Architects/Engineers - BIM Question...

[fidlerre]

Our firm is in the process of evaluating the various B.I.M. platforms...

Autodesk Revit Architecture
Bentley Architecture
Graphisoft Archicad

Anyone out there using any of these right now care to offer up anything...

Comments? Suggestions? Warnings?

We are currently using AutoCAD 2009.

[Mr. Warmth]

Subscribes

[Matt in the Hat]

Nothing could suck bigger balls and retard the creative process than BIM. It's unnecessary and only being used buy the software companies to justify their existence.

But if you absolutely need to blow money on one of these bundles of suck, Revit isn't that bad. Just enjoy retraining your entire staff to think completely differently about how to do the work they do today in 1/3 of the time. And enjoy having one large file that is never completely up to date while your entire team works on it.

Did I mention BIM sucks turbo ass? But then again so does ACAD 2009

[Mr. Warmth]

I don't find AutoCAD 2009 to be all that bad - it is what it is - and we can push our work with it fine. We sort of have found a hybrid with doing conceptual work with SketchUp, then building the working drawings up out of that in CAD for our client/federal review packages, then updating the SU model while we wait for comment.

Our clients typically aren't too jazzed about interior/exterior renderings, or more the point, in paying for more than one general rendering of the building, but they do appreciate the speed of SU for conceptual/developmental modeling.

But overall BIM is a good idea, executed poorly. Ideally you should be able to literally construct the project in the virtual realm and update as necessary, but just like the overwhelming complexity of a building and it's myriad conditions, the BIM model is the same way because unless the project was designed to be massivly standardized (and why would you do that?) you end up with hundreds of conditions to verify every time you make a change.

[Matt in the Hat]

I don't find AutoCAD 2009 to be all that bad - it is what it is - and we can push our work with it fine. We sort of have found a hybrid with doing conceptual work with SketchUp, then building the working drawings up out of that in CAD for our client/federal review packages, then updating the SU model while we wait for comment.

Our clients typically aren't too jazzed about interior/exterior renderings, or more the point, in paying for more than one general rendering of the building, but they do appreciate the speed of SU for conceptual/developmental modeling.

But overall BIM is a good idea, executed poorly. Ideally you should be able to literally construct the project in the virtual realm and update as necessary, but just like the overwhelming complexity of a building and it's myriad conditions, the BIM model is the same way because unless the project was designed to be massivly standardized (and why would you do that?) you end up with hundreds of conditions to verify every time you make a change.

How much 3d drafting do you end up doing in 2009? I have found that process to be rather cumbersome for standard isometric drafting but not have enough functionality for real modeling. Plus commands I have been using for years have been discontinued. I miss bcount. eattext is nice but again unnecessarily cumbersome.

Give me 2006 and SU any day.

Mike, have you tried the vray renderer for sketchup yet? it's got a 30 day free trial and it blows kerky out of the water. www.asgvis.com

[Mr. Warmth]

How much 3d drafting do you end up doing in 2009?

Very little, if any, though, I really don't even try. I can whiz through it in SU and have my drafter convert into DWG to work on the various review sets.


I have found that process to be rather cumbersome for standard isometric drafting but not have enough functionality for real modeling. Plus commands I have been using for years have been discontinued. I miss bcount. eattext is nice but again unnecessarily cumbersome.

Give me 2006 and SU any day.

Well that's the AUTOCAD standard isn't it, makes some things go away that no one is complaining about or attempt to fix things that aren't broken.


Mike, have you tried the vray renderer for sketchup yet? it's got a 30 day free trial and it blows kerky out of the water. www.asgvis.com

I haven't had much time - I've been fighting a job that went out Friday, is almost 6 months late because of the Civil's bad planning and expectation that he should be getting paid for work not yet submitted.

His LA flaked out on him and he by and large refused to ditch him until it was too late and his irrigation consultant didn't deliver. All of of his drama made the Site Lighting & power distribution late and will have to be released by addenda along with revisions that the Civil either forgot to make or simply chose not to because he's pouting. As soon as I have the addenda and Phase II of the project designed, he's done with us as well as being terminated for convenience on another project that he threatened to stall. Thank God for once for a slow federal departmental review.

[Matt in the Hat]

His LA flaked out on him and he by and large refused to ditch him until it was too late and his irrigation consultant didn't deliver. All of of his drama made the Site Lighting & power distribution late and will have to be released by addenda along with revisions that the Civil either forgot to make or simply chose not to because he's pouting. As soon as I have the addenda and Phase II of the project designed, he's done with us as well as being terminated for convenience on another project that he threatened to stall. Thank God for once for a slow federal departmental review.

No wonder why you have been badmouthing civils recently. What a pile of suck. At once you get everything your ground won't move with the wind which is what the LA on my big project is dealing with right now. Desert is fun.

