Is Microstation true BIM or is it 3D solid modelling?

Barry Lothian said:

With that said, I'm now officially done with this thread and your postings as its now descended into the typical Dominic SEAH thread. Its clear only your own agenda matters and if anyone happens to have a different viewpoint or does something different than your organisation, they must wrong.

I've re-read our exchange twice last night, and it obvious that I have hit a nerve somewhere and caused major offence. For that please accept my apologies.It was not my intention... Sincerly.

Is this the typical DS thread...? Yes, I do tend to try to inject some humour when possible, and often it will be at the expense of others. I will make an effort to avoid this in future.

Viewpoints: well, I am not sure I can do very much there. Online forums are notorious for 'radicalising' the way views or messages are exchanged. You are right in thinking that the views are very much specific to me; and... Yes, I do not have much recent experience with Revit.

What I do have is 30 years continuous experience of the design and delivery process (including contract administration); and have been actively looking for the best digital tools to support this for the last 10+ years. So, yes... I do feel quite strongly about certain things. I deal with the fall out every day.

But is this merely bias? Hopefully not. I am by nature very self-critical, and have always tried to make sure I can back up what I say (Yes, maybe too reliant on other authors' written statements or YouTube). But equally, if you do a search of my posts on the Bentley forums, you will find that the 'typical' DS post is much more critical of Bentley than anything else.

In any case...

Just back after 2 days away on site

dominic SEAH said:

Yes, I thought as much, but you did not answer the question

Actually, I did as I was responding to this quote:

Dominic Seah said:

As I understand it, a Detail Group is akin to a Cell or Block. They have to be inserted into a Drafting view. Not sure how this helps with 2d/3d coordination? Are you saying that you would be able to place the Detail Group into a 3d Model view?

The first 2 sentences, the 3rd is a statement terminated with question mark but its still a statement nonetheless. Only the final sentence is a question and that IS what I provided an answer to.

dominic SEAH said:

I would agree that drawing in orthographic views is a lot easier for 80% of tasks, more even if you are dealing with orthorgonal designs. But, as projects grow in size, the more likely that you will need to deal with something that is non orthogonal.. principally the roof structure or terrain. This is where the team drops out of R*vit and reverts to Rhino/Msth or even ACAD.

That may be the approach YOUR team uses but its not the approach every office uses. 

dominic SEAH said:

That is what the AUGI poster suggested... and said it was complicated. I am agreeing with him for the reasons given in the previous post. You seem to be disagreeing saying that it would be easy to update & manage the profile families but simultaneously saying you wouldn't integrate the 2d details as suggested. Confusing.

Your confusion stems from your ignorance of not understanding what the video is actually showing, not reading my posts correctly, not actually researching how the tools (which I previously mentioned) operate nor finding out for yourself the difference between profile families and detail item/component families. If you had actually done that you wouldn't be asking the above and the answer would be quite simple. Seeing as you already mentioned that your company has Revit licenses, why not actually take the time yourself and follow some tutorials and actually find out for yourself? Maybe then you will get a lightbulb moment and actually get what I've been saying.

dominic SEAH said:

R*vit like any app will have its blindspots and struggle with some things.

On more than one occasion I've clearly stated that Revit struggles in certain area's so you're not adding anything to the discussion that hasn't already been said before.

dominic SEAH said:

And accepting or not R*vit workflows is not the aim here.

With this statement you are actually wrong as there is a clear difference between Revit and OPB/ABD in terms of workflows and approach to tasks. The latter allows a greater degree of freedom in the ways a user works whereas Revit works in specific ways and new users learn that you have to adapt to how its designed to achieve certain tasks. 

dominic SEAH said:

Bentley users benefit from having Ref-attachment tools that allow them to integrate 2d detailing information in 3d models, in a way that is very 'free-and-easy' as mentioned above.

yet at the same time there is nothing difficult how detail is done in Revit either.

dominic SEAH said:

That is not to say that it will stay that way forever. I sense that you are defending this lack unnecessarily.

I'm not defending anything I just accept each program for what it is and don't complain over operational differences. Unlike you I haven't got an allegiance to any BIM software but I can offer viewpoints on the packages that I have used. I've yet to give ArchiCAD a try but if I find it to be better than Revit I would have no problem using that.

dominic SEAH said:

I am not interested in what you want (in this case). In any case, there are R*vit users out there that do want to dimension in 3d, and you can now do it if you lock the 3d view. My point is that you have the option to do either in Mstn. No need to settle for one or the other... in Lilliput.

