Hi,

I work for a small architects practice and at the rate the economy is going we could be getting smaller but we do require an update to our cad software. We need something that can produce decent 3d drawings and animations without breaking the bank.

The current option would be Autocad 2012 (£4200) and 3ds Max (£2800) but that really does seem like a lot of money for the our fairly unsophisticated output.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Not sure on Architecture but you can get Product Design Suite Ultimate for around £6500, which has all those and many, many more.
Get em’ quick before they put the prices of these bundles up!

Autodesk Inventor?

I’d use the free version of Google Sketch Up, infact my old practice switched to that from AutoCAD for 3D work.

I reckon some one should get Nigel Havers to endorse one of these products, just for a laugh.

Isn’t Revit (Autodesk) the standard these days. Google sketchup for early stage stuff.

Why use full autocad when you can use LT and 3DSM? In my last practice we bought Revit and that includes full AutoCAD. Produced good planning drawings, working drawings, images and I’m pretty sure fly arounds

Solidworks maybe? Think it’s currently ~£1500 a year, depending on your support package. Seem to recall there were lots of archives of pre-built architectural features to add to your models off the 3ds portal *

* – you may want to investigate this/maybe bollx now – we’ve not been covered by support for a couple of years, since the move to the big, corporate, 3ds-land!!!!

Al we do is use the basic commands to draw polylines, extrude, subtract union etc. in CAD and then import the model to 3D Studio where we apply materials and create a fly through with sun/daylight and do some renders. The most complicated thing we’re likely to animate is a few opening doors or a car driving along the road past the building.

Paying over £5000 seems a lot or is that just the going rate?

Revit is more than just a 3D drawing tool though. Sketch Up can produce photo-realistic views and fly throughs as well.

Taff – Am I right in thinking you can’t create 3D models in LT meaning that you’d do the modelling in 3DS Max?

We currently create the model in AutoCad and then import that into 3DS Max but it might be more economical to just learn to do the modelling in max and stick to 2d in cad.

Check out ArchiCAD.

We’ve just transferred over in the last 6 months.

Before that we used ADT (Architectural Desktop – Autodesk) and sketch-up for 3d renderings etc, always the issue though that when you amend anything in your CAD package you have to independantly amend the sketch-up file.

ArchiCAD you are pretty much drawing the whole building in 3D, we can create 3D walkthroughs and even an executable file that you can send to a client and they can walk through waht you have drawn completely independatly like a computer game. Known as BIM software – Autodesk has revit.

Not sure on costs here as not my department – bit of a shift from ‘traditional’ CAD but we’re getting used to it.

EDIT: oh yeah, we’re an office of 4 so not exactly a massive company with huge budget.

We use ACAD LT and Sketch-up. If you want photo-realistic rendering then there are various plug-ins available for Sketchup, such as V-Ray, that cost a couple of hundred pounds.

IMO 3D Studio Max is wasted for architecture: You just don’t need the high-end special effects that 3DS has to offer.

I had a look at Archicad and thought it looked quite good and a lot more reasonably priced than the Autodesk products.

BIM is something we know very little about. How relevant is it going to become for small practices?

Honestly not sure yet – but it certainly impresses the ‘lay’ client when you can hand over a disk with a walkthrough of their house/building and they can control it like a computer game and go where they like (as long as its been drawn!) Then as the project goes on adding the real materials etc.

The biggest benefit I have found is that everything is linked – because you are building a model – you change something on plan and it automatically updates the plans/elevations/sections – no need to swap between programs/reliant on ‘remembering’ to update all the drawings.

It is by no means perfect, probably because we are all ingrained to the Autodesk way of the thinking, but the longer we are using it the more we like it.

I’m not partuclarly good at photoshop/3DSmax and all the ‘pretty’ software, but the other guys reliably inform me that the standard out-of-the-box rendering is pretty good.

I had probably better add, because we used ADT previuously wihich uses ‘intelligent’ objects it probably was not such a massive shift to ArchiCAD than if we soley been using AutoCAD (I think there is a difference).

Maybe do a 30 day trial of one of these?

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&id=16406616

Personally I am loving using Mudbox for product design concepts 🙂 Digital clay modelling, crazy.

We now use Autocad lt and sketch up pro. Getting some really good results on it too but we farm out our major 3D work to get it looking sh*t hot. YOu’re correct LT is only 2D

IMO 3D Studio Max is wasted for architecture: You just don’t need the high-end special effects that 3DS has to offer.

if you know your onions in 3ds Max your can save yourself an awful lot of rendering time. The real time DirectX HLSL shader interface can produce some very impressive results… Giving realtime fly throughs and first person walkarounds.

3Dstudio always used to be split into 2 different products.
3DS Max was for characters etc
3DS Viz was for architecture

Vis was great because you could import floor plans direct from A-Cad, then extrude them up to window height, add windows n doors from the library, then carry n up to ceiling height.

It was very quick, and very easy to do walkthroughs etc

You could take a photo and triangulate the position and add it in as a background to show the new building in its actual surroundings.

