Architecture firms to Autodesk: We're no longer happy with Revit

Issue #1,063   |    July 27, 2020

 

Reporting and opinion by Ralph Grabowski One of the good things today is that, with the Internet, you can effortlessly band together with like-thinkers when you don’t like how things are going. Some of the world’s largest architectural firms earlier this year banded together, because they don’t like how things are going with Revit. They had waited patiently for Autodesk to update the 20-year-old Revit, just as Autodesk had done with 20-year-old Inventor in creating Fusion for mechanical design. In 2016, Autodesk did announced that a new Revit would be forthcoming, code-naming it Project Quantum. It would operate as BIM-in-the-cloud and pass data to modules as they needed it. Later, it was re-code-named Project Plasma; then, so far, nothing more.    During the Revit launch event at Harvard University, April 5, 2000 Competitors didn’t stand still. During this time, Vectorworks smoothly replaced the entire kernel of its 35-year-old architectural software with Parasolid, giving it new capabilities. Bricsys wrote a BIM module from scratch for BricsCAD. Graphisoft, whose ArchiCAD BIM modeler is 38 years old, this year completed, in three years, Project Everest. In it, applications (including non-Graphisoft ones) get from the BIM model only the data they need to do their analysis, and then return it to ArchiCAD quickly. Together with Graphisoft’s BIMcloud server, the Everest concept is similar to what Autodesk had hoped to deliver with Quantum. Something at Autodesk, it seemed, was amiss.   The Survey & the Letter Architectural firms in England and Australia, some of whom work globally, had standardized on Revit, partly due to government mandating it for its own projects. Waiting four years for the promised neo-Revit became, for them, long enough.   And so they conducted a survey amongst themselves to find that their level of satisfaction with Autodesk and Revit ranged between 1 and 3 -- out of 10, the highest. This tells me that there is a great deal of anger, when survey respondents aren’t giving a "could do better" 5/10.   So they wrote a letter to CEO Anagnost, listing their concerns. It is signed by the IT design directors at 17 firms, including Zaha Hadid Architects, and not signed by eight more*. In it, they described their experiences with Revit since 2015: BIM models that must broken up, because Revit cannot handle today’s large projects well Lack of a data pipeline to handle the many sources of data in use today Limited Revit development in modern concepts like GPU processing, multi-cores, and virtual PCs Lack of a road map assuring users of a definite development path Enduring up to five different license models, with a sixth on its way  Up to a seventy-per-cent increase in Revit license cost between 2015 and 2019 Lack of trust in storing their intellectual property on Autodesk's cloud services (*) Fear of retaliation from some parts of the Autodesk organization The survey and letter are being made public today.   What Ralph Grabowski Thinks We have had hints as to why it seems Autodesk isn’t matching the architectural development strides of the likes of ArchiCAD. It may be its perception of near-monopoly (in some parts of the world) giving a sense of success; it may be its new emphasis on the much larger, potentially more lucrative construction market; it may be a difficulty in converting Revit to a modern code base – these are some of the hints.  The letter released today seems to indicate that 25 design firms don’t want to leave Revit (perhaps they can’t) as much as they want Autodesk to keep its promise of delivering better software, quickly, for architects who work nationally and globally. If nothing else comes of it, the survey and letter publicly expose an undercurrent of discontent with Autodesk. Perhaps others will add their names to the list of signatories.  Conceivably, the more serious problem facing the firms is this: what if Autodesk is unable to deliver a neo-Revit? It is not inconceivable. The firm failed to put all its software on the cloud by 2015, as held by former CEO Carl Bass. Among its competitors, Dassault Systemes, following years of determined announcements, never shipped a long-awaited program dedicated to architectural design. Architects understand their needs better than do software-only houses, and so perhaps a neo-IntelliCAD effort is necessary. This is conceivable, as large architecture firms already retain programming teams engaged in customization and who work regularly with ancillary software, such as the collection of crucial-to-design programs from Robert McNeel & Assoc. To it, add a BimRv backend and change-control API from the Open Design Alliance, throw in ARES-based 2D RVT/IFC drawing generation from Graebert, host IFC 4.x data on Bricsys' massive-data-handling BricsCAD -- and a new open-BIM star may be born in less time than it takes for Autodesk to come up with its next code name for neo-Revit.  Autodesk may be keen on capturing a portion of the world’s largest industry, but construction needs feeding from capable design software. The future, according to large architectural firms, is all about the conceptual stage of design, with AI to handle the detail work, and then pipelining data to automated construction machinery, much of it off-site. The future, in this scenario, may hold no place for Revit. - - -   For additional background on the events leading to today’s customer uprising, as well as the complete survey, letter, and list of signatories, check out AEC Magazine at aecmag.com/comment-mainmenu-36/2046-autodesk-aec-customers-demand-better-value.   Thank You, Readers Thank you to readers who donate towards the operation of upFront.eZine: Ross Goulter  Ken Anderson: "I appreciate your dedication and honesty. Refreshing in an industry that used to be a tight community. Reading for more that 20 years." 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Comments

[Ralph Grabowski]

The problem lies in file formats. Once a model is in Revit, it is not effortless to move to another system. IFC helps but is not perfect.

[Clayton Taylor]

There are more professional CAD & BIM software products to consider these days than waaayyyy overpriced AUTODESK products. I've never understood why larger practices & some individuals don't explore the market to recognise this fact & thus end up being VANILLA-CAD users & out of pocket. Instead of this tenuous lobbying, just change your CAD HB-PENCIL ! 😊

List of alternative CAD/BIM products than Autodesk:-

Cadline Network Ltd – ArchLine-Xp & LT (light) version
Graphisoft - ArchiCAD
Nemetschek - Allplan Architecture
Gehry Technologies - Digital Project Designer
Nemetschek - Vectorworks Architect
Bentley - Architecture
4MSA IDEA - Architectural Design (IntelliCAD)
CADSoft - Envisioneer
DataCAD LLC – Software for AEC Professionals
Softtech – Spirit Pro
Robert McNeel & Associates - Rhino 3D + VisualARQ
AutoDesSys - Form-Z
Edificius
SketchUp Pro
Bricsys – BricsCAD / BricsCAD BIM
FreeCAD Arch
Xeometric -EliteCad Architecture
Chief Architect
CadLogic - Draft it Architectural
NanoSoft - NanoCad Construction
ProgeSoft – ProgeCAD Architecture
Avanquest – TurboCAD Professional
Elecosoft – Arcon Evo
Visual Building Premium
ZWSOFT - ZWCAD Pro

[BIMFluff]

"Architectural firms in England and Australia, some of whom work globally, had standardized on Revit, partly due to government mandating it for its own projects."

This is not true. They did not mandate 'Revit'. They mandated 'BIM'. They are very different things. Revit does not equal BIM. Revit is software. BIM is a process.

[KEITH JACKSON]

I could have told them 10 years ago. Revit came from the stable of PTC's Pro/ENGINEER - perhaps the least flexible parametric modeler at that time. Users familiar with Autodesk products over time know they have never had a 'vision'. Revits founders played the market well tho.