A follow up

[DE-Tech]

As a follow up to my "To BIM or not to BIM" post last week I thought I would let you know of my experience of a BIM Focus seminar organised by the Construction Industry Council (CIC) in Cambridge this week.

The basic gist of the presentation was that if anybody wants to survive in this industry in the future they are going to have to embrace BIM, and in all likelihood the Revit file format as this has basically been accepted as the "recognised industry standard" for collaboration. I had first hand experience of this earlier in the week when talking to a local regional contractor about getting involved in some D&B projects. They were all up for BIM but said they only use consultants that use Revit.

What about IFC I hear everybody cry. Isn't this going to be the recognised format for the Level 3 cloud based single BIM collaborative model of the future? Possibly not. I was a bit thrown by this as I had been led to believe that this was a universal all platform/software file format. Apparently not so. We were told that each manufacturer had "their own take" on this format hence why there is some loss of data when transferring between systems. Unless all of the software manufacturers sit down actively thrash out a truly universal format then in all likelihood the "market leader" format will be adopted, namely Revit.

It was interesting the hear the experts refer to Revit as being the VHS of BIM. A nod to the fact that although it is not the best system/format available it is the most popular and therefore will see off all other formats.

Where does this leave me and my decision on what system to go for? Well, if I am going to be a sole practitioner who is going to only work on small private commissions then I would not hesitate I going for Vectorworks as it gives you the biggest bang for your buck. If I am looking to work on larger public projects then I don't see any other alternative than going for Revit

[Peter van der Elst]

I have the same experience here in the Netherlands where lots of contractors choose Revit and almost demand that you use it as well. And since there is no way to have a solid import/export method between VW and Revit yet, we sometimes hire drawingfirms that draw our VW buildings in Revit....

[Chris D]

http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=169044&Searchpage=1&Main=34211&Words=%22major+contractors%22&Search=true#Post169044

(We're in the process of moving from VW to Revit...)

Edited October 22, 2012 by Chris D

[D Wood]

Yeah, I remember being told some years ago that the office I was was in should dump our Apple macs and move to Micro$oft running on his particular line of PC's. Funny though, I can't remember the brand of PC he was pushing because it is long gone, and Apple - well, we all know Apple is doomed!!!!!

[Dieter @ DWorks]

Yeah, I remember being told some years ago that the office I was was in should dump our Apple macs and move to Micro$oft running on his particular line of PC's. Funny though, I can't remember the brand of PC he was pushing because it is long gone, and Apple - well, we all know Apple is doomed!!!!!

Well, Microsoft may have been 'bad' in the past, but it's far better than Apple at the moment in terms of how they act. Apple really put their dot on the i these days. I don't hate apple, they only think they can do everything better (iMaps, ...) and that they can permit everything. And they are way overpriced! They deliver great machines, but you pay too much for what they deliver. And don't say you pay for the design, because there are far better designs out there if you look good. When the first I Phone came on the market, my smartphone could do much more for less money....

[VincentCuclair]

and Apple - well, we all know Apple is doomed!!!!!

:grin:

And they are way overpriced! They deliver great machines, but you pay too much for what they deliver.

:grin:

And don't say you pay for the design, because there are far better designs out there if you look good.

:grin:

When the first I Phone came on the market, my smartphone could do much more for less money....

:grin:

Edited October 23, 2012 by Vincent C

[Chris D]

I don't have a problem with Apple hardware - you pay more upfront but the resale value is great so you don't lose out. I just sold my iPhone 4 for more than the upfront cost of my iPhone 5... ;-)

And I wish that Revit was available on OS X, which I much prefer to Windows.

[Christiaan]

Same, just sold my 4S for ?350.

[gester]

(..)And I wish that Revit was available on OS X (..)

this may happen, if autodesk already bothers porting autocad for mac os.

rob

[D Wood]

Sorry I didn't convey the point of my story very well - the computer peddler was telling us that MS was now so big that the only sensible alternative was to go with numero uno.

It was the same story a while ago with Blackberry in the cellphone market, and Autocad in the CAD market, now it's Revit. The strategy is always to claim, once you have a sizeable share, that your way of doing things is now the industry standard and everyone has to do things your way, and either buy their product, licence it, or die. It sounds overwhelming for a while, but somehow something happens along the way and the threatened monopoly never quite materialises.

I could be wrong, and I frequently am, but I am picking that Revit's attempt to control BIM will go the same way.

[Bob Holtzmann]

Sorry I didn't convey the point of my story very well - the computer peddler was telling us that MS was now so big that the only sensible alternative was to go with numero uno.

It was the same story a while ago with Blackberry in the cellphone market, and Autocad in the CAD market, now it's Revit. The strategy is always to claim, once you have a sizeable share, that your way of doing things is now the industry standard and everyone has to do things your way, and either buy their product, licence it, or die. It sounds overwhelming for a while, but somehow something happens along the way and the threatened monopoly never quite materialises.

I could be wrong, and I frequently am, but I am picking that Revit's attempt to control BIM will go the same way.

I've got the same feeling about it, too. Autodesk is following the AutoCad monopoly strategy with Revit. Just lock down the file format, and choke out the competition. Their grip on AutoCad's file format has loosened a great deal, thanks to the US Patents and Trademark Office, who did not allow DWG to be trademarked 20 years after everyone was openly using it. And now we have affordable alternatives to AutoCad, like the full-featured Bricscad, or the free Draftsight. So essentially, DWG has become an open file exchange format, against Autodesk's will.

[M5d]

Autodesk is following the AutoCad monopoly strategy with Revit.

BIM file formats are not the same as file formats that contained simple graphic elements or unintelligent 3D forms. "Building Information Modelling? is meant to comprehensively document buildings with adaptive and intelligent tools carrying structural information. Besides residing in software with different underlying technologies, the intelligence and sophistication of each platform?s parametric tools are always going to be ?competitively? different and at different levels of development. Proprietary information and the BIM technology in proprietary file formats is not a competitive conspiracy, it?s just a requirement of the software.

Edited October 29, 2012 by M5d