Bentley Architecture vs Revit vs Archicad

Hi

I am a long time MicroStation user currently reviewing a number of the leading BIM platforms out there - namely Bentley Architecture, Revit, & Archicad.

Now I am not a 'die-hard' Bentley fan and so my remit is to simply try and evaluate each package on its own merits in order to get a fair comparison and to help inform our decision about which to use.

So far I have a good understanding of the pro's and con's of each but with regards to Bentley Architecture my initial experience is that it is incredibly complex and has unbelievably poor 'help' documentation (especially when compared to Bentley's competitors) making it very difficult to learn the software. To me this sounds like shear arrogance on Bentley's part or market share suicide - not sure which at the moment. Even once the software has been mastered it is my impression from reading the forum that Bentley are still way behind the likes of Revit and Archicad in terms of meeting user suggestions / feature requests?

Is this is a fair opinion of Bentley Architecture and if not why?

Also does anyone have experience of trialling / reviewing both Revit and Archicad?

Thanks in advance...

Parents
  • PBrooks:

    Since I am a Bentley colleague I will refrain from telling you which is the best BIM platform (I think you could guess what my answer would be), but I will try to address a couple of your concerns and share some things to consider in your BIM evaluation for your firm.  Obviously there is no software package in the world that is perfect, and Bentley does not claim to be exempt from that claim.  We recognize we have deficiencies and work hard to erase those and also respond to user feedback in a timely manner.  I would find it difficult to believe that you would hear claims from Revit users that they have the direct communication with Product Managers and developers like that occurs every day between Bentley and our clients.  While at times some of the comments and posts that occur in BE Communities forums seem critical of some tools or applications, I firmly believe that the users in these forums feel comfortable posting their opinions (good or bad), because they are heard by Bentley product managers, developers, support and even the Bentley executives.  Often times this result in a quick turn-around on a bug fix or additional features added to builds to meet a particular clients need.  On the other hand, I have been told by several dual-platform clients that Revit's feature list is frozen for the 2014 release already (and closing in on feature freeze for 2015), therefore any feature requests or complaints on an Autodesk forum would be done so in vain.  I really only mentioned that because I don't think that I have ever come across a person who confused Bentley with being arrogant, and I hope the users in this forum will reinforce this sentiment.

    Regarding your concerns about Bentley, I would encourage you to take a look at AECOsim Building Designer rather than Bentley Architecture.  Building Designer will be the next release (1-2 months away) of Bentley Architecture.  However, for me to say that Building Designer is just the next version of Bentley Architecture is a gross understatement.  Building Designer is a complete BIM solution in a single application that in addition to added architectural features includes full functionality for Structural, Mechanical, Plumbing, and Electrical design/documentation, a robust and intuitive clash detection engine, hyper-modeling, Dynamic Views, and additional feature enhancements.  This is what you should be using as your benchmark against other BIM vendors.

    If only looking at Bentley Architecture, I believe that your concern with poor 'help' documentation is valid, and as I stated above, Bentley has identified this as a shortcoming and invested in a thorough update to both the content and delivery methods of help/informational documentation that will ship with AECOsim Building Designer.  In addition to this, an even bigger effort was initiated to overhaul the Bentley delivered datasets to make Building Designer production-ready with little-to-no customization required by the end user.  This effort was guided by several of our BIM consultants with experience working everyday with our users from all over the world to capture the functional requirements of a vast user base and reflect the collective knowledge gained from this user collaboration into a workspace that everyone can leverage.  The dataset overhaul was in direct response to user comments that the applications were complex (as you observed) and aimed to set out to show users that the solutions and workflows can be simple, while still affording the ability to customize the applications, workspaces, and processes to support even the most complex organizations, which in my opinion has always been one of Bentley's greatest strengths.  

    In my architecture days before Bentley I was faced with the same choice, which BIM solution is best for me and my organization.  Given that I am now working for Bentley it is apparent which I chose, but I at time I was an more of an Autodesk user than Bentley if that indicates that I haven't been biased my entire BIM career.  In fact, still to this day I have nearly as much experience on Autodesk applications as on Bentley applications.  Full disclosure out of the way...  Below I will include a couple points that you should consider in your evaluation as they are often overlooked items.  At firms that I have worked for or consulted with, I have seen the workflow/staffing impact that oversight of these items has yielded and more importantly to a business the resultant hidden project and organizational costs, which are often substantial.  

