MAXWELL USERS!!! You're not alone!!!

[Eamon]

This was prompted after comparing the sedate graphisoft forum with seeing people over at the maxwell forum really let rip on next limit. Maybe I'm having a bad day, but just to put things in perspective, I thought I'd continue a rant I was about to post on graphisoft.com; not really sure of etiqutte there, but might be enough to get a slap on the wrist.

 

They plug the sketchup addon on the very first page of the graphisoft website (bottom of the news section on the left), but neglect to say that it's not compatible with the current version of ac10, which in turn forms the masthead as the flagship graphisoft product.

 

Am I alone in thinking that [sketchup + dedicated archicad import = something approximating the building massing tools in revit]?

 

Seriously, for anyone who realises the significance, this is an issue that will need to be addressed in future versions of AC - the ability to begin the design process in AC (compare with revit building maker) and the ability, for whatever reason, to continue to model the building down to the nuts and bolts, so to speak, without having to resort to a 2d-design tool (compare with detailing steel junctions interactively in revit)

Now, I'd provide links, but the autodesk website is a mess of silly flash based slideshows.

 

And this isn't a revit vs ac rant - I've been with ac since version 6.5, but think that B.uilding I.nformation M.odelling is well and good, but let's not forget C.omputer A.ided D.esign! I'm beginning to realise that AC is not a design tool - compare with generative design from bentley:

 

http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Markets/Building/GenerativeComponents.htm

 

It goes to show that parametric design doesn't have to be just about window schedules.

 

Now, maybe AC isn't suppose to be a design tool. If AC's strengths lie in certain areas such as interactive schedules, then fair enough, but they've seriously got to pull the finger out and start allowing more meaningful import of 3d data - ie. along the sketchup import model, where horizontal planes come in as slabs, vertical as walls etc.

 

Okay, some people might use the argument that its only because of AC's highly robust solid modelling etc that data exchange is slow to implement, but what do I say to that? It's only because neural interfaces aren't affordable/widespread, that I have to type this post!

 

Get on the job! Or at least give a roadmap to users, because revit building maker is starting to look more inviting each day...

 

And while I'm at it - you guys on the maxwell forum went ape over the various half-baked solutions that next limit crowbarred into maxwell for the version 1 release - but for graphisoft to suggest that maxonform is a viable solution is ridiculous - you might as well model your freeform building in 3ds max or whatever, and then bring in the whole thing via the free .3ds to gdl import.

 

Wow!!! Materials will remain intact, just like the .3ds to .gsm import option, but the parametic functionality and inherent B.uilding I.nformation (eg. the ability to measure the wall area of warped object etc) will be gone.

All that will be left will be information useful for presentation drawings (and correct me if I'm wrong, but will solids still be recognised as solids, and draw correctly in cut sections, and not as hollow meshes?)

 

Phew, rant over. But I think, over the next few years as BIM becomes mainstream, and AC and Revit go head to head, AC should either shape up, or stop competing and develop its own strengths in other areas, if needs be.

 

Have to say though, after all that, the single file building model that AC allows is still very impressive.

[Eamon]

Uh, maybe caps in the title was out of order...

[Ace_Face]

I think your rant is well placed. However, it would be best served posting where Graphisoft will read it. I doubt anyone from Graphisoft really monitors or participates here. (unfortunately I believe that to be the case).

 

Glad to see some discussion starting on this topic. Anyone else have any thoughts disagreements etc.?

[Ernest Burden III]

There is a larger issue of how well various vendors of products we use meet our industry-specific needs. Too many vendors think that a general CG product is good for everyone. Even a company like Autodesk sells products that historically have not been able to work in real-world units. Some rendering apps cannot use lighting data like IES files, that sort of thing. Do they feel we are worth catering to, or are just supposed to fit into their program.

 

Some companies have been very good, other awful, at valuing their arch-vis customers. Its not that we are better or more important than their other customers, but we deserve to be taken seriously and we should speak up when we feel we are not.

 

Which is what you've done. Make sure to send a link to your posts to the company that isn't valuing your business.

[Eamon]

Thanks for the replies guys,

This post continued a post at graphisoft.com via a link, so if anyone stumbles across it there...

As an EDU(cational) license user, I probably shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but then again, graphisoft made at least one sale of AC as a direct result of a summer vacancy I once occupied.

