Forums >> Community >> Newbies >> AutoCad vs Revit

arbartaula

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I am Sanjaya from Nepal. It has not been more than a year since Revit has made its entry into our country. A lot of architectural firms still use AutoCad and SketchUp for drafting and visualization.

Now that Autodesk has already acquired Revit, I think that AutoCad, in the coming versions, will incorporate the facilities of Revit within itself. Much of AutoCad after 2009 has already started looking like Revit. What do you people think? Will Revit stay as a separate program or would it, sooner or later, merge into AutoCad? What do you think will be the future of Revit with respect to AutoCad?

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Sanjaya

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WWHub

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itsmyalterego

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Autodesk has owned and been developing Revit separately for a decade-- If they were going to incorporate it into AutoCAD, they would have made the move already.  They are also very different... "architecture" in a software sense.  Excuse the pun.  Architectural Desktop is better integrated with AutoCAD for those who want a more familiar interface for 3D modeling...

Part of the problem is that that autoCAD is so well established across so many industries, Autodesk cannot afford to change it for Architecture's sake.

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arbartaula

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Sanjaya

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RevitZone

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AutoCAD is Autodesk's main cash cow! I don't think it's going anywhere, anytime soon.

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bdeshawn

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@RevitZONE:

I agree.  AutoCAD can be customized so much, that if someone knows how to customize (as I do), a residential plan set can be made quite quickly.  In my experience, 3D modeling is unnecessary time-comsuming glitz that is totally unnecessary.  In AutoCAD walls at different floor levels can be quicikly visually compared, and changes are quick and easy.  Doors sizes can be quickly changed, swung the opposite direction, partially open, closed, or fully open, wall lines can be connected and closed FAST!  Floor Plans are quickly referenced in lateral plans, changes to a hatch pattern that cause the pattern to lose associativity are quickly rehatched.  No need to even know tha hatch pattern name or scale.  You're right.  These features don't come from core commands.  They are AutoCAD customized commands.  AutoCAD gives us the ability to EASILY customize via LISP and CUI(X).  Things jurisditions do not require and builders don't want to pay for in residential architecture: BIM,  interior elevations, walk-throughs.  What they do require: topographical survey (mostly supplied by civil engineering firm), site plan, floor plans, elevations, sections, structural details, lateral plans and details (usually supplied by structural engineering firm), electrical plans and lighting plans (wiring and switches to be designed by electrical contracting firm), fire sprinkler plans (designed by firm other than architect), landscape plan (designed by landscape "architect" or designer).  The architect, really is required to create floor plans that include stuctural notation supplied by structural engineer or designer or by the architect himself are site plans, Elevations, sections, foundation, floor and roof plans, ceiling plans (rarely), and lateral plans or lateral notation on plans.  Electrical is mostly optional for the architect, and may be added to floor plans to serve as a guide for the electrcal contractor's designer in the same manner as plumbing fixtures in the floor plan.  Revit, on the other hand ends up supplying so much detail, creating huge files, managing so much information that may never even be used by the contractor because so much is eventually decided in the field anyway.  I am so pleased with AutoCAD's speed and flexibility, and with the ability to change customization as changes occur in building code in the various jurisdictions. 

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brettgoodchild

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That is an interesting point of view you have.

I could not disagree with you more but it's nice to see the other side of things once in a while.

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alabaster2513

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you must have a lot of faith in your contractor to let them waste time and money figuring out everything in the field I'm not that trustful. I'll take BIM modeling, shop drawings and prefab any day over some crappy drafting plans. Let me be clear I am not being specific to Revit, I am comparing BIM to CAD. Autocad Architectures BIM program is a powerful tool as well, just not as powerful as Revit. I wont ever say Revit is faster than autocad or vise versa. My company and myself included can produce documents in both at a breakneck pace. Our Revit projects are just coordinated better, more accurate and provide more deliverables to the clients and contractors.

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bdeshawn

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@alabaster2513:

