Can anyone compare Chief Architect to Acad?

I am looking for an alternative to AutoCAD for architectural drafting.
How does Chief Architect fit that bill?
Thanks,
Nick C

 

In a previous post Niko says...

When you say "Architectural Drafting" what kind of things are you trying
to draw?

If 2D stuff then Chief can do it, but is not very flexible in how the
information is presented. On the other hand if you want to do elevations
and 3D views then Chief might be the ticket.

I've been working with an architect who uses Sketchup for the renderings
and other "picture" views and Visual Cadd for the 2D construction
drawings. He imports both bitmaps and DXF's from Sketchup into Visual
Cadd to complete his construction sets.

 

The one guy I know that uses Chief tells me that it is great from the 3D
standpoint but when it comes to the details, he uses Turbocad.

 

Don't know about "Chief Architect". I use "ProgeCAD 2005" which is the
original authors of "IntelliCAD". For a FREE program, it does all A/C and
more. In fact, saves work as A/C *fill in the edition* format.

 

Thanks for replies. I do mostly 2D floorplans & elevations for
residential and light commercial. I've worked with Acad for many years,
but heard that Chief has very good 3d capabilities, something that I
never explored in Acad in any depth.
Regarding the last post, I was not aware that any other program
(Progecad 2005?) was able to generate native .dwg files
Niko C

 

Bob, i used to use Mechanical Desktop and Autocad 3d to do renderings of my
architural jobs, until
i found a great software called sketchUp. check it out at www.sketchup.com
you 400 free hours of use.
it is so simple and it is one of the best for 3D presentations. if you dont
want to download it. check out
their free tuturials to see how easy and simple this softare is.

LouR

 

In a previous post Niko says...

Take a look at the various flavors of Intellicad of which Progecad is
one (Cadopia and Bricscad are two more). There is also Virtual Drafter.

As I said in my earlier post some architects I'm familiar with use
Sketchup and Visual Cadd (which can open and save DWG files).

 

I'm a degreed architect and was a Chief Architect reseller. Yes, Sketchup is
amazing software but it is a conceptual design tool with no floor planning
tools -- using Sketchup for floor plans takes too much time to create