Scott Davis

That's just not true. Revit has always been multi-threaded in Rendering, even with Accurender. With Mental Ray, it utilizes up to four cores for rendering. Ohter processes are now multi-threaded, such as wall joins.

Mental Ray in Revit will only use up to 4 cores for Rendering.

At one point, there was a quote here from a disgruntled user. I've edited it out for the sake of the conversation on BIM. Hopefully we can continue the conversation. Others should follow and edit your "MY software is the best!" posts, as this does not add to the conversation about Building Inoformation Modeling. In fact, the most positive thread about BIM would contain NO references to any specific software, good or bad. Otherwise, we will end up with long winded diatribes and bad analogies as some people get overly defensive.

Point was: the large firms I mentioned WERE using ADT....

That's one of the funniest things I have heard! Revit cannot do anymore than ADT??? Nothing more but guarantee a fully coordinated set of doucments, out of the box. I would LOVE to hear how you think Revit is 'limiting'.

Ask some of the world's largest architectural firms, HOK, SOM, and Gensler, who are all committed to transitioning to Revit.

Oh really? I'd better stop doing my CD's in Revit then and bail out on our office's 100 licenses. Bricklyne - I was very careful in that post that's been quoted here...please tell me how I spoke out of context. I said GDL is not necessary to learn, because some content creation in ArchiCAD can be handled by add-ons, that builds the content (in GDL) for you, but to really harness the power of ArchiCAD, one should learn GDL. Don't you agree? Stairs - Stairs can be built out-of-the-box, but not very complex stairs, correct? It takes an add-on such as Archistair to produce more complex geometries, right? Archistair is free, but still must be "updated" along with the base program as new versions come out to insure compatibility. Other items in my quoted post...well I don't think that any of them are out of context at all. Like I said in that post, I will gladly accept corrections where I have said something incorrectly.

Autodesk has done this for some time now with other products: Inventor/Mech Desktop Revit/Arch Desktop Civil3D/Land Desktop So far, it seems that Autodesk has not had a problem with in house 'competing' software.

Cool, thanks for the clarification, as I interpreted your post wrongly. I've worked in AutoCAD since r9, so switching to anything else proved to be somewhat challenging. I tried to learn Form Z in college, and it was too click heavy for an AutoCAD user who typed everything at the command line. I was lucky enough to be introduced to Revit at release 1.0, and learned the basics then. With each sucessive release, I have been able to build upon that knowledge. It would be much tougher if I were to be learning it from scratch now at ver 8.0!

I was making a point when talking Revit/ADT numbers. ADT touts 500,000 to 750,000 users. When that popular of a product is being outsold 20:1 in a large country, it says something. (I understand the original question was ArchiCAD, but I don't know those numbers) If in your last line you are implying Revit is for modeling only, you are completely wrong. Revit excels in documentation. And now excels in Structural Analysis, and soon in mechanical and electrical engineering. Other companies are starting to produce Cost Estimators through the API into Revit's database. Back to the question: "only": you owe it to yourself to try Revit. If you know Archicad, you should try Revit and see for yourself if you like it. It's really up to you to decide which best fits your needs.

Go get Revit, you wont be disappointed! Revit 9.0 is due to be released in Spring 2006, and there are rumors to an 8.1 release in the fall. Revit Structures debutted in June, and Revit Systems (MEP) is scheduled for Summer 2006. Big firms are making the switch, including HOK and SOM. I heard a rumor recently that Gensler is making the switch, but that is unconfirmed. I say this, because you are asking the question at the right time. Revit is really taking off now. The US is a bit behind, but in Australia Revit outsells ADT at something like 20 to 1. Take this opportunity to learn it now, and be a very valueable employee! Saw your profile says LA, and you are a student? Cal Poly? Learn Revit, and I could get you a job at several LA area firms, including mine.

Revit is confining? I don't think so! ADT's extreme 'management' of the software to make it do what you want it to do is confining! ummm...because Revit was a separate company, and was later bought by Autodesk. It still reads and writes DWG. Often times better than ADT which has had huge problems in previous versions with Object Enablers, which were not very user friendly. No, it's not Max, but anyone can figure out how to produce decent renderings with it without needing a PhD in Max. You really haven't used Revit, have you?

In Revit, there is an option upon exporting to export 3D faces, or ACIS solids. Sounds like you exported faces instead of solids.

This will never happen. The AutoCAD platform that ADT is built upon cannot handle some of the features that Revit has.

Actually, Revit wont 'bend' the glass. If you were to select any panel in this system, it will be a regular, flat, planar object. Revit will tweak each mullion to allow flat panels as the infill pieces.