[Dills]

But if you absolutely need to blow money on one of these bundles of suck, Revit isn't that bad. Just enjoy retraining your entire staff to think completely differently about how to do the work they do today in 1/3 of the time. And enjoy having one large file that is never completely up to date while your entire team works on it.
i couldn't agree more, and is the main reason why i'm trying to convince the bosses (read, banging my head against the wall) to avoid revit at all costs. sure, we're currently in a bit of a slow patch, but having people learn an entirely new application to probably never use it is a waste of time. not to mention none of our consultants are using it.

same as was previously posted, it's a helluva lot easier to crank something out in sketchup, export to cad, and have one of the staff work on the files from there.

plus, if BIM became the standard, gone would be the days of shop drawing reviews. :p

[Matt in the Hat]

i couldn't agree more, and is the main reason why i'm trying to convince the bosses (read, banging my head against the wall) to avoid revit at all costs. sure, we're currently in a bit of a slow patch, but having people learn an entirely new application to probably never use it is a waste of time. not to mention none of our consultants are using it.

same as was previously posted, it's a helluva lot easier to crank something out in sketchup, export to cad, and have one of the staff work on the files from there.

plus, if BIM became the standard, gone would be the days of shop drawing reviews. :p

Don't worry. Vendors will still find a way to ******** things up. Be confident in that.

[el-capitano]

We swapped from autocad to archicad about four years ago, which annoyed me as I was comfortable on Cad. That being said, Archicad does have its uses, apart from being able to generate our own 3D images, rather than farming it out to a Renderer, which brings more money into the firm, it also has advantages in co-ordination as well.

Change a window in ele and it auto changes it in plan.

Revit at the time we swapped wasn't as developed, hence the move to archicad- and it hasnt been that bad. ;)

[Matt in the Hat]

We swapped from autocad to archicad about four years ago, which annoyed me as I was comfortable on Cad. That being said, Archicad does have its uses, apart from being able to generate our own 3D images, rather than farming it out to a Renderer, which brings more money into the firm, it also has advantages in co-ordination as well.

Change a window in ele and it auto changes it in plan.

Revit at the time we swapped wasn't as developed, hence the move to archicad- and it hasnt been that bad. ;)

What type of work do you guys do?

[el-capitano]

What type of work do you guys do?
Everything. From houses, townhouses, 3 to 10 storey apartments, 4 to 35 storey commercial, industrial, shopping centres etc.

At the moment with this current market we're accepting even extensions and garages etc though ;)

We're only a small firm so changing over wasnt that hard. Only 2 partners, 5 architects and 2 draftees, and out of those only 4 of us needed training to archicad- so it wasnt that bad.

[Dills]

We're only a small firm so changing over wasnt that hard. Only 2 partners, 5 architects and 2 draftees, and out of those only 4 of us needed training to archicad- so it wasnt that bad.
other than the 2 partners, we're down to 3 staff members (myself and the 2 other project managers). they let go a handful of folks about a month or so ago, and the rest of us are down to 3 day work weeks (and 60% pay). :(

[Mr. Warmth]

other than the 2 partners, we're down to 3 staff members (myself and the 2 other project managers). they let go a handful of folks about a month or so ago, and the rest of us are down to 3 day work weeks (and 60% pay). :(

I'll consider myself lucky and blessed at this point, other than the cancer my civil is giving me. We're picking up about 7.5 million in local stimulus money projects with the Feds asking us to identify up to another 5 million or so for our schools, plus some reorganization above us is going to change the federal regional office that we work with to a much more efficient and active office with the previous one looking like it's going to get killfiled for being stupid slow and bad.

[fidlerre]

Jesus, I nearly forgot I had put this in here - goes to show you how my mind has been working these last few weeks. Thanks for the input, we are definately going to explore Bentley and Revit based on the feedback we've gotten from others, not sure if I should be excited, wanting to be involved, or not.

We are staying fairly busy right now, but that's because my client is pumping out 100 projects a year and given their development plan for the next year it isn't slowly down based on the economy - now the rest of my office (outside of my studio) in our 20 person firm is a totally different matter, slow...as...hell...

[Caesar]

At the moment with this current market we're accepting even extensions and garages etc though ;)
Anyone who hires an architect to design their garage has way too much money.

[el-capitano]

But it would be a nice garage! :D

http://www.coool-stuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/bullshit-architecture-amazingidiotgirl-blogspot-com.jpg

[fidlerre]

Jesus, I nearly forgot I had put this in here - goes to show you how my mind has been working these last few weeks. Thanks for the input, we are definately going to explore Bentley and Revit based on the feedback we've gotten from others, not sure if I should be excited, wanting to be involved, or not.

Well it took us all of 3 days to rule out Bentley's Triforma. Junk.

We are comparing Archicad and Revit, and right now it appears that Revit is winning out just ever so slightly in the race. There are good and bad things about both, it's just too bad we cannot combine them both togehter to create the ulimate BIM platform.