Hi,
I am a from Australia and a current user of Both Revit Building 2008 and of Archicad 11 as I do contract work for 2 companies that use each of the systems.
A bit on me. I have been using different cad programs for over 15 years ranging from Autocad R10 up to 2005, 3D add-ons to Autocad r14 DRC auto and Karelmate professional, Vectorworks Architect with Renderworks and Landmark from 9.5 to 12.5, Revit 8.0, 9.1 and now 2008 as well as Archicad 10 and 11 so I feel I am well versed to speak on issues that people may have.
Whilst Vectorworks is a good platform it is not a true BIM product, which is why Nemetschek acquired Graphisoft. The global foot print of Nemetschek is now almost as big as Autodesk, which also means that there is a lot more Research & Development money being poured into Graphisoft to develop Archicad. Vectorworks slows down dramatically to the point that it is painfull. I was doing a 60 unit development and a simple task to refresh a 3D view of an elevation would take up to 10min or longer and this is on the new Intel core 2 Macs.
If you have been using Vectorworks and using its full 3d capabilities then your learning curve to either Archicad or Revit wont be that steep as you are already thinking and building in 3D. If you use any program in 2D you will have to completely readjust the way you think about doing a project.
If I was to choose a platform when the choices were Revit 8.1 or Archicad 9.0 I would have chosen Revit 8.1 as at this stage Plotmaker wasn?t integrated with Archicad, and I feel this was a huge drawback of the program and made updating and editing nearly finished documents a time consuming process. Once Archicad 10 came out this all changed and it is now an all in one program.
Both Revit and Archicad are now great programs, but on a day to day basis I am constantly frustrated with Revit. Things are just a lot harder to achieve in Revit.
The family system in appalling and there is no intelligent search function. the families are very hard to edit and when you do you actually create another object in the file increasing its size, let alone the fact that you have to click 5 dialogue boxes deep the ok all the way out again.. In Archicad the search function is brilliant and changes to library parts is a breeze with very visual interface all in the one dialogue box only 1 click deep.
A bit on GDL, I do not want to learn GDL and at this point have no need to as I just modify the existing object wit the interface, and there are some great add ons from cad image that do a lot of different things. If in a large firm then it would probably pay to have 1 or 2 people trained in GDL to create truly custom objects.
This constant clicking through dialogue boxes is all the way through Revit and the fact that it looks like a data base with no graphical interface is painful.
In Archicad the complex profiler is a dream meaning I can have my wall with set downs, slab set down and edge beam, eave details, cornice, flashing detail and anything else I want to be on the wall for instance profiled mouldings all as one wall in my favourites list. All I have to do is use this wall and the whole lot is placed. This is all able to be scheduled as different items as well.. While in Revit you can do host sweeps but this is just extra work and more steps. I am looking for productivity gains
On controlling your document, we have all grown to use layers to give us control over your document.. Well in Revit there are no layers. At first you go great.... but wait until you try to isolate a certain type of wall you cant as all walls are in the same type, yes there are sub types of but once again this is extra time to work out when it can just be automatically placed on it correct layer in Archicad., in Archicad you still have layers and this is a God sent and critical to have when trying to isolate or group certain things. For instance when you export to DWG all your walls are placed on the one layer... a nightmare if someone else needs to just see masonry walls.... get my drift..
With Archicad the production of different sets of documents i.e. Presentation sets, DA sets, CC sets, DWG export, DGN export, PDF creation where you require your documents to look a certain way and with certain pen thickness and colour and isolation of different things for different consultants is all just a click of the mouse within Archicad once you have set up your template file. In Revit you have to prepare all of these manually each time you wish to produce them. Also you get a PDF and3D PDF creator inbuilt in Archicad. In Revit you may have view sets but this still does not give you the flexibility and speed that Archicad does.
Yes I know you can have saved print sets but this doesn?t change how the documents look for instance if you want solid fill in walls for presentation and hatching for CC documents you have to change this manually.. In Archicad you just publish that set and it?s done in the click of the mouse..