It's the contractor's job.  He gets what he wants and pays for it.  He trusts his subs to do their jobs.  The jurisdiction looks over our drawings, and they are pleased, so the contractor gets his permit.  Then with permit in hand, they end up building it with a bunch of field changes, anyway.  They don't require3D models, BIM, BAM and BOOM.  When contractors require plans to be looked at on the job site on a massive I-PAD, then maybe 3D modeling will have some real value.  Accuracy:  Our experience with builders is that they aren't interested in getting down to the 64th of an inch in their dimensions.  What is important to them is that they can build based on the dimensions we provide.  Regardless, we draw walls our wall lines for each level one over the top of the other, able to compare bearing walls of any floor to the walls of any other floor with one quick command, unlike the Revit-originated DWG file I received, from my engineer for me to edit.  Bearing walls at the stairs were a foot off from each other, with no indication of some special hangers or hardware, or whatever.  Flat out - it was an error.  Exterior walls that were supposed to have the same OFOS did not.  It was screwed up.  I had to put my own time in to clean it up, just so I could work with it.  It didn't take long to convert to my layering, and completed the necessary drawings (floor plan, elevations, and sections).  My assumption is that the person who sent that mess to the engineer, didn't know Revit very well, and probably knew architecture even less than I do (I am not an architect, but an architectural drafter and I always defer architectural decisions to the architect or designer).  I love AutoCAD and the tools that come with that allow us to double-check ourselves quickly.  What can be good about Revit is this: and I see this as a necessity after working with a specific architect for over ten years)  After drawing is done, when changes need to occur, and IF THE MODEL WAS DRAWN CORRECTLY, theoretically when a change is made in the model, every representation of the change, whether it be in elevation, section or plans, accurately represents the change.  The idea, in theory is great!  And whenever I can, I do similar kinds of things with XREFs so I only have to actually draw something one time.  However, according to some postings I've seen here, the theory has issues, or the Revit owners are having difficulty with the procedure.  If it were to work consistently, architects like the guy I've been working for wouldn't have to rack his brain so much to think about what drawings the change effects, it'll just be taken care of.  But in reality it looks like he has to do that anyway because things just might not go as hoped for or planned.  Then the top guy can't figure out why with this very expensive software a bunch of errors occurred on one little change.  Where is the time actually saved?

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itsmyalterego

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Tons of time is saved.  Most of it in CA work. We don't have to have architects drowning in phonecalls and emails and paperwork messing with change orders 6 hours out of the day.

With an accurate 3D model incorporating all of the structural and mechanical work, there are no surprising conflicts left to be found in a project designed in revit.  Every day, I fly around 3D models like a bee, looking for mistakes or areas that will cause problems in construction.   If it's BUILT correctly, then it's also drawn correctly in all views.  It's as simple as that.  It's not a theory.  And it's not difficult to do, though a number of impatient people with bad autocad habits like to "cheat" and start drawing detail lines prematurely, I've noticed.  

In the past, we've had projects designed in CAD that were mind-bendingly complex, and got us in a lot of trouble , wasting everyone's time and money because nobody could visualize how the stupid building was actually supposed to be built in the interstitial spaces between floor plans and mid-grid sections. 

Another big time-saver is sheet reorganizing and numbering.  When I put a detail on a sheet, it numbers the callout tag on plan.  If I renumber the detail on the sheet, the callout bubble also renames.  If I remove the detail from the sheet, the callout on the plan no longer prints.  If I renumber every single sheet in the project -- yes, every callout, section, and reference updates automatically. Wow.  That would be a really awful day or two in autocad. 

It sounds like the architect you're working with either isn't very experienced, or the very small change you asked for wasn't all that small, model-wise.  remember... in autocad, everything is just a line.  ANY change is just moving a line, so there's no distinction between a big and small change... In revit, a change can have large ripples.  A model becomes more and more inflexible the longer you work on it.  Much like when you build a real building.  You put down bearing walls and foundations, and you might lock these to the grids, and then you put more walls on top of that, and walls join to walls, etc etc.  Your roof ridge might is centered on one of these walls and soforth.

If you ask a contractor to move the roof ridge 3 feet to the left, and scoot around trusses when they're installing windows, they'd... I don't know what they'd do.  Laugh in your face?  The number of repercussions would be huge in real life, and they're huge in revit too.  Revit can do it, And it can make large changes late in the game relatively easily.  But you should be thankful that the architect scratched his chin and thought about the right way to do it.  Because there are lots of WRONG ways to do things in revit too.  Like when, in CAD, someone is drawing everything in one layer, using global width for lineweight, and hatching multiple regions at once, all over a drawing;  There are similar scourges in revit. 

We also do not trust contractors.  Not remotely.  Low bid "winners" typically try to drag us into lawsuits to wring a few extra million dollars out of the municipalities they work for, and everyone else involved in the projects.  It happens all the time.  The cleaner our final product, the more insulated we are from this sort of BS. 

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bdeshawn

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@itsmyalterego:

Well, I respect your view and it sounds like you are a Revit user that knows what he's doing in the program.  How long do you think it took you to be as well versed in the program as you are today?

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itsmyalterego

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Personally, I learned the basics back in version 4, 2003.   Took a several-year break and came back in 2008 as it was starting to heat up as a full-fledged design program.  I lucked into being the guy assigned to play with it, basically.  Been at it full time now for 2-3 years, self-taught.  A very large part from revitcity--thanks guys!   I don't know everything about revit, not by a long shot. There's always a little more to learn.

