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#249 by Draw4Food
Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:36 pm
I am thinking about getting a new residential drafting software. There seems to be a lot of buzz about Revit, Archicad, and Chief Architect. Other than price, what advatages are there to Datacad over these?

My objective is to complete basic construction prints as quickly as possible. A lot of my work involves making changes to a base model, so I am particularly interested in how datacad compares to a fully parametric application.
#274 by Clayton Taylor
Wed Feb 16, 2005 5:42 pm
I think price must play some part in the decision taking, as for sure I perhaps would have purchased ArchiCAD by now. But having said that, if the person driving a parametric CAD application is as good as a DataCADDER, then the parametric chap should be doing less over all editing. as if you alter say a window position, then the elevations & all other stuff related to it should update as well.

So you'd have to compare like for like packages to be fare, DC has 3D in the box, but this is way way too long in the tooth to take seriously,.......geeeesss this is my pet wish list to get updated, but it seems this is taking forever, SketchUP in the mean time is saving the day & is fun to use. Anyway DC is just about the fastest 2D CAD application there is.........it's just great for this type of work. If you need smarter 3D as well, and bearing in mind the purchase cost, then SPIRIT is perhaps the next step up from DC, as they both have fast 2D abilities but SPIRIT has it's 3D ZAC as well. When SPIRIT VER 12 is out, we will be looking into it to add to our CAD tool box, that is, if DC hasn't surprised us all with some new 3D power updates.

Over & out,

Clayton
#282 by Draw4Food
Wed Feb 16, 2005 8:42 pm
Thanks Clayton,

I have not heard about spirit, I will look into it. I have heard good things about sketckup. 3d is not a high priority right now, but I might need to add it in the future to be competitive.

Your example about moving windows exactly describes what I am after, my main motivation is to save time and if I can drag a window in one view and it changes them in all views, then that is a good thing. My concern is that in practice, these programs don't do the job a easily as advervised. If it is more work to change the one parametric model than change the four or five sets of layers in datacad, then it isn't worth while (unless you need the 3d)
#324 by Ernie Bayles
Thu Feb 17, 2005 12:13 pm
Draw4Food wrote:I am thinking about getting a new residential drafting software. There seems to be a lot of buzz about Revit, Archicad, and Chief Architect. Other than price, what advatages are there to Datacad over these?

My objective is to complete basic construction prints as quickly as possible. A lot of my work involves making changes to a base model, so I am particularly interested in how datacad compares to a fully parametric application.


Dear Draw.

I am a very loyal user of both DataCad and Chief Architect. I believe there are more than just me that have found that DataCad just isn't up to snuff as a modeler and have gone to Chief A. for that. But Chief is a lousy drafting program. In my practice, I really need both. In Datacad, you can draw anything you want, in a parametric modeler, like CA, you can only draw what is in the database. This can be limiting, but if you're mostly modifying stock plans, it is unlikely you would need anything beyond what CA can give you.

Chief Architect currently retails for about $2400. This is a lot to spend if you need to buy a basic drafting package as well. But my investment has paid me back many times. The software is amazing and the company is constantly upgrading in huge leaps.

But if I only had one platform in the office, it would be DataCad, no question.

Spend some time looking over your options and see if you can get a demonstration from someone who uses the programs you're interested in. You really can't judge things on a web site.

Good luck.

Ernie
#450 by Mark Bell
Mon Feb 21, 2005 4:36 pm
Making changes to either '2D' documentation and or preferrably an 'intelligent' model used as your 2D work is, in my opinion the way future design will evolve. I've been using DataCAD since 1991 and jumped over from AutoCAD (which I'd used for about 7 years prior). There's alot of packages available today and they can more or less all do the same thing at the end of the day.

Software such as Revit, Triforma and Archicad (BIM) require you to create a virtual model and use that for most of your output. You still need to produce 2D lines and curves etc. for documentation so don't be fooled to believing that the model is everything. We've just had the Archicad rep visit town and has tried to encourage mant DataCADder's to jump ship. The produce a slick sales pitch and we've gone through and compared how we currently design (DataCAD PLus/ZAC + DataCAD11) to the BIM-approach of Archicad. DataCAD still appears much faster in the majority of editing techniques. Archicad is still a cluttered, overly complex interface, but it does produce the results.

I tend to believe the BIM-approach still has some distance to go - if an object isn't in the database you have to spend the time creating it so you can use it - this takes time.

As an alternative, DataCAD Plus and Spirit (German DataCAD) uses Hybrid parametrics which allows you to combine 2D/3D/smart3D all in one. If it isn't in the database you can substitute 2D/solid3D or create your own ZAC component - it's flexible. The other benefit is it works like most traditional CAD packages whereas Archicad requires some unlearning before you can pick up speed.

I'd encourage you to look at DataCAD plus or Spirit as both allow you to insert doors and windows and when you make a change in one they automatically update in your elevations/3D model.

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