It also had lots of usefull stuff based on plot position and sun trajectory to show light throw through the house over a full year.

Not sure if that is still the case, been a few years since I used it in Anger.

Solidworks would be worth looking at, it has a lot of usefull add-ons, the Rendering and animation is very easy to use, and it integrates very well with existing DXF / DWG Autocad drawings.
Its also fully parametric so the drawing is linked to the model / assembly and updates as you make changes.

Its a bit of a shift away from Architects std 2D stuff, but you`ll soon get used to modelling in 3D and letting the CAD package do the boring 2D stuff.

It also helps when checking fit of big assemblies etc

HTH
Dom

cr500dom – change a couple of the words there and you could almost be describing ArchiCAD.

Maybe my ignorance or fear, but I would always tend towards an Architecture focused program. (I apprececiate that autodesk was/is originally for engineering).

I use Sketchup, 3ds Max Design, AutoCAD lt, and Revit.

All depends on the work you do, Revit has surprised me, if it’s standard stuff great, and IIRC it has a version of mental ray built in, so IES lights, blurry effects are achievable in renderings/animations (albiet you’ll need some serious GHZ behind you)

I much prefer doing visuals in Max, it renders faster with much more control. Backburner is great for queuing your renderings to run at night etc.

All my projects tend to start in Scratchup -> proper CAD work in acad LT, then into Max. I’ve only just started looking at Revit, but certainly seems pretty good, just not sure of it’s draughting capabilities. It doesn’t work with aa coordinate system as such :S

I hate working in sketchup, but should really use it more. If you are looking at outsourcing any 3d visualisation work drop me a line 🙂

Ok, we’re deffinitely going to be stumping up some cash for new software in the new year and if the budget can stretch to it then it’ll be BIM.

The question is what is the difference between the various BIM packages ie. Revit, Archicad, Microstation etc. apart from cost. For me Archicad looks like the way to go for a small practice but I could be wrong?

All the kids (well, young adults) that are on architecture courses that come back to say hello (I taught them all Design at school) say the main package they are using at uni is Rhino these days. I’ve played with it and it doesn’t look very architecture friendly but what do I know! Easy to use though.

We use Solidworks which you get educationally very cheap. One thing I’ve wondered about with it is the lack of compatibility between each year’s edition. In industry it must tie you to pretty much always going for some sort of supported package with annual updates because it would be a pita if you couldn’t open a file from a client as you were a year behind.

Yes that’s one of the worries that we have – cross compatibility is a big issue. For instance if we were to buy Archicad would consultants that we issue drawings to be able to open them in AutoCad still?

2D have a look at Draftsight (it’s free and made by Dassault as their take on AutoCAD). We use Solidworks and Creo at work (not buildings though). Solidworks is the better choice….Draftsight is pretty good though and easy to use if you’re used to AutoCAD. Have heard talk about Sketchup being really good…..

I’m a big fan of Microstation, simple and easy to use for 2D and 3D, and when used properly up there with 3D studio max for rendering. Compatible with Autocad, and doesn’t change file formats at all so forward and backwards compatible with itself. But the future, for big projects at least, is Revit and thankfully my training starts in the new year. Knowing how to use it is a big plus too when looking for work at the large London practices.

All the ‘kids’ we employ come to us only able to use Rhino, it’s great for modelling complicated shapes for unbuildable student projects, but frankly rubbish for anything you’d ever want to build.

Microstation and Photoshop should be all you really need to produce everything from jazzy visuals to construction info.

We’re updating now and going to REVIT LT. Comes with AutoCAD LT and its about 1700

Today’s SketchUp email had an interesting video link which surprised me a bit in terms of 2D CAD.
It uses a plugin called LayOut. Quite an eye-opener.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3xUOAicq-Y[/video]

(disclaimer, I only use sketchup for simple models of product designs and have no experience with it as a CAD tool, other than my shed.)

I think LayOut comes with SketchUp pro
http://www.sketchup.com/product/layout.html

We went to a CPD (sales pitch) on Revit the other day and it looked great and it’s easy to see the benefits of BIM but they were saying that Revit would be between a 6k and 10k investment per person. I can’t see any reason for paying that much compared to Archicad which is considerably cheaper but on a personal note would I struggle to transfer over to Revit in the future if I desperately needed to or are the two programmes relatively similar?

We’re microstation with sketch up for initial modelling.
We also split between the 2ders on resi etc and the 3ders on infrastructure works.
One of my teams has just finished its 3rd fully coordinated 3d project model (with m&e, ph, structures, civils) then running clash detection software to ensure that there’s no (or at least reduced uhoh moments later). The ability to cut extractions and generate actual sections/ plans is very useful and I’m in the process of convincing my other partners in adopting this across other sectors. I think that we can say that we’re working BIM level 2 without our noses growing too long and will be looking to develop it further with training set up for early next year to broaden our ability to deliver projects in this way.
Maybe in a couple of years I’ll be able to justify one of those model printing machines… That’ll be fun as long as I keep the key to turn it on as I’ve seen how much the powder costs.

Whereisthurso – 6-10k? Even for full Revit that is OTT.