    Interoperability - Bentley BIM solutions are all built on top of the DGN file format and thus there is no file export process required to move between 3D data-rich models and static 2D construction drawings that can be opened by clients, contractors, or reviewers that do not have Revit or Archicad.  Additionally, since BIM is an intra-disciplinary process that requires intense collaboration by all project stakeholders (architects, engineers, contractors, owners, and more), Building Designer, as a unified BIM application, enables live referencing of models from all disciplines with full data fidelity to offer an immense project savings on avoiding data/time loss on import/export/link processes that can stall the design process.  Bentley even provides a free plug-in that allows collaborators that might be working in Revit to publish i-Models (with precise geometry and BIM data) that can be referenced directly by MicroStation, Bentley BIM solutions, and even Navigator for Clash Detection and Design Review processes.  Don't be mislead by Autodesk's claim that they allow direct linking of DGN's in Revit 2012 as an interoperable solution.  Despite Autodesk having the DGN file format as part of the interoperability agreement between Autodesk and Bentley, they only allow a Revit link to a V7 DGN, which would require a Save As or Export, which disrupts live coordination and wastes project time and money on data exchange processes for your company.  

    BIM is a Collaborative Process.... Many people falsely assume that the main point of BIM from a design perspective is to simply have better coordinated 2D Construction documents, because they are extracted from the 3D model.  While this is a benefit of BIM, anyone that identifies this as the primary reason to adopt BIM is clearly missing the point of the BIM process and is likely to not benefit much, if any, when it comes to the bottom line after additional software, training, and related overhead costs are factored in.  BIM (as a process) should be utilized in conjunction with BIM software in order to produce a better designed (thoroughly coordinated across all disciplines & being free of costly, last minute coordination changes that compromise the overall design) & constructed built asset (reduced/eliminated change orders as a result of design phase coordination, among others) for the owner.  BIM applications that nearly force you to work through a building as though it was a set of 2D drawings rather than a 3D facility (which needs to be inhabited, operated, and maintained in a 3D world) seem to be missing this critical component to the success of BIM, and the primary reason that owners are starting to more frequently require BIM.  Personally, I have never physically experienced a building through plan, section, or elevation and as such can't understand how a designer would want to design a project in this manner when a 3D simulation model is being created. This is not something to be taken lightly, because as an architect or engineer you are not contracted to create pretty drawings that state it is someone else's problem, but instead you are to produce a coordinated design that will satisfy the functional requirements of the building program, codes, and owner's requirements.  Also, if collaborating across offices, make sure to examine the process for sharing data/models as well as communicating design coordination information.  Beware of being required to align software versions with all project consultants, which may result in users having to have multiple software versions on their machine at the same time in order to work on more than one project.  

    Infrastructure... Make sure to examine the system requirements carefully to avoid an unexpected overhaul of hardware in your office.  In addition to just the computer hardware look at network bandwidth.  I have seen a dual platform firm deploy Revit after doing a small pilot project (project approx. 20% of their normal project size), and as soon as they had a project of normal size they discovered they needed all new hardware and still the software had difficulty handling the complexity and size of the project. Upon bringing a second Revit project into the office the network was nearly crippled for most of the work day, and users had to begin to save to Central 30 minutes before they wanted to leave for the day.  This resulted in the company being forced to upgrade their entire network, which combined with the hardware upgrades resulted in hidden costs that were greater than the software licenses (not even quantifying lost productivity into that amount).  This experience is not intended to cut down Revit, just to warn you of what they won't tell you until after they have your money, if they tell you at all.  Historically, Bentley's federated approach to workspaces and model organization has allowed numerous firms to save substantially by not requiring hardware or network upgrades and I would recommend that be considered in your evaluation.  