With guidance from someone who already knows revit and starting with a good mind for 3D design, someone can start taking off the training wheels after a couple months of practice, and within a year they'll know almost everything, or at least understand how... to... discover and assimilate new things on their own, make the best decisions of how to build things, and undstand the importance of new tricks they learn, if that makes sense.  I think it's an important distinction. 

So, I'd say a year until they're essentially trained up and at 90%, only uncomfortable with the more essorteric nuts and bolts.  Maybe 2-3 months until they can be trusted to do significantly more good than harm to a project, with the right tasks.

!!this brings up another good feauture -- you can have multiple people working on the same model at the same time.  You're not having people locked out of the elevation or floorplan base drawings on large projects, like happens in CAD--In revit you can have a swarm of people working in one file, and revit prevents overlap, and redundant work, by only locking up one object at a time as edited by username.

You comment about big ipads for contractors is a funny one -- that's my dream.  But I realize the final product for any set is, sadly, still paper.  But revit makes a fairly good paper set, too.  At first, it's UGLY.  there's... a different timeline for revit than cad.  In Cad you can draw up what you want, first.  Whatever order you need, really.  In revit, you can't just fake a pretty floorplan and slap a triangle on a rectangle and call it an elevation with a pitched roof -- you have to build it.  All of it.  And then you have all four elevations, and sections if you want, etc.  So, while a gorgeous floorplan might be ALL you want early on, it can take a little bit more time than it would take in CAD to get to that point, but as a good consequence your entire project is further along than it would have been for a comparable CAD floorplan.  Also -- in revit, it's often more the case of turning off what you DON'T want to see in the model, than adding new lines. 

I fear that's kind of a rambling post.

Edit:   This pertains to Autocad architecture, I don't know if MEP and structural have more gentle learning curves, I imagine they have less features to memorize, correct me if I'm wrong.

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bdeshawn

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@itsmyalterego:

You raise some good points.  Faster drawing of quick floor plan and learning curve.  Quite often, we get drawings with property boundaries, and a contractor wants to see as soon as possible how we can design a home to fit within the setbacks of the lot.  The floor plan design is key under those circumstances.  Many architects and designers have been using AutoCAD for decades, and know how they like to use it.  As you admit, Revit would take longer to get the initial rough draft out there.  Or in fact, there really isn't a rough draft associated with Revit.  It's complete when it's done and any change is just another completion process.  Then after your 2003 time for "learning the basics" and three years of working with Revit you are so comfortable with Revit that you now have a preference for it.  That's great - for you.  I'm 64.  By the time I put in that much time, I'll be 66 (at least).  Nobody wants to look at my resume after they figure out how old I am as it is.  They haven't wanted to look at my resume for the last 15 years!  Only through word of mouth via people I work for and have worked for do I get any work.  I'm not the only one in this kind of circumstance.  Many are now, especially with Social Security and Medicare cuts looming overhead.  Under these circumstances, coupled with the learning curve and huge price difference between programs, how are people supposed jump on the Revit bandwagon?  BTW, it looks here like your employer bought Revit and put you on it to learn it for them.  Do you think you could afford to buy Revit yourself, susbscribe to it for annual updates and upgrades, like I do with AutoCAD? Revit is a program you have to use in the same manner as your employer.  First you need to make your money with a less expensive program.  Then, when you have the money and enough employees, so you can have somebody learn it, that's when you buy it.  It's an investment in future productivity.  The only way to make it work right away is to get people who are already trained it in you company first (who also already know whatever other software you are presently using), and then buy it, put those people on it, and realize some profitability with it.  I'm sure some have worked with Revit, got laid off, and purchased it at that time to seek their own clientele.

 BTW, I've been working with AutoCAD since 1993 (18 years), and working in architectural drafting since 2000 (11 years).  I'm familiar with 3D modelling but haven't worked with it since I started in Architectural drafting 11 years ago.

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alabaster2513

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If you are laid off Autodesk offers free licenses for their products to help you fine tune your skills on their newest technology. Its pretty nice that they would do such a thing. I am currently at my 8th architecture firm implementing Revit, thats what I do. I have taught nearly 100 architects, drafters, interior designers and engineers. I have learned the best way for me to implement Revit standards is on a project basis. Pick a team who is eager to learn and train them on Revit as we go through the DD phase of the project. Having a ringer on the staff with prevent you from hitting any roadblocks along they way.

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bdeshawn

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@alabaster2513

It sounds interesting.  Do you know people my age who've just learned Revit and have landed a drafting job?

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