Hi,
Tekla has it's strong points in structural although the macro's are somewhat "cryptic"
Tekla's 3d Grid system is excellent... the best out there.
Tekla's Document manager is very powerful. The best out there!
Tekla also handles large models very well.
Tekla has an excellent reference dwg/model import and handles lots of busy ref drawings like they are not even a load on the system... unlike the Advance Steel xref nightmare....featuring super poor display performance along with other poorly thought out features....
Tekla has an excellent reference joist macro
Tekla has an excellent anchor bolt macro!!!!!! We've been begging for that for more than 10yrs and haven't gotten jack squat from Autodesk management... It's pathetic.... don't get me started!
The Tekla wall tool and floor tool are legendary and will soon be your favorite tool for quickly creating conc. reference elements.
Navigating thru Tekla while modeling is pretty good but not as easy and intuitive as AST. You'll be a little frustrated with C plane manipulation in Tekla but you'll get used to it.
Construction line creation is a little clumsy but once you get used to the program and create your workflow you will figure it out.
Misc metals in Tekla is average to poor compared to Advance Steel.
You will not like the way that Tekla creates handrails compared to AST.
The Tekla stanchion macro is a brutal pain in the arse!
Tekla's stair macro not nearly as flexible and easy to use as AST's
Tekla's Ladder macro is so-so
If you've done any spiral stairs while working in AST you will miss that macro greatly.... the best out there by far!
You'll throw up doing spirals in Tekla.
Although these kinds of parametric detailing programs take a similar approach in the way that they are designed (under the hood so to speak) Advance Steel is much more accessible "under the hood" which can be a curse for new and intermediate users...
Telka is better "out of the box" than AST but AST is much more configurable than Tekla for a detailer who doesn't program and in the long run can be custom configured to a higher degree.,... but that's only when you start to master Advance Steel. There's a steeper learning curve to get Advance Steel to really sing compared to Tekla IMO.
I would recommend that you get a copy or eval of Tekla and work thru some youtube tutorials.
I have a Tekla pdf training series that will really help you get started.
Overall both programs have their strengths and weaknesses. Once you get settled in I'm sure you will enjoy Tekla. It has a lot of great features and also with the lic. you can access all of the online resources including the "Tekla Warehouse" which has many user created extensions that you will find useful.
Good luck
Craig