    As a BIM consultant, I work with users every day, and I think that you will see that most of the time despite the fact that I am a Bentley colleague that I will side with the user on topics related to functionality change requests, but at the same time tirelessly respond to user's inquiries with software questions and workflows that make BIM teams more profitable.  It is with this experience in mind that I challenge you to look at a project's overall BIM workflow involving not just those that touch the BIM software, but the entire project team.  I will tell you that making the transition to BIM is a challenging and potentially expensive one that involves substantial workflow/cultural changes in order to be most successful and maximize your return.  Any software vendor that tries to sell a BIM solution without recognizing the need to interoperate with not only other disciplines, but also other vendors is not painting the entire picture for you and you will discover that cumbersome workflows for collaboration along with losses in time and data due to poor interoperability workflows are exponentially more costly with BIM than they are with CAD.

    Well despite what this lengthy post might make you believe, I am a professional services consultant and not a marketing or sales guy, but I too often see the marketplace get consumed by the marketing machine of Autodesk that fails to tell the BIM story.  I apologize if any comparisons seemed limited to Revit/Bentley that is only because I have limited experience with Archicad as most clients i work with are multi-disciplinary and mandate a BIM suite that includes capabilities for all engineering disciplines.  If you would like any additional information regarding AECOsim Building Designer (or any of our products, preferably somewhat related to buildings), or if you would like more information on the BIM process, feel free to send me an email.  

    Now I will let the rest of the community chime in with their less-biased opinions. ;)

    Regards,

    Travis



  • Nice and very informative reply Travis.

    I have been a Microstation user for many years and have not found Bentley to be arrogant during that time by any means.  There is no other software that I am involved with that gives the users such direct interaction with their programmers and developers.  That said, we too are in the process of evaluating BIM systems here at my office.  Mind you we are very biased towards Bentley but to be honest there are two major factors holding us back.  The lack of parts/content in their BIM package and the lack of help/tutorials.  The content is the biggest issue to us by far but hopefully, when AecoSim is fully released, this will not be an issue at all.  We are an MEP outfit so the biggest selling point for us is the fact that AecoSim comes with multiple disciplines.  Very nice attribute.  Good luck in your decision process.

    John K.

  • All:

    I said earlier that I was not ducking this conversation, and finally found some time to respond.  I am not sure that I write a lot when I respond because it has been so long, or if it is hard to find the time to respond because I write so much.  Either way, I would like to say thank you to all that pointed out that simply modeling your house on the weekend in BIM software while drinking a beer does constitute a valid assessment of a BIM application.  If you are of the opinion that such an exercise suffices as a legitimate evaluation, then you should step back and ask yourself why you are using BIM in the first place and whether or not the BIM software you chose from this process (along with the associated training & implementation costs) are really giving you a sound return on investment.  Chances are likely that you believe that BIM is just a 3D process for producing the same 2D drawing set (independent of other project consultants).  Additionally, I would also predict that your BIM investment is not warranting the ROI that you were told you would see by our competitors marketing blitzes.  Modeling your house on a weekend can not simulate the inter-disciplinary coordination/decision-making process, the constant need for design information exchange between clients, consultants and contractors, or how the product potentially enables or inhibits the design team when they are under the pressures of getting a project out the door.  Revit marketing will constantly show you how easy it is to start the project, but they are gone with your money (drinking beer on the weekend) when your design teams are stuck trying to finish the project and the software is telling you that you have to do it their way or no-way.  

    I have said it before and will most certainly say it again, BIM Is a Process that involves an entire design team collaboratively designing, analyzing, and simulating in a 3D environment to produce a better designed, constructed, and operated asset for the owner.  The evaluated benefits of BIM to a design team should not be limited to hours/drawing, but should also include an evaluation of risk-reduction on behalf of the entire design team (not just the architect), the quality of design coordination of all disciplines, the quality of the built asset, and owner satisfaction with design, construction, and operation of the facility (especially if it is a potential repeat customer).  I have had lengthy conversations with management and executives at many organizations regarding BIM process and, knowing what concerns they have expressed to me, I can assure you that evaluating BIM software purely on a technical level, without an organizational understanding of the BIM process and what your organization is looking to measurably achieve through BIM will most certainly result in less-than-expected performance by your project team, and their utilization of the BIM software (regardless of software vendor).  This narrowly focused evaluation method will also potentially lead you to selecting a BIM vendor that inhibits design freedom, tyrannically prohibits interoperable workflows, and only delivers on a small slice of what the BIM process encompasses.  

