Tuesday, March 8, 2016

So.....which is faster, Autocad or Revit?

I have just spent most of the weekend producing 10 videos, uploaded to Youtube, for the Autocad section of this test.  Just a bog standard NZ house, single level, part brick and weatherboard.

Plan, elevations, and 2 sections: 2 and 1/2 hours, which is not too bad I thought.  So why have I just spent 6 hours at work, just altering a house that was already drawn?  Not sure really- could be that I am still feeling my way with how things are done.  For example: with a roof plan layout, you do not normally show the internal walls, unless they are load bearing.   Plus if you have land that is on a slope and you have to do a sectional view, all bets are off, as you have to massage a site plan to be acceptable.

Here is the link to the first of the 10:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieMeaGc8pDU

I am hoping to do the identical plan in Revit, which may cause skewed results because I am not a long time Revit user, but I will get a bit of practice in beforehand, next weekend.

It could be argued I do things the slow way, but I have tried my reasonable best to think of quicker ways of doing things.

About half my time was spent organizing blocks and a pull down menu.  I tried to do a few screen shots, but you cannot hold a pull down menu down and then use the snipping tool. If you watch the videos, you will see this in action - albeit with some blocks not coming in because their name was not quite right!

Pull down menus are really easy to make, and if someone else on the network wants it, it takes 2 minutes to install it for them.

This is the format to use:

***MENUGROUP=GMB
***POP18
[Details 2D]
[->Decks-Joining to House]
[Weather boards]-insert;"C:/CAD/GB/Details-2D/Decks-joining to house/DTH-150X50 Joists-to Weatherboards.dwg";\1;1;0;
[Bricks]-insert;"C:/CAD/GB/Details-2D/Decks-joining to house/DTH-150X50 Joists-to Weatherboards-to Existing Lower Brick Wall.dwg";\1;1;0;
[<-butynol ecks-joining="" etails-2d="" font="" house.dwg="" house="" insert="" joists-deck="" sloping="" to="" towards="">
[->Decks-outer edge]

You just make this using Notepad, then in Autocad use customise user interface, to insert it.

There are no doubt really good explanations on how to do this on the internet.

One of my ones I was was quite proud of was an inserted window block in plan, which brought in it's elevation at the same time.  Another time saver was the one to insert whole rooms at once, eg bathroom, toilet and so on.  The block for doors was not wonderful, and a bit clunky to use.  Could have been a dynamic block.

Here is the final result:



2 comments:

Unknown said...

So... which is faster? :)

Thanks for sharing your experiences

Elliott Rosenfeld
Learning Content Developer @ Autodesk

rzaffari said...

Hi there.

For your test, I suggest you put it in the same context Revit/Archicad as you had for Autocad. If you had UI changes in the latest, sure thing you could go deep in costumise things in BIM.

It is completely different to use a high tuned car then one of the shelf.

Add to that, there is much more value you can generate from de model or with a third party.

First try to achieve the same old result to the process. Draw every element. Then you can go use Dynamo. You will have a cluster of ideas on your hands. After all that, you will see it will increment exponentially the efficacy of this new process, allowing you to think in architecture and ways to spread it.

Good luck!