Cesar R

Hi,

I was wondering if Revit 6.1 has gotten better as far as fetures to make it more competitive to archicad since autodesk first bought it. In addition is it possible to export the model to viz 2005 or Max for rendering?

What about custom walls and windows and objects. Can those be created in archicad or other application? For instance if the clien want a custom archictural accent (sculture or something) can those be created ? i am asking because I am looking to buy either Revit or arhicad, but I know that autodesk makes good products and I can get probably a discount if I purchase revit and viz.

Thanks

What am I looking to do? - homework and freelance projects.
homework: building design and CDS and fast corrections,
freelance: visualization work rendered in Max

Ray

I'm not here supporting revit, but we have it in our office and I have successfully imported revit models into viz. Just make sure you do the export from a 3D view, then open in autocad and explode, explode, explode all those blocks!
Can't help you with the rest of your questions.

bricklyne

I use both Autodesk ( AutoCAD 2005, ATD and Revit) and Graphisoft and graphisoft-related products ( ArchiCAD, Artlantis etc) at work, and have personally never considered a Revit-ArchiCAD comparison to be a fair comparison by any degree by virtue of the fact that they employ considerably different interface/workflow mentalities. Even Revit itself has quite a unique user system from the Autodesk line, so much so that Archicad is closer to AutoCad in terms of drafting techniques than Revit is. That being said, and having used both products Revit's strength and weaknesses lie in its tightly managed Parametric engine as does Archicad's strength's and weaknesses in it's overall flexibility. With the exception of high-end (Gehry-esque) forms and curvilinear sculputural processes that Archicad seems to have a notorious difficulty in coping with, it is otherwise a very flexible system that allows you the ability to create practically anything you can draw or draft on screen, by ingeniously manipulating its regular tools for other functions other than what they were intended for (slabs!!). Revit on the other hand has, like I mentioned a very tight interface that has to link objects and elements so discretely that some may consider it a hinderance to truw design. While it may sound like I am touting Archicad over Revit, its only because, the ArchiCad workflow is more intuitive to people trained in the architecture profession while nevertheless allowing for creativity and also because graphisoft unquestionable has the longest experience ( 20 years to Revit's 6 or so) in the AEC industry with the new BIM direction that architectural design seems to be evolving into from CAD. Revit is built strictly as a building and building management tool and while that's nice and all, forces one to have to find ways to do other things. At the end of the day however, the preference belongs to the user in the sense of what they are more comfortable using. I would encourage you to try to get demo versions of both programs ( I'm not sure about Revit, but Archicad definitely has one) and have a test run to see for yourself which you prefer. I must warn you that people who love these programs ( ArchiCAD or Revit) love them and love them. Meaning that they both have rather polarised followings, usually becaye you have people who start get weaned on one software and become so easily adapted to it that it becomes difficult to be objetive about its flaws. So that theoretically should make choosing between the 2 easier as you will either love one interface and hate the other or vice versa.

hope this helps

P.S. - You don't need to explode anything when exporting models from ArchiCAD to VIZ, lightwave, Lightscape or any of the many other rendering or modelling application that archicad allows export to. And this is another of ArchiCAD's big features, i.e its interoperability with other related software.

Arnel

Hi Cesar there is a thread going on at graphisoft.com regarding which is better between Revit and Archicad. Those who have used Archicad and Revit will tell you that revit is far more intuitive, powerful and easy to use. Some of the advance features of revit have been in the wishlist for Archicad 10. If you are a Designer doing complete CD's and visualization then Revit is for you.

IMHO Revit is by far the most intuitive and very powerful architectural program to date and building systems are also coming. All the questions you asked regarding geometry creation can be done in revit without any knowledge of programming unlike in archicad.

It can also be link to Viz or Max same as architectural desktop without any problem for high end visualization.

FYI The freedom tower at the new york world trade center is now being designed by S.O.M. using revit.

For additional info goto AUGI.com

Hope this helps.

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/...pic.php?t=3372

Arnel

You don't have to explode your 3d drawing to link it to viz or max. For further information look at this whitepaper
http://www3.autodesk.com/adsk/files/...utodeskVIZ.pdf

bricklyne

Who says you need programming knowledge to do geometric design in ArchiCAD? I have never needed to know GDL programming (if that is what you're really referring to) to create any of the models that I need to use in ArchiCAD and those like yourself who say that you do, simply do not know how to use the program to its best capacity ( if at all). As for the thread in the graphisoft website, it always struck me as odd that a lot of the Reviters who choose to 'hang around' a rival software's User forum site, by far and large had never actually used the program itself and only know most of what they do via hearsay and what they read on Graphisoft user forum wishlists. Perhaps Arnel will also help explain why it also is that the ArchiCAD users who have apparently said (none that I know of really) that Revit is more intuitive than ArchiCAD still prefer to use ArchiCAD and make wishes for ArchiCAD 10 as well despite it's 'obvious' and 'apparent' flaws and despite the existence of and 'obviously' superior product out there; they should be migrating to Revit in droves yet still ( for some odd reason) choose to hang around and make wishes for ArchiCAD to be a better product. Strange indeed.

I'm not going to sit here and start bashing Revit in comparison to ArchiCAD, which is what Reviters seem to like doing vis-a-vis ArchiCAD, despite the fact that I do have, unlike most of these Reviters, extensive experience in both programs. Revit is a good program, for what it is as a BIM program, but so is Archicad and as I said both programs do have their strengths and weaknesses. And which is why I expressly recommended you to try out both of them first, for yourself if you can before deciding as you are always going to get slanted opinions such as Arnel's here or graphisoft users like myself. Like I originally said the comparison between the 2 is a very poor one at best and the wishes for one products features in the other by its users are akin to a PC user desiring to have a few of OSX user interface features installed into Windows Longhorn simply because they seem better. That doesn't mean the PC user is going to go out and get a Mac. Only that sometimes its nice to look over the fence.

