forum.datacad.com

I just learned about SoftPlan. Any feedback from Dcad users?? It would be interesting to hear pros & cons.

I have had some interfacing with a Softplan user. He was doing some drafting of stock house plans for a company where I am their outside consulting architect. When I would want him to do certain things to his drawings, coming from my DCAD mentality, he couldn't do them nearly as easily as with DCAD. He had to define all of the wall types in a building and then couldn't easily change colors or linetypes for those walls after they had been defined and drawn. It seemed that Softplan worked with building systems and the user has to pre-define all of those systems and then assemble them into a building. OK for the first time but then cumbersome to make simple edits and changes to the plans.

He was able to do immediate 3D massing models which was good and bad. Bad, in my opinion, because he had to take the time to input 3D info to all of his plain 2D lines and walls. I just wanted him to do 2D construction drawings and didn't need nor want his 3D work or the time it took him. Softplan was able to do immediate materials calculations so if a user needs that ability, it's there.

So, it is different from DCAD and from ACAD and from lots of other CAD programs. He swears by it and won't change similarly to how I am sold on DCAD and it will be the only CAD program I use until I am looking at the roots side of the grass.

It is fine for cookie cutter single family homes. I've seen it demonstrated, and even on a garrison colonial the soffit board on the cantilever overhang was missing - and there was no way to put it there! Except drawing it in by hand on the plot...

You would have zero chance of doing townhouses with elevation or plan offsets either.

In my opinion, SoftPlan is an expensive way to draw stock house plans with variations.

Thank you gentlemen. Looks like Dcad is still OK. I only wish the other decisions were just as simple.