The Global ARCHICAD Community

[Bricklyne Clarence]

........

First thing that hit me (years ago when i first got student version of Revit for $150 hee hee); was that I liked very much the Architectural mindset that created ArchiCAD; especially in comparison to the way Revit appears to be created by a room full of Engineers. Certainly powerful but oy vei the steps involved >> give me push/pull please (I first got form•Z in 1992 and MiniCAD to do the CD's. So i go waaaaay back. But always on a Mac and often doing visualization. ....

That might be because Revit was literally re-purposed from an Engineering program known as Pro-E back in the early '90's.
That's why it still feels (and acts) like an engineering program or like it was designed by a room of engineers (like the fact that you can only work in isometric projection in 3D view like the way they do in other engineering MCAD or product design software like Solidworks and the like - and not in true perspective view like we were taught in Architecture school, for example. Or the spreadsheet-like, 'Tax Form'-like interface and GUI navigation).

ArchiCAD was built from the ground up as an architectural design software, for architects and by architects,....as the saying goes.
It mostly remains true.

[LaszloNagy]

That might be because Revit was literally re-purposed from an Engineering program known as Pro-E back in the early '90's.
That's why it still feels (and acts) like an engineering program or like it was designed by a room of engineers (like the fact that you can only work in isometric projection in 3D view like the way they do in other engineering MCAD or product design software like Solidworks and the like - and not in true perspective view like we were taught in Architecture school, for example. Or the spreadsheet-like, 'Tax Form'-like interface and GUI navigation).

ArchiCAD was built from the ground up as an architectural design software, for architects and by architects,....as the saying goes.
It mostly remains true.

AFAIK, it was not re-purposed from Pro Engineer. It was developed by people who previously worked on Solidworks (and maybe Pro Engineer), but it is true, they were much more engineers than architects. And I agree that it really shows in how Revit looks and works.

About isometric vs. perspective: they have made a few improvements in that area so now you can move around in Perspective as well, and there are also several editing operations you can perform there. So it is no longer true that you can only work in Axonometric Views in Revit (it was true a few versions ago).

[Bricklyne Clarence]

........

AFAIK, it was not re-purposed from Pro Engineer. It was developed by people who previously worked on Solidworks (and maybe Pro Engineer), but it is true, they were much more engineers than architects. And I agree that it really shows in how Revit looks and works.

About isometric vs. perspective: they have made a few improvements in that area so now you can move around in Perspective as well, and there are also several editing operations you can perform there. So it is no longer true that you can only work in Axonometric Views in Revit (it was true a few versions ago).

Good to know it was improved in this regard.
It was a pain in the neck to work with when I used to use it years ago ( back in 2011) largely for that reason (among many many more).

Also, interesting to hear about the origins.
I had always understood that it had its roots in Pro-E.
Perhaps it was just the developers and not the core or the program itself who had links to Pro-E.
And yes it feels much more like an engineering program than an Architectural design software.

Colleagues I know who still use it even confess they do almost no design (in the traditional sense) while working with it and mostly just use it as a documentation tool more than anything and most of their firms use a combination of Sketchup and Revit or Rhino and Revit, - depending on the type of projects they work on - with Revit only coming into the picture once the main design issues have been resolved in those other software.

[Christophe Fortineau]

with Revit only coming into the picture once the main design issues have been resolved in those other software.

I have often made the same observation. Revit users seem not to be using Revit only but Revit with add-on software like Sketchup and Autocad ... Revit is incomplete or not adequate enough to force its users to add tools. Archicad users do not use Sketchup or an accompanying 2D drawing tools ... or very anecdotally.

[stefan]

Regardless of software, architects should preferably have successful projects. And the software itself does not define this success.

Other than that, there are countless similarities and differences. In the end it doesn't matter that much. If you are your own boss, you can choose for yourself. If you are an employee, somebody else made the choice for you, probably. Little you can do and hardly any benefit to switch, often.

ARCHICAD shows mostly its legacy of being focused on architecture and using a plan/drafting first approach. Start in plan, refine in 3D and sections.

Revit focuses on a broader scope, especially with MEP toolset. And many offices rely on custom library development, which seems to happen less with ARCHICAD users.

[Christophe Fortineau]

Regardless of software, architects should preferably have successful projects. And the software itself does not define this success.

Absolutely as I often say: "The tool does not use" (I hope I have translated well)