    The successful adoption of any BIM software first and foremost requires successful BIM Implementation Planning, without it any software, training, and/or BIM consultant fees are wasted.  BIM Implementation Plans should be thorough, developed collaboratively, and among many other things should include BIM goals, personnel roles & responsibilities, training plans, and technical/technological requirements.  More often than not, I see firms with training plans that entirely consists of only the BIM users and BIM Manager taking Distance Learning classes for the BIM application(s).  This only teaches the BIM users how to push the buttons in the software to do what the software wants you to do, but in no way conveys to the user why they are pushing the buttons.  Without being told any differently, the user naturally assumes that they are supposed to push the buttons in this new software program to deliver the same deliverables with the same processes as they always have in a CAD workflow.  This model consistently yields frustrated users, project managers claiming that BIM is killing the projects profitability, and everyone blaming the BIM software, all because they are trying to force a square peg through a round hole.  In my experience this is a common occurence and the main reason that I preach that BIM training needs to include process training for everyone involved in the project (designers, modelers, project managers, project reviewers, and principals in charge), not just for the BIM users.  I refuse to train users on how to use the software with out first making sure they know why they are using the software, and how BIM (as a process) differs from the CAD workflow.  This is very common in firms that have historically been a MicroStation shop which adopted Bentley BIM, not as a workflow change, but instead merely as an extension to their tried-and-true CAD workflow.  This scenario seems like a natural progression since Bentley Architecture, up to this point, has been a layered application.  Because of the layered software application many firms took the "slowly wading into the water" approach to Bentley Architecture, which I have rarely seen done so effectively. In my experience, the most successful BIM adoptions have looked more like 'jumping in to the deep end' of the pool rather than 'wading into the water'. Wading into the water is a painful situation & extremely frustrating as a user, and I can attest to this because I can from a large international design firm that took the 'wading into the water' approach to BIM.  

    PBrooks:

    I agree that 3 weeks for a response from TSG on an inquiry is unacceptable and I am sure that Steve Cocchi will look into it.  My guess is that non-technical requests for information like that can be hard to categorize/assign to an appropriate group/person in the technical support group and that may have resulted in the lengthy response time.  Inquiries such as those would probably be better suited for this forum, and as you can see from the responses I think you will get a response much quicker.  I do not believe the lengthy delay you experienced in this case to be the norm, and if you want some secondary confirmation of this, I would refer your to the BIM Evaluation Study Report commissioned by the AIA LFRT (conducted by AECbytes) that gave Bentley a 'good' (highest rating in the study) for Quality of Technical Support, while Revit received a 'fair' rating. Regarding perceived complacency, I will also refer you to the same study where, the category of Responsiveness to Feedback, Bentley was again given a 'good' rating and Revit received a 'fair' rating.  

    pbrooks81 said:
    1. Are there any decent learning tutorials / videos available online that I am unaware of? By this I mean comparable learning material to the likes of Revit and Archicad (e.g. PDF / videos) rather than paid training courses?

     Stay alert for information that should satisfy this concern.  I wish I could say more, but I have been told to keep quiet for a couple weeks. :(

    Also, I would like to thank you for recognizing that simply because more Revit-knowledgable users might be coming out of universities, does not mean that a AE firm must alter their culture & workflows to accommodate what the market is yielding.  Any firm's success is most likely a result of solid leadership, strong organizational culture, and established workflows, not their ability to capture and adapt to the commodities available in the workforce.

    Regarding your statement from your earlier post..."My current understanding has been informed by undertaking just such an exercise in each software but unfortunately my company is going to require a lot more rigorous comparison and performance / market data when they come to make this important investment decision about which BIM software to go with.".  Again, I would refer you to the AIA LFRT BIM Evaluation where a lot of the concealed realities of Revit's performance in production settings are reported.  The study evaluated only the performance Bentley Architecture V8i, and I think that you will see that most of the categories we scored low on in the study have been substantially enhanced in Building Designer, again a sign that Bentley is not complacent.  