But I nevertheless understand the need that Reviters have to bash a more well known product in that making area (BIM or as it was originally referred before AutoDesk went in and raped and pillaged the term; Virtual Building), if only to make their product seem far more superior. A very common marketing tool indeed. However, you ( and they) might also want to be aware that Revit's future (as with the future of any recent Autodesk conquests of superior products - Lightscape anyone???) may be up in they considering discontinuing the Revit line and putting some of its features as well as obvious reputation into and behind the marketing push for ADT as their BIM solution for the future. I remember lightscape was also heavily marketed as the most advanced renderer out there after they bought it right before their webpages began to redirect people to a new page for purchasing VIZ and they killed an obviously superior product. Revit users, be afraid; be very very afraid!!!!

Arnel

I don't want to start a word war here. It was just my own opinion and what i said is based on what i read in that forum I never bother to make any comment at all with that forum or trying to defend revit. For myself i don't want to start another thread saying that "my balls is bigger than yours"

I am just happy with revit period. I can do everything as per my requirement.

Thanks and peace be with you.

bricklyne

Arnel, it may not have been your intention to start a word war, but like Scott Davis in that graphisoft forum, when you take comments made in a alternate software's users forum and actually quote them as proof of the advantages of Revit over ArchiCAD having never even used the software yourself and without even actually bothering to read the gist of the discussion for yourself and without taking the entire article in context, then you run the risk of not only being branded disengenuous but also will inevitably start the word war you wish to avoid starting.

For starters, that particular thread if you bothered to read back far enough was started by someone who was trying to decide between ArchiCAD and revit. And having used Revit more than AC, his opinion was already biased to begin with. Secondly, the people that you claim to have used both AC and Revit who claim that Revit to be more intuitive, such as the aforementioned poster and the regular Revit layabout at the graphisoft forum, Scott Davis, ahve in some cases never evenused ArchiCAD much less run a demo of it. Scott Davis admits as much despite the fact that he was theone who originally posted the comment from the graphisoft site to the Revit user forum site. How does one make a serious evaluation of a product that they have never even used much less know the basic functions of?

Lastly, your last comment regarding the geometry creation needing programming knowledge, also implied that you yourself have used ArchiCAD and know for fact that the only way to create geometry in ArchiCAD is through programming knowledge. Which is of course a blatant bold-faced lie. You may not have intended it, but that's the way it came out.

Consequently, my primary argument is that you and all other reviters out there just like myself and anyone else so inclined towards ArchiCAD should, generally refrain from making broadstroke generalizations, assumptions and unsubstantiated comments and claims about the competition's software especially when we don't have the necessary knowledge or experience to criticize them as such. Which is why in my original point as I pointed out, that despite the fact that I have and do use both these software regurlarly and may even be seen to be more ArchiCAD friendly, that it is not appropriate for the many various reasons, to make a direct comparison between the two software.

Arnel

ok to make your story short let us make a survey of how many users of archicad who switched to revit and revit to archicad. In this way we can tell the facts to everybody. I don't want have to have a very lengthy argument here and there will just need to make the record straight. In this survey we should not include demo users it should be people using it in production.

For archicad users switching to revit just go to augi.com and you will know.

Richard McCarthy

LOL !! Finally Revit forum have some activity and we go into war LOL!!
Oh comon' guys...


I would bet on Revit, cos I am BIAS !! haha, but honestly, I did use ArchiCAD before, and a lot of little things in ArchiCAD just didn't tick for me, no temporary dimension, (so you are force to look at that bar down the bottom for measurement...) Not much "intelligence" in archiCAD, and the GDL.. arg! Saving and opening ArchiCAD file(s) can be a mess....

And a VERY VERY, VERRRRRY messy 3D navigation system for 3D window (and not to mention it is DEAD SLOW until the recent v8.0 with OpenGL option implementation), and a very VERY SLOW RENDERER with sub-par quality rendering ...

I base on my experience (and that was 3 years ago when I was using ArchiCAD v6.5 extensively) After that I switched. To be completely fair, I think ArchiCAD is more flesh out tool (it has much stronger detailing and drafting capability than Revit, LARGE (I mean HUGE) libraries of objects (for painless drag and drop creation), and very good interoperatability with a lot of applications (VIZ/MAX/ACAD). It is surprisingly more interoperatable than Revit which has a very limited export function (autoCAD (2004, 2000) DXF, DWG, DGN (microstation), 3DS, ONLY...I guess autodesk only want to force users to upgrade all their autodesk products..)

Other good thing about Revit, It's very powerful (a lot of automation by itself, it's "intelligence") It's intuitiveness (almost zero learning curve compare to archiCAD) and it's geometry creation capability and full building creation (archiCAD-ist needs to "hack around" to get a lot of things done..)

As for the future of Revit, It's bright, Autodesk has say it over and over again, it will eventually phase out ADT, so future is with Revit. There is no worrying about it.

It will eventually go the way of Autodesk Inventor, which is a very powerful and mature parametric mechanical design program. I certainly hope some of the programmer working in inventor would come to work on Revit someday to make it more powerful like Inventor....

As for choosing which one.. really down to users.. I agree, you have to try out yourself.


To try Revit :
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...linkID=3770209

To try ArchiCAD:
http://www.graphisoft.com/products/order_cd.html


Some ppl just like one interface over another, both have it's strong point and weakness at this point that both package are quite even.
It's really down to the user (YOU) 's preference. It's like.. some people just prefer Coke over Pepsi..(Oh NO! I just started soft drink war!) McDonald vs Burger King (Oh NO AGAIN!) Nike vs Reebok, Chicken vs Egg ............

__________________
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