Level Number Map

Thank you for the insights!

Barry Lothian said:

When I experienced Revit and seen how it approached things, it was like night and day and made perfect sense and so I took to it immediately; I embraced the difference, the freshness of the software (GUI/Tools etc...) but there was one factor which was most important above all else. If you compare MS V8i to ABD or MS CONNECT to OBD, they are very very similar in appearance, in operation and contain many of the same tools and dialogs etc.. Now if you compare Revit to AutoCAD, they aren't even close and for that reason, given my absolute dislike for AutoCAD, I saw immediately that it was a completely different and therefore I had no bias preventing me to want to learn Revit and it was therefore a very enjoyable learning experience.

It's funny how personal such things are, I'd say it's an advantage to keep to a similar interface.

Jan Šlegr said:

Please, respect the best practices, stay focused to the original question and do not steal the discussion with own new topic.

Sure, I'll let it rest. I didn't see any harm since the topic had evolved into the direction where I picked up.

Johan De Cock said:

If not a direct comparison then at least indirect.

Umm no, I never made any comparison between the 2 applications.

Johan De Cock said:

You said yourself that you used MS V8i on "level 2 BIM projects", then start your argumentation for MS not being a BIM software

I'll start by providing a definition of what a Level 2 BIM project is:

"Level 2 involves developing building information in a collaborative 3D environment with data attached, but created in separate discipline models."

We used a CDE (ProjectWise Online iirc), a project structure which separated disciplines (amongst other things) and federated models, but what critically missing was attached Data. The geometry contained absolutely ZERO data, nothing more than SmartSolid's drawn at 1:1 and geospatially located in 3D space. Had the same drawings and models been stored on a local network server, it wouldn't have been deemed a BIM project so the fact that it was being titled a Level 2 BIM project by the client was (IMO) incorrect and nowhere near to the true definition. Basically, BIM without the I.

Johan De Cock said:

In that post and others you repeatedly mention/compare with Revit.

I mention it yes (as its the software I will be using for most projects at some point in the future), but I do not compare one against the other. By all means, feel free to quote where I compare similar features of both applications against each other and outline pro's & con's or opine which is better....

Johan De Cock said:

I'd be very interested to know if you ever considered AECOsim / OBD as an alternative?

I did use AECOsim and found it to be a truly awful experience. There was just so many things I hated about it: 5-6 icons on my desktop for different disciplines (or whatever), the terminology it used for certain things was confusing and the parametric studio made me want to self harm. ABD was like MicroStation but with extra stuff added that felt clunky and I just didn't like how it worked at all.

Johan De Cock said:

In my opinion going from MS to Revit for construction/building projects is almost as big a step as going from 2D AutoCAD to Revit. 

When I experienced Revit and seen how it approached things, it was like night and day and made perfect sense and so I took to it immediately; I embraced the difference, the freshness of the software (GUI/Tools etc...) but there was one factor which was most important above all else. If you compare MS V8i to ABD or MS CONNECT to OBD, they are very very similar in appearance, in operation and contain many of the same tools and dialogs etc.. Now if you compare Revit to AutoCAD, they aren't even close and for that reason, given my absolute dislike for AutoCAD, I saw immediately that it was a completely different and therefore I had no bias preventing me to want to learn Revit and it was therefore a very enjoyable learning experience.

Johan De Cock said:

Though this is quite off-topic compared to the original topic

On this I will agree (partly my fault of course, but that's just how some topics evolve) and I won't be replying further to this topic. If you want to discuss a similar theme then feel free to create a new topic.

Johan De Cock said:

I'd be very interested to know

Please, respect the best practices, stay focused to the original question and do not steal the discussion with own new topic.

The original question was about old MicroStation tool, not available in the new versions. When you are interested in comparing products, create a new post.

Regards,

  Jan

Barry Lothian said:

Is there a direct comparison being made between Revit and MicroStation??

If not a direct comparison then at least indirect. You said yourself that you used MS V8i on "level 2 BIM projects", then start your argumentation for MS not being a BIM software. In that post and others you repeatedly mention/compare with Revit.

I'd be very interested to know if you ever considered AECOsim / OBD as an alternative? In my opinion going from MS to Revit for construction/building projects is almost as big a step as going from 2D AutoCAD to Revit. 

Johan De Cock said:

I agree it's a strange comparison between Microstation and BIM modelling software.

Is there a direct comparison being made between Revit and MicroStation??