    Regarding the UK BIM mandate and the Bentley marketing presence...  Unfortunately, I am not in a position within Bentley where I can impact the lack of marketing presence for the BIM products, but I will continue to try to share my Bentley BIM knowledge to empower users when I have the opportunities.  Though I am based in the US, I may be in the London sometime this month for some work and may be able to arrange some time with you, depending on where in the UK you are located. I have been working on getting relocated to the UK and if it happens I will do my best to make sure that there isn't a stream of Revit lemmings ignorantly following the Autodesk marketing buzz towards the 2016 UK BIM mandate.  I would love to be able to learn more about your organization (culture, values, personnel, work, etc.) and make some workflow suggestions that would be aptly suited to your organization's needs.  Because of the lack of quality help documentation/videos (only for the time being) I find that many firms are underutilizing the Bentley BIM offerings in their workflow, and they are not aware of many of the great benefits that Bentley BIM can offer. I, along with the other consultants in my North American group, have consulted with a number of firms like this in the US and been able to provide tailored workflow solutions, workspace customizations, or BIM process training that have added significant productivity gains for the firms production staff.  

    I think that is more than enough for now,

    Regards,
    Travis 



  • This is an interesting thread.

    Long time Microstation user here (20+ years)... currently struggling to really get into BA.

    I find the UI to be generally uninspiring and just plain old fashioned (For Microstation as well and AECOsim BD has in my opinion offered nothing new in this regard).

    Take for just a very small example the addition of a material preview to the top of the Dataset Explorer in AECosim- what does this preview achieve with a widget size no bigger than the icons in the view toolbox? why have something that is too small to see?

    Sticking with Dataset Explorer, given that part and description are nearly always listed first why do these not stay fixed when you scroll to the other end of the dialog so you can always see these names? why can't I order columns like in other Bentley dialogs? why can't I save my own layout like in other Bentley dialogs? what if there was a switch to auto hide unused columns?

    Why do the icons look as if they are from software from the early 90's? Actually I do not think that Revit is any better- both seem antediluvian.

    Just had the pleasure of downloading the latest version of Modo (from Luxology, the developers of the render engine in the V8i generation of software for those that don't know this) and the care and attention that has been lavished on the interface is a joy to behold ...and to use. Not just looking pretty.

    Moving on to the documentation and again AECOsim seems no better than the poor efforts in MS and previous BA versions.

    Where is the nicely illustrated documentation explaining in a clear conversational tone a beginning to end workflow on a modern architectural project of some complexity, with the model supplied in all its glory to work with along with tutorials and videos?

    The dismissal of Utarc's weekend modelling exercise I think shows a problem.... like it or not software will live or die by the ease with which users can achieve the right results and if it is just too difficult to even get a simple house project finished in comparison with other softwares then I think that says quite a lot.

    Everyone seems to want to use Rhino in our office... MS and BA turns people off.

    It is also difficult to imagine that even on a BIM project the need to generate a traditional set of plans, elevations and sections will be going away any time soon and the ease with which this can be achieved (and just the enjoyment of using the software) is not to be belittled.

    On any project you will still have to make the models...still have to generate drawings.

    And all software imposes working methods on the user... why have design models, drawing models, and sheet models?

    I would dearly love to see a modern BA and MS, 64 bit , deeply consolidated toolset (why have so many ways of extruding an element?) proper documentation and an appealing modern UI to go along with the traditional strengths of large scale geometry handling, reference files, combined 2d/3d and comprehensive toolset- this could really be something- AECOsim is not it from what I have seen so far.

    AECOsim - even the name is terrible :-)

    By the way Travis, if you do make it to London we would love to see you at Foster and Partners- we are one of those traditional cad practices trying to transition to BIM.

    regards

    Danny

  • lots of questions and observations Danny. I will focus on why have model files, drawing files, and sheet files? Note that I have truncated
    the terms of reference as the cross naming of these three components is sometimes the start of the confusion.