I have to say, that over at the archicad talk forum, they have a very dedicated group of forum regulars who are only too happy to help regarding tips and tricks, that kind of thing, but I definately think there's a mindset amongst some the the more seasoned users, to the effect that unreasonable workarounds should suffice ie. using roof tools to compensate for lack of sloping slabs. That attitude drives me crazy, although I admit that a settings option to change "Roof" to "Sloped Slabs" in the interface would probably reduce my annoyance.

Although some might say that's just semantics, I think the flawed ideology of a program is revealed through examples like the Roof/Slab issue.

Workarounds are fine for wysiwyg methods of working, like photoshop, or autocad, or even maxwell maybe,(that's what you meant by some progs not recognising .ies I presume Ernest?), but for parametric cad, or BIM, you can't allow errors like that to enter the system. It's like opening autocad files to find that all of the polylines are exploded, and error upon error mounts up...

Phew, so many posts this summer! (you can tell the academic year hasn't started yet)

I think I'll have to get more pro-active over at graphisoft.com, but I think they could really do with a streamlined/overhauled forum. (Hats off to everyone running this place - its really a great resource)

[Eamon]

Great News!

Sketchup to Archicad 10 plugin released:

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=12647&start=20

[rodman]

Hey guys,

 

I used to be a dealer for ArchiCAD in South America, and was actually a part of GS when they had offices in Chile (I was the Project & Technical Manager at the time).

 

ArchiCAD has been around a very long time (I first used version 4.55 in 1993) I believe the company started up in 1982. During this time it has come a long way. It has always worked with the BIM process in mind and that is its major strength and on some occasions it biggest problem. Trying to get other software to understand the data from ArchiCAD and vice versa is one of the things that has always had little glitches, mind you this isn't only ArchiCAD (Vectorworks comes to mind).

 

To go on the topic of designing in ArchiCAD...

 

Everyone has their prefered method to design and I know of many people that use ArchiCAD for this. The only thing I used to say to my clients is no to let ANY software limit their design. If you want to do something that can't be done in the easiest of ways...find something that will permit you to do it. Luckily I know ArchiCAD fairly well and if I can't do it using the typical tools I will find a way to do it.

 

I've used everything from AutoCAD, ADT, Microstation...seen REVIT (wanna try it) and I will stick with ArchiCAD. I just think it is the most robust of the bunch...ADT is dead...Microstation (I always hated the amount of windows that popup)...REVIT (I would like to try it, but you never know with AutoCAD...they bought Auto Architect and turned it into ADT, calling it the best tool for Architecture and then they killed it when they bought REVIT. Who knows what will happen to REVIT in the future.

 

I hope REVIT and ArchiCAD flourish, because this will be the best method for both of them to improve... Healthy competition.

 

YT,

Rod Navarro

Designerplans Inc.

www.designerplans.ca

[Razorback]

that popup)...REVIT (I would like to try it, but you never know with AutoCAD...they bought Auto Architect and turned it into ADT, calling it the best tool for Architecture and then they killed it when they bought REVIT. Who knows what will happen to REVIT in the future.

 

 

My guess is that Revit will stay for a very long time and will become the standard in the building design industry just like autocad used to be. They have invested so much for this flatform and even produced now revit structure and revit systems to have a complete descipline in building design and a lot of architectural and engineering consultants are now adopting the revit flatform.

 

Going back to the topic of ranting archicad features I guess it is just right to voice out your disappointment over the lack of features etc.. and you should do it at the archicad forum. It helps a lot and most people observed that the latest features of archicad 10 were taken from revit. Competition does help archicad to be more flourish and archicad is a very powerful program so does revit. Revit also adopting few of the good features of archicad. Both can be used in real production environment with some glitches of course all softwares do anyway but they are solid rock and reliable for real projects.

 

However, ultimately it is the industry that will decide who is gonna stay and the favor is with revit. Marketing by autodesk and promotion to sell revit along with autocad is way ahead of Graphisoft.

 

Just my .02 cents

[bricklyne]

......

 

However, ultimately it is the industry that will decide who is gonna stay and the favor is with revit. Marketing by autodesk and promotion to sell revit along with autocad is way ahead of Graphisoft.