In Revit I have and still do find it cumbersome to produce Construction documents, as there are very few so called drafting tools to complete your documents, although it can still be done as I have completed a few medium size unit development projects in Revit and modelled the entire building. I think all told in all 4 elevs and a total of 8 sections I drew about 8 lines, so it can be done, I just takes longer.
In Archicad from Version 10 onwards there are so many easier to use drafting tools to help you get the job out the door.
What ever you choose you have to spend the time and do whole projects and not revert to any 2D programs to complete your documents. Get professional training as I have done for all programs that I have used. Yes it costs money but it costs you a lot more sitting around trying to work things out for your self.
I found that the experience of the Graphisoft team in Australia is far better as they have been doing this for some 20 years and it is one company Australia wide where as Autodesk is a lot of resellers. The support system from Graphisoft is a lot better to as you get to speak to a real architect with years of experience in both the Program and Architecture. Where as with Autodesk it gets logged then sent to the US and if they think it?s important they will get back to you maybe in a week or so.
With rendering I feel and most people on Revit also agree that Archicad wins hands down. While Autodesk stick with Accurender this will always be the case. Archicad uses the Lightworks rendering engine which you can buy as a stand alone rendering program. Once again Google it to see what it can do. Also there I would recommend at least getting the DVD tutorial as I have to get the most out of it.
Archicad also have interactive tutorials and virtual tutors that make learning it a breeze, compared to the written tutorial from Revit...
If you are looking to change to BIM I feel the superior program is Archicad but don?t believe me get both and trial them for free for 30 days. But you need to go into this with an open mind on interface and who makes the program. Try some simple operations like changing properties of a wall, window, library item such as one of the cabinets, do you want to look at lines of text or pictures that describe things. Try searching for a particular library item. Try exporting a file to dwg and open in Autocad to see which is better to use. Also if you are on Mac then you can only use Archicad as Autodesk do not support macs. Yes you can run windows on a Mac but ive spoken to a few people doing this and they say it?s not the best solution.
File sizes from Revit get quite large compared to Archicad from version 10 onwards so if you are working over a network this could also be an issue. Also I heard that Graphisoft have signed a deal with Oracle the clear leader in data base systems and have also heard that this will be included in Archicad 12 so we can expect some great speed increases in how the program works. They've also announced deals with structural engineering software and mechanical/electrical engineering software whereby the data generated in the ArchiCAD model can be sent back and forth to the engineering consultants and the data remains linked.
Archicad is also cheaper to maintain in Australia with there subscription service than Revit so in the end it costs you less. Upfront costs of Revit vary depending on who you talk to but on average are the same as Archicad.
A lot of people want to go with Revit as they think it?s the same as Autocad in the way it will speak to it via file format. This is so far from the truth Revit has a totally different file structure. In Fact Archicad speaks to Autocad better as it already has layers and layer sets. Yes Autodesk did have the industry standard 2D file format with DWG but now there is a non proprietary standard called IFC which is governed by different organisations around the world and not software companies. Do a Google search on IFC. This is the format that allows you to speak to any other 3D package whether it be engineers, energy rating etc
From the out set Archicad was designed by ?Architects for Architects? and Revit and Bentley Architecture were designed and engineered by engineers, so if you want to design like an Architect with a very friendly graphical interface, because lets face it we designers and visual people then seriously look at Archicad. If you want to think and design like an engineer with a database interface then look at the others. Given that I have never seen Bentley Architecture so can?t pass comment on its interface.
Do yourself a favour. Get the 30 day trial of both programs. I Think with Revit you actually have to contact one of the resellers to get the trial version mailed out to you. With Archicad you can download it from the link below, also download the Basic interactive guide to Archicad as this will show you how to use it. I haven?t done the latest version of Revit tutorial so can?t comment on that.
https://trialregistration.graphisoft.com/
I feel that if people are going to really comment on Archicad or Revit then you should have an educated knowledge of the current version of both programs. To base all you comments on previous versions is like me comparing Archicad 11 with Revit 4 and or Revit 2008 with Archicad 6.5 and that is some thing I just wouldn?t do.
What ever you decide spend the time, get professional training both basic and advanced.