    Well it’s a bit like that coffee advert on TV where they claim to be contributing to the recycling campaign by reducing packaging . . .You know where the customers come out of the shop carrying coffee grains in their hands, in their hats and umbrellas Etc. Etc Have you seen it? Anyway it’s a similar analogy. If you went to the store to buy say pickles you wouldn't come out of the store with pickles in your bare hands. You would at least insist they were put in a Jar (Drawing files) The jar would contain "information" (there's that word again ) on the pickles: Use by date,, Chemical preservatives, Nutritional value, . . . .when not to eat them (No not really !! ) Similarly the wholesale delivery truck arriving at Sainsbury’s or Asda or wherever wouldn't attempt to off load hundreds of Jars of Pickles that would make his job a whole lot more difficult. He would have packed the Jars in Boxes (Sheet files).

    On close inspection you will find that the information on the Jars is not essentially the same information on the Boxes and no information is ever engraved on the pickles. Just for example the box would need to say which side is "UP", where as the Jar wouldn't need to have this information. The manufacturers assume that we are not complete idiots and know that a jar does not stand on its head. Similarly there is no point putting information on which side up the box should be on the Jar.

    This is very much analogues to best practice in organising the information put on drawings, where should the information be placed,  what is its relevance and also what level of information to show ensuring that information is conveyed at the right level to the appropriate recipient, (especially so in this age of BIM). You find there is a lot of irrelevant or duplicated information (sometimes on the pickles themselves). This happens a lot in the exchange of project information.

    If used properly in the prescribed manner Model files, drawing files, and sheet files therefore are a great tool for organizing these different hierarchies of information and detail. It's the best system I have come across yet.

  • PICKLEsim condiment designer...I wonder whether you can onion skin the levels? ;-)

    I wasn't in fact asking what each of these models do but just to illustrate that all software imposes some sort of restriction and way of working and these are in BA as well as Revit (and if it all sounds as if i am particularly down on Bentley from my last post I can assure I am not... But our users in general I would say want to use other tools it seems)

    As i said I would love to see something better from Bentley....if only to stem the tide of the "why dont we use Revit" or "why dont we use Digital Project" questions on the BIM side and the already widespread use (at Fosters at least) of Rhino.

  • Danny,

    I fully agree with your comments.

    Travis,

    OK, let's forget about BIM for a while and talk straight about a software for architect to create model and deliver drawings. in final stage it is ALL about drawings. I don't know about US, but here in Europe I haven't seen a worker with laptop checking some 3D but plenty of papers stitched to the workers office's walls with many remarks made by thick pen ...

    you say the weekend modeling of house is poor criterion to evaluate any software. you could be right, but for me, as freelancer working on my own, the only thing that matters is how easy I can work with software. I do not have time/money for some specialist to set me up, don't have resources to prepare datasets. I need to install thing and use it ... I understand my position is probably not typical since you are interested in big clients with 100+ seats, anyway I try to show you my little world too :-) of course I work with consultants and co-workers, most of them use Adesk products so I bless Bentley for native DWG support.  

    btw, the support of Bentley for the Central Europe is, well, none at all, when it comes to AEC software.

    what I found interesting in this thread, since most of posts are critical, most of authors are long-time MS users. I believe we do not want to banish Bentley for anything, what we want is to be able to keep Bentley software competitive ...

    p.

    /pt

Reply
  • Danny,

    I fully agree with your comments.

    Travis,

    OK, let's forget about BIM for a while and talk straight about a software for architect to create model and deliver drawings. in final stage it is ALL about drawings. I don't know about US, but here in Europe I haven't seen a worker with laptop checking some 3D but plenty of papers stitched to the workers office's walls with many remarks made by thick pen ...

    you say the weekend modeling of house is poor criterion to evaluate any software. you could be right, but for me, as freelancer working on my own, the only thing that matters is how easy I can work with software. I do not have time/money for some specialist to set me up, don't have resources to prepare datasets. I need to install thing and use it ... I understand my position is probably not typical since you are interested in big clients with 100+ seats, anyway I try to show you my little world too :-) of course I work with consultants and co-workers, most of them use Adesk products so I bless Bentley for native DWG support.  

    btw, the support of Bentley for the Central Europe is, well, none at all, when it comes to AEC software.

    what I found interesting in this thread, since most of posts are critical, most of authors are long-time MS users. I believe we do not want to banish Bentley for anything, what we want is to be able to keep Bentley software competitive ...

    p.

    /pt

Children
No Data