B3 - Singh, Prahlad - How does Revit relate to AutoCAD and other drafting programs?

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As discussed during the class, Revit is after all a drafting program and relates to AutoCAD and other drafting programs on different levels. There are many similarities and differences between Revit and other drafting programs. Revit and AutoCAD are both computer aided drafting programs that allow the user to draft models in 2D and 3D.

Similarities between the drafting programs included the ability to import pictures, attachments, etc. into most of the programs. They all can integrate each other’s files but do not have the full range of capabilities as the file would have had in its parent program.

As discussed among our group the major difference between Revit and other drafting programs lies in Revit’s superior 3D modelling capabilities and its ability to edit models in real time over different programs as told to us during the latest lecture. Revit has a higher level of detail than other drafting programs due to its immense detail and size of the families and schedule creation. Revit also has the capability to export to an Excel sheet, showing the scheduling and estimation far more directly and faster as compared to the other programs

A major downfall of Revit and other drafting programs is the requirement of a high level graphics card and the fact that their files are extremely big due to the shear amount of detail in each site. Sketchup does have relatively smaller size files due to the lack of detail and fineness.

The Autodesk website actually allows you to compare Revit and AutoCAD side-by-side, as well as some other drafting programs. If you are to scroll down on this page and find the instances where the section contains a check mark for both Revit and AutoCAD, you will find that there is only one. This is the section for "Point cloud viewing and editing". This is actually something we have discussed previously in class and allows users to create and edit 3-D models across different platforms using the cloud to share the model.

Autodesk Inc. is now the leading software corporation that does not only provide designing programs. It is also looking forward to provide building visualization that involves cinematic-quality 3D animation in its new software called Building Design Suite Premium 2015. Technology keeps advancing each year to provide more ease that help generations to make a better production in designs.

Sources

http://www.autodesk.com/products/autocad/overview

http://www.autodesk.com/products/revit-family/overview

Comments to others

Joe Chaudhari: Joe I love how you mentioned the quote “giving a man a fish will feed him for a day, but teaching him how to fish will feed him forever”. I agree with you 100% slowly as the programs become more and more advanced or “user friendly” the engineer will become lazier and take it all for granted as the software will be doing most of the work.

Chris Sager: As you spoke about the computing power of the programs, I think it too is a very important aspect. As students we do not have huge projects but it still takes time to start the program, I can’t even imagine a project even on a small scale as suppose LeBow would have taken ages to startup leave alone render.

Maissoun Ksara: Don’t you think that the compatibly issue is one of the present also? It could be improved on in the future, but I do agree with you it is one of those very important issues. I agree with you points you brought up on how people will start disregarding the fundamental design theory and begin to make mistakes and just cover it up by troubleshooting, but then a time will come where the design is so far gone that nothing can be done but restart the whole project.