Bentley Architecture vs Revit vs Archicad

Hello

Well stated .... your comments reflect much of my feeling about the situation. (I'm also based in the UK, ... for the record)

I got so fed up with BA I dropped it about a year ago and will wait and see just how 'usable' in real world production the new ABD really is when it comes out. My 'trials' (like mentioned in a couple of the other posts) kept leading me to the conclusion that what additional features/benefits I might have been getting out of BA where outweighed by the overhead in time and effort trying to get it to work. I wasn't seeing any real-world productivity benefits at all. As mentioned, BIM is not just about 3D modelling software, ...... there's a whole lot of other 'non CAD app' issues to deal with. For the time being I'm sticking with Microstation (which can still be used for BIM!) and am putting my time and effort in to other aspects of the AEC process rather than wasting time/banging my head with the clunkiness/glitches/poor dataset/scatter gun approach of BA

I can only suggest in relation to your evaluation of BIM software that you could put to your bosses/powers that be that in fact they would probably be better of not being 'panicked' in to buying ANY so called BIM software (BA or Revit) for the time being as they all have drawbacks and in real-world use often don't offer the so called productivity increases that the software companies hype would like to suggest. Tell them the market is not 'mature enough' right now and they shouldn't be wasting there time/money on products that aren't quite frankly 'doing what it says on the tin'. I must stress again, ..... BIM, .... there's much to be done in ways that have nothing to do with getting some new 'top of the range' BIM modelling package: Drawing Registers, updating your import/export procedures, linking Microstation to SketchUP/Viz processes, .... how developed is your Batch Printing? Compiling Spec documents, Schedules (Tags anyone?), plenty of very usable clash detection can be done in 2D (yes most definitely) and a 'regular' 3D model (just plain solids), ..... it's called using your own 2 eyes and thinking about it (software vendors please take note) ...... beats any of these so called Clash Detection software things any time ..... no extra software costing thousands required!, ..... I could go on.

Anyway ..... good luck with it

PBrooks:

I didn't forget about this post, I have just been on the road the last three weeks and won't be back in the office until Monday.  Please do not think that I am dodging the thread.  I do think the conversation is great and I do want to respond to some of comments/concerns with some of my observations working with numerous firms of various sizes and complexities over the last couple years....  I hope to be able to have time to respond on Monday...  this was just to keep the conversation fresh.  

-travis

Travis

No worries at all. I look forward to hearing your views / feedback on what has been discussed here since your last post in addition to what Bentley are looking to do about it.

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Danny-cooley

Thanks for the great feedback and I totally agree with you. At the moment I am advising my bosses to sit tight with Microstation and not fall for the ‘BIM panic’ out there because, as you say, the market is just not mature enough. Our research / this debate have clearly revealed that there is still a shed-load more work for the BIM software providers to resolve before any of them can truly state their product ‘does what it says on the tin’ and interoperability is also absolutely key in this regard.

That said, out of all of the providers I do believe Bentley has a greater strategic understanding and approach when it comes to BIM but in my honest opinion they will never get there if they don’t respond to users’ comments and drastically improve the UI, tools, datasets etc.

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Utarc

Thanks for your comments. Your views and experiences seem to match my own – especially in that Bentley over the past decade seem to have lost ground when it comes to the user interface and the ability to produce decent 2D drawings and graphics. For me the same is true with the 3D modelling, visualisation, and animation side of things – the tools are complex and unintuitive, the process slow, and the outputs not worth the effort. As such I still use 3ds Max or SketchUp/VRay if I need to get a fast and consistent good looking visual (or lighting analysis) done with minimal effort and within budget.

With regards to your point about looking towards the universities and seeing what students are doing I think this is an important point within reason. In all my years of university study not one of my fellow architecture students used Microstation for their work. I did know some that had tried but they had given up in favour of Autocad, Archicad and Vectorworks – the reasons being due to MS’s clunky interface and poor quality learning support available. However, whilst much student work is very impressive to look at, and university is a great place to push boundaries and test ideas, I personally disagree with you and don’t think we should pay that much attention to what students are doing. In my opinion (and this is based on my first hand experience) many students these days are absolutely brilliant at producing beautiful and seductive ethereal projects but they lack the basic knowledge and understanding of how buildings go together in reality or how to work collaboratively with other disciplines. Much of architectural education seems to be in a bubble where seductive imagery and Photoshop skills are placed on a far higher pedestal than the knowledge and skills required to produce attractive, contextual, and commercially viable buildings and I think these revered award winning examples prove my point. For me architectural education needs to be completely overhauled to reflect the real-world landscape that is the construction industry – and I feel the collaborative process of the BIM methodology should be at the heart of this.

As for your final point about comparing BIM software I think you are missing the point. Firstly, the real issue is not just about how easy it is to model in each software and get a decent drawn output (don’t get me wrong this is important) but the real issue is how do these different platforms perform in a truly collaborative way when working across disciplines. Secondly, I’m afraid there’s also no way my practice would just rely on my personal experiences of trying to draw my house in each software. 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.

How much more marketing data do you need ? There are today in the UK 49  listings for Firms Requiring Revit users in Greater London alone and 1 for Bentley Architecture,  . . . . . .Am I doing myself in by not converting to Revit I wonder ???

Salve

uso con molto profitto e soddisfazione BA. Ho avuto in studio chi usa Archicad: bel software. Ho utilizzato Revit: software carino ma inutilizzabile. A questo punto vorrei conoscere: come viene utilizzato BA da parte delgli utilizzatori che scrivono, per che scopo. per quale tipo di outpup?  Qual'è il flusso delle informazioni, come vengono inserite ed utilizzate dallo sketch al dettaglio esecutivo?

Saluti

nico schiesari