Bentley Architecture vs Revit vs Archicad

Danny,

Unknown said:

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.

I was actually in your office in January, and if I am to return to London in the near future it would again be for F+P working with Stephen H..  We haven't determined dates or if it will in fact be me coming, but ask Stephen to make sure to introduce us if I end up coming over.

-Travis

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.

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.

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. . 

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