Choosing the right AutoDesk platform

[maddyLDFAQ]

Hello AutoCAD community, 

I was unsure where to put this ask but I figure I'll just throw it out in the wind and see if anyone catches it. 

I am currently trying to find a 3D platform for a High School team-based engineering project to design a 3D model of a city. The timeline would be 3-4 months with some teams being able to meet every day and some teams only being able to meet once a week. Most students would not have any knowledge of these types of platforms, so I'd like to keep the learning curve down. The agent I am currently speaking to suggested to use 4 platforms at once for a more holistic approach, but with the truncated timeline and no experience, I think 1 or maybe 2 platforms would be best.

Which software(s) would you recommend from the list? I was looking into AutoCAD, Revit, and Inventor Professional. Do you have any non-AutoDesk recommendations? 

Thank you for taking the time to read and answer!

[TheCADnoob]

That sounds exciting! Glad you are seeing some initial success. 

I would hop over to the Revit section of the community and see if anyone there could better answer your questions. 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-products/ct-p/2003

[maddyLDFAQ]

Does anyone have a phone number for product support that I can speak to an actual person? Their AI chat is awful and the agents are not much help and end our chats very briefly. The last agent told me to contact their Partners for additional product support but ended the chat before I could ask him which Partner to reach out to regarding Revit and Infraworks. 

[pendean]

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@maddyLDFAQ wrote:

Does anyone have a phone number for product support...

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You can find and contact a local reseller or 3 in you region to discuss what you need to purchase etc.

https://www.autodesk.com/partners/locate-a-reseller 

Product Support from Autodesk requires you to have paid upfront first: I suspect that's no the case with you, correct? For pre-sale/pre-subscription, see what I wrote above.

Autodesk does not have staff salespersons or showrooms/storefronts, never have, 'calling' is not a thing with them.

[maddyLDFAQ]

So far the partners I tried to contact from that link you needed to have bought the product already from them or they have no idea what I'm talking about. Is this the only resource to go to for product support (besides the forums)? 

[pendean]

Correct, "support" requires you to pay someone for their time (subscription or spot payment) if you are wanting help with using an Autodesk program BUT NOT just inquiring about "...choosing the right Autodesk platform..." as you have stated so far in your posts.

Did you ask them the wrong question?

[maddyLDFAQ]

Hi again!! We have decided to go with Revit as the platform to build these future cities. My next question is which version of Revit should we use? Is there a good resource to compare what the versions get you? I see that downloading Revit gets you the 3 most recent versions, is there a way to limit which version someone uses (so that everyone is using the same version and evens the playing field?)

Also, I recently learned you can provide a seed file to someone that they can work off of. This would reduce cheating as it could contain something that only I would know to look for when they turn it in - does anyone have any experience with this: how to create a seed file, how to put in something 'invisible' that a team wouldn't necessarily know is in there, etc? 

Thanks!!

[JamesMaeding]

@maddyLDFAQ 

This is really interesting, you are new to Revit and are focused on the version?

I'm really interested to see how this all goes for you, as the revit users I know are the worst at terrain modeling, and doing low to medium level modeling. I see them do real buildings and even electrical conduit, but that seems to be tied to the design process they are already hugely invested in, both time and money.

It seems to me you should be choosing Autodesk Infrawiorks or the Bentley "gaming engine", which is what these programs are. You might make buildings in acad, revit, sketchup....but assembling them into a big scene is a nightmare in all of them. Small scenes, maybe, but for example just draping a ground image on a TIN surface does not go well in acad. When Infraworks came around, it was 10x better than the closest competition, which was ESRI's tools as I recall. Actually, they are the next choice to Infraworks, IMO. You are way underestimating what happens when you get 100 buildings in a model, and a decent size surface to put them on. You must have a gaming engine type (or GIS which is close) platform to do that.

[maddyLDFAQ]

Hi James, this is good feedback - would you be able to chat on a call sometime? I'm not sure if I'm allowed to give my personal info on a forum but it would be easier to pick your brain that way. 

We have decided on Revit, that was a final decision. Unfortunately, no one on our team has any experience with any of these softwares (I have the most experience which is VERY little as I was a ChemE major but didn't have to work with a software like Solidworks like my peers) I need to learn Revit alongside the students so as to help them, but I need to first create the rules around how they need to build their city - which version to use, how big can their city be, how many modifications can they use. So the more info I have, the better. LMK!