Prostructures vs AECOSIM

Can someone explain the difference between AECOSIM and Prostructures to me.  I know they're completely different programs, but what is the difference between their purpose? 

-Can you model everything in Prostructures that you can in AECOSIM (structurally at least)?

-Can a Prostructures model be integrated into a multi-discipline AECOSIM model seamlessley?

-Is AECOSIM more for modeling a whole structure but Prostructures is more for detailing?

-Which is easier to model a structure in, Prostructures or AECOSIM. Is there a difference in the modeling ease for Proconcrete or Prosteel? 

-Why are there two separate products?

Currently our drafters only use AECOSIM.  I'm wondering if there are any advantages to Prostructures and if I should ask them to investigate it.

 

Thanks for your input. 

  • I only have a cursory knowledge of ProStructures, but from a pure structural perspective you could compare ProStructures to the former Structural Modeler product.  Each one incudes some features that the other does not, so it's a matter of what works best for your needs.    You can find for information here: www.bentley.com/.../Bentley+Structural and here: www.bentley.com/.../ProStructures

    What AECOsim Building Designer adds are toolsets for architectural, HVAC and plumbing, and building electrical design, all within a single dataset.  It can also make use of both Dynamic Views and Drawing Extraction for drawing production.

    www.bentley.com/.../AECOsim+Building+Designer



  • Thanks Steve,

    That helps a little.

    I'm still hoping for someone who has used both products to provide some insight.  

  • There is a vast difference between the two products, and which one you should use completely depends on what kind of drawings you deliver and level of detailing. My company uses both of them (at this point only the steel part of ProStructures, we are moving towards the concrete as well). The ratio we have is 20+ building designer users to 4 ProStructures users with different skill level (actually our transition to building designer is in it's early stage so we are still mainly on Bentley Structural Modeler).

    -Can you model everything in Prostructures that you can in AECOSIM (structurally at least)?
    Easy answer is yes, but I'll explain more further down.

    -Can a Prostructures model be integrated into a multi-discipline AECOSIM model seamlessley?
    Very good question! Yes and no. You need to have a separate PS model. We are currently doing a couple of projects where we build a master model mixed of steel from ProStructures and concrete from Structural Modeler, however it is not without problems. Bentley has provided an object enabler for Microstation, but it works only on a graphical level. That is the object show up on the screen but are not recognized by either drawing extraction manager or by Building views. What I am doing at the moment, in lack of another solution, is to convert a copy of my PS dgn to an ACIS dgn and drop everything. This is incredibly stupid and messes up parts and families and has a lot of other drawbacks, but it's the only workflow I have found working to get DEM to read the steel. The object enabler also have compatibility issues at the moment, the drama involves Microstation SS2 and SS3, ProStructures SS4 and SS5 and AECOsim Building Designer. If you are really interested I could give it a try to explain what versions work with each other, but that would take all day. I really hope this is sorted out very soon.

    -Is AECOSIM more for modeling a whole structure but Prostructures is more for detailing?
    Yes. If you are familiar with Bentleys competitors you can compare AECOsim with Revit and ProStructures to Tekla. Both of them can model a whole structure, but ProStructures can do it all the way down to the nuts bolts and rebars.

    -Which is easier to model a structure in, Prostructures or AECOSIM. Is there a difference in the modeling ease for Proconcrete or Prosteel?
    Modeling is not to different in the two, but the question is a bit irrelevant. One thing is that its obviously more time consuming to do a detailing model complete with copes, mounting spaces, plates, nuts and bolts. But here is the main thing in my opinion, ProStructures has a very high learning threshold. It's an extremely complex product. It can achieve wonders but requires a lot of training and many hours of tweeking the settings. The main part of this labour is in the settings that control drawing outputs. I must also say this is normal to expect from a detailing software and it's more or less the same if you compare it to it's competitioners (like Tekla, Graitec Advance Steel and StruCAD.) With the concrete detailing competition from other software is very thin.

    What product you should use really comes down to what you are doing. If you do whole structures and no detailing you would go bancrupt if you swithed to ProStructures. But if you do manufacturing drawings (thousands) ProStructures is a kick ass product producing detailing drawings at an impressive pace. You also get part lists, shipping lists, bolt lists, assembly plans, 3D-view drawings and more . But remember to start slowly and request a lot of help from Bentley in the start up phase, it takes hundreds of hours to learn and set everything up if you start from scratch.

  • Interesting to hear these comments, thanks Ingemark.

    To get ProSteel steel beams and columns recognized by BuildingDesigner, I recommend that you try ISM (or even SDNF).  For steel beams and columns I think you should be able to have them drawn by DEM or DV's (not so much for plates, slabs, etc).

    Jim



  • Hi Jim, I very much appreciate your reply.

    ISM might be a possible solution (it just recently got available in the SS5 release candidate of ProSteel). However this adds no value to me in the detailing process since it's an export/import process compared to the changes showing up on the fly in the master model as is the case with the object enabler.

    We also need to see the full details in the master model. One example is if a steel connection intrudes on a precast concrete slab, then the concrete detailer must be able to see this. Yet another argument is that we often deliver the master structural 3D model to the architect. If there are visible steel connections he wants to see them, it's also pretty neat when they show up in renderings. They are also required in collision detection with HVAC.

    I think ISM is more useful the other way, Building Designer to PS. Then someone quickly can make the general structure in BD and a steel detailer can take over the model via ISM.

    I am not at all clear right now what work flow we are going to use in the future, a lot of things are happening right now with new versions of pretty much all of the software. But in projects where we do both general arrangement drawings and manufacturing drawings it would be very valuable if DV could read the PS objects. This will also require the possibility to add data catalog properties to PS objects.

    Ingemar