 

Just my .02 cents

 

Not to turn this into an ArchiCAD vs. Revit flame-war or affair or anything, but to presume that Revit will be the industry standard simply because they have Autodesk behind them is somewhat simplistic reasoning at best IMHO. Autodesk have had a number of formidable products, (...and others not so formidable), fail miserably in the marketplace and die in their stead. Prominent examples would be Lightscape (the best renderer during it's time), albeit deliberately killed by Autodesk, and Architectural Studio which was heavily marketed as being an alternative (or is that, replacement?) to Sketchup a few years ago;- they're still cleaning Architectural Studio's carcass and remains, over at Autodesk after it died a horrific death going head to head against Sketchup.

 

The point being, just because you have the funds, doesn't necessarily mean that you'll know how to spend them in carefully handling and marketing an innovative new product that doesn't exactly conform to the familiar workflow of your other products. Don't forget that Revit was supposedly bought as a long term replacement for Architectural Desktop to serve as Autodesk's BIM flagship for the future, yet over five years later one ADT still outsells Revit by about 4 to 1 in terms of seats sold. Granted, most of the ADT licenses are bought by people who eventually turn around and use the AutoCAD part of ADT for 2D drafting as opposed to, for the parametric BIM 3D modelling abilities of ADT. But the same argument can be switched and applied via the fact that a lot of Revit licenses now being sold owe their credit ( or numbers as the case might be) to the fact that most Autodesk dealers bundle it with AutoCAD when selling it, whereas the final customer ends up only really using or is really interested in the AutoCAD license and program. A lot of architects and offices have admitted to never reallly having delved deep into the Revit bundled into their AutoCAD bundle (or even opening the boxes for that matter) and considering the overhead involved in switching systems mid-stream or mid-project, who can blame them; especially moreso in smaller firms. The result being that Revit's sales figures end up being somewhat over-inflated over the number of actual users. And this coming after Autodesk has poured so much in terms of resources, funds and marketing blitzes in trying to position it as an outright ADT replacement and partial AutoCAD replacement for the future.

 

Part of the reason ADT and Revit are still both alive under the same roof, despite the fact that they are seemingly in direct competition with each other - given what they do - is because even Autodesk themselves are still not certain which of the 2 is the way of the future. Currently the technology would suggest Revit is, but the numbers definitely still strongly favour ADT. And nobody does numbers like Autodesk; so much so that until the numbers start shifting in Revit's favour, and strongly so, you can't exactly close the books on ADT. It could be that 5 years from now, the situations will have completely reversed and Revit will be the one outselling ADT 5 to 1, - prompting Autodesk to give ADT a quiet and respectful burial; on the other hand, ADT could just as likely still be outselling Revit 5 years or even 10 ( though I doubt Autodesk will wait that long) years from now, and possibly by an even larger margin - forcing Autodesk to either merger the 2 products at best, or kill off Revit and adopt all its best technologies into ADT and AutoCAD, at worst, like they did with Lightscape and MAX: - shortly before they acquired Revit incidentally.

 

So to claim that Revit is the way of the future, when its own future in its backyard isn't even assured yet (despite all the marketing hype), like I said before, seems to be, just a tad premature.

[Razorback]

Hi Bricklyn I did not say that it will definitely be that Revit will become the standard but I said "My Guess". I was just guessing and it is back up by some numbers from autodesk press. The sales of revit is up tremendously.

 

From a Press Release on Marketwatch.com

 

".......Autodesk's performance was driven by strong increases in revenue from new seats, subscriptions and emerging economies as well as increasing penetration of its 3D products...Revenue from new seats of 3D model-based design products increased 41 percent over last year, on particularly strong sales of the Revit family of products.....The company's 3D products, Inventor, Revit and Civil 3D continue to increase their market penetration. Combined revenues from the company's 3D model-based design products increased approximately 37 percent over the second quarter of last year to $91 million or 20 percent of total revenue. In total, more than 32,000 commercial seats of 3D were shipped in the quarter. The Revit family of products led 3D growth again this quarter. Revit revenue increased 96 percent compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2006. Autodesk shipped more than 15,000 commercial seats of Revit in the quarter...."

 

 

The latest numbers released by autodesk on revit seats is already over 150,000 in just 5 years or so. That was the bases of my presumption.

 

Peace

[bricklyne]

Hi Bricklyn I did not say that it will definitely be that Revit will become the standard but I said "My Guess". I was just guessing and it is back up by some numbers from autodesk press. The sales of revit is up tremendously.

 

From a Press Release on Marketwatch.com

 

 

The latest numbers released by autodesk on revit seats is already over 150,000 in just 5 years or so. That was the bases of my presumption.

 

Peace

 

.....as I already pointed out, those numbers are over-inflated by the fact that Autodesk has been deliberately bundling new Revit seats with AutoCAD copies being sold as part of a promotion to increase Revit awareness among the architectural community. As to which of the 2 programs (Revit and AutoCAD) is being given away for free or sold at a considerable discount in such a bundled promotion, is a question open to debate.

 

Consequently the numbers are somewhat misleading and most dealers will tell you as much, seeing as the numbers tell us absolutely nothing about actual Revit usage by people buying those bundled deals versus those only using the AutoCAD part of the deal. AutoCAD sales numbers were already high going in and have always been; bundle almost any program out there with a new AutoCAD release ( or an AutoCAD-type program in terms of market dominance) and watch how their sales numbers will dramtically rise over the next fiscal year- particularly if you don't bother to separate those buying the program to use it alone versus those who don't care about a new free program that they may never use.

 

An equivalent and apt analogy would be if Autodesk also began to bundle Maya (now that they own Alias) with MAX sales for future releases and then compared the sales numbers after the promotional deal was started to Maya's sales numbers before they bought out Alias. Given that MAX already outsells Maya, and did so even before the buyout, what do you think would happen to Maya's new 'sales' numbers in such a scenario,when they are taken as an almost identical figure for 3ds MAX's already comparatively high sales numbers? To say nothing of the fact that probably most of the people buying the bundled deal may never use Maya for more than just playing around with, if that, and if ever at all. I'm going to go out on a limb here and take a wild guess that Maya's numbers will also show similar dramatic increase. It's not nuerosurgery.

 

If you're looking for a more reliable barometer of Revit's potential for the future, a fairer head-to-head comparison would be to ADT's (Architectural Desktop) sales numbers; seeing as this was, after all, the program it was ostensibly bought to replace. I don't have the exact figures with me but if memory serves right, I recall that ADT sales were at about or above 400,000 seats since the Revit pruchase; and this was without the benefit of bundling ADT with AutoCAD as Autodesk has done with Revit. But as I already pointed out, this is also misleading in the sense that ADT by it's very nature (seeing as it's built on AutoCAD) is already automatically bundled with AutoCAD out of the box and most people use it as 2D AutoCAD, taking advantage of ADT's large architectural block library in the process, rather than as a 3D BIM application as it's intended by Autodesk. So once again the key in the whole equation comes back to AutoCAD and FlatCAD. Regardless, given that Revit has yet to make a more profound impact on those ADT sale's numbers even with the Autodesk bundling promotion deal, should give reason for pause.

 

In other words, how many original ADT or pure AutoCAD users have been converted to be pure Revit users as a comparision to or as a percentage of the number of increased ADT and AutoCAD seats and licences sold over the same period of time? I bet you, that those are numbers that will not be released by Autodesk, ( if they even know them) any time soon.

[Razorback]

We will just have to wait and see as more and more ADT users are now flooding the AUGI Revit forum introducing themselves as new Revit converts and even archicad users too converting to Revit.

[arch.nasser]

Well ... let me tell u two problems as a full archicad USER while using archicad:

1.limitations when it comes to advanced modeling, nurbs , complex objects . therefor you should use some of the new Modeling Plugins such as "maxonform" which has fixed most of this issue !

2.It's Incompatibility with Autodesk applications such as 3Ds MAX while it has an export method but not working as it should be !! lot's of issue's with material assignments , as i faced a major problem when i had to render my large scale archicad 9 model in MAX while i organized all aspects with layers & eventually ended up rendering with poor archicad engine . as you know 3Ds max is well known as the Top notch Application to detail your 3D model ,texturing ,effects and Rendering with the Ultimate V-ray plugin . there is no other way to use other apps. !! (the rendering phase is the point where u Compare a CG design from another ) like i used to see very amazing models .. but unfortunatly very unrealistic and poor renderd which hasn't attracted me at all !!

 

 

 

So , since 3Ds max is going to lift up the leadership flag for awhile and Autodesk Autocad products are still the Standard Demand of the market , i wonder if Autodesk devolopers are reading this ... & were smart enough to devolop Revit's BIM to act more likley to Archicads BIM interface in Ease of use, and give it a merge of (BIM + Autocad) where u can do : scheduels ,2D CD's , Easier Unlimited Modeling [conceptual- BIM library - Custom modeling with solids & nurbes ] ,Most of all SMOOTH compatiblity in Export to the ultimate 3ds MAX application .................................................................... this way ... My dream has Come True !