as well as sheets on sheets.. plans on sheets and they can be snapped!! in revit there is the overlay, but its only for plans.

renovation tool and model view tool is very powerful. you can show load bearing elements only, finishes only.. etc

there are many more advantages.

overall more accurate especially when dealing with mm accuracy. in revit i frequently get this is too small distance to change etc.

3d views are bettter archicad. u can crop 3d views too,

I am really hoping, autodesk with all their resources and money, would come up a drastic newer version of revit to seriouly compete with archicad. i feel that revit is stuck with some old utdated parameters and is difficult to improve.May be autodesk needs a completely newer software. more competition is better for the users, i dont mind learning a new software.