And there we have it, nice attitude! Btw, you do recall posting the following, don't you?:

Dominic Seah said:

Actually, you do want the text when you are coordinating in 3d.

Note the emphasis of YOU, hence my follow up response.

With that said, I'm now officially done with this thread and your postings as its now descended into the typical Dominic SEAH thread. Its clear only your own agenda matters and if anyone happens to have a different viewpoint or does something different than your organisation, they must wrong. I've gone above board to provide answers to genuine queries however my responses are either ignored, met with sarcasm or some obscure reference that is assumed to be somehow applicable to myself or the topic but that's always been your M.O.

JuJitsoup said:

how common place is MS/AECOsim in the UK architectural industry?

I would say it's 90% Revit outside of the big infrastructure projects. A lot of former Microstation houses (certainly in London) are  moving to Revit and confining Microstation to sketching and presentation drawings. Stage 3 onwards in Revit. Most probably tried AECOSim but gave up as it is complex to set up and maintain. All the projects I'm involved in use Revit as their BIM software. 

JuJitsoup said:

I can understand this but do you have a handle on what's the rough percentage of jobs out that there are Revit and what AECOsim?

The only market share info that I am aware of is the NBS BIM survey. Aecosim / Mstn's share is at Windows Phone / Nokia levels.

JuJitsoup said:

I'm staff and not looking to chase the odd extra pound an hour like some of the contract lads. I'm more concerned about future long-term employment prospects in the industry if this role doesn't pan out.

Technicians tend to be on contract via recruitment firms, who shunt them around multiple projects and are starting to provide training for them as well. They seem to have pretty good employment stability given that the infrastructure sector is pretty stable with long horizons compared the more volatile commercial sector. And all of them can't stop talking about their flash cars, you know the type :-)

Even if you want to stay on staff and the firm is keen to stay on Aecosim, then think of it as an oppurtunity to learn an app that is pretty niche that may open other doors later. Market size is more of a worry for new grads who have no contacts. You don't appear to be in that category. The key consideration is understanding what the firm's future intentions are wrt Aecosim. As mentioned, there are more important things than what BIM tool they use.

JuJitsoup said:

They are looking to use AECOsim and "go BIM" on the next suitable project and this is where I fear it will all start to unravel.

I assume that you will not be responsible for the initial set up and training. There will be a steep learning curve and you will probably need to turn to a channel partner if you are a small / mid-sized firm. This will be expensive and of varying quality. OTOH, most R*vit firms I know also have to do this as well even if R*vit set up is acknowleded to be more straight forward... at least initially.

And it all unravels and they decide to go R*vit (£1800/yr) or ArchiCAD (?) or Vectorworks (£800/yr) or whatever, which has been happening a lot, resulting in a lot of hybrid Mstn/R*vit shops in London, well... by then you will be embedded in the company and one of many receiving R*vit training.

Dominic Seah said:

Currently in London, Aecosim drivers make £35+/hr, much higher than Revit drivers... must be the aggravation factor :-)

Thanks for the info. I can understand this but do you have a handle on what's the rough percentage of jobs out that there are Revit and what AECOsim? If there are 200 jobs at £30/hr and only 5 at £35/hr you're fighting for a very small number of roles for a small increase in salary. 

I'm a job running Senior Tech. I generally take over from Stage 3 onwards and deliver to completion, a "Project Technologist" to give it a name. I'm staff and not looking to chase the odd extra pound an hour like some of the contract lads. I'm more concerned about future long-term employment prospects in the industry if this role doesn't pan out.

What you said about infrastructure architects and engineers using it makes more sense. The funny thing is I've been watching plenty of the Bentley videos and it appears (at least from the outside) to be really good and intuitive to use. 

My question about coordination was more related to AECOsim (BIM). They currently solely use MS at the minute so coord from Stage 3 onwards would be pretty straighforward as most contactors/subbies use AutoCAD and as I read it dwg import into MS is good. They are looking to use AECOsim and "go BIM" on the next suitable project and this is where I fear it will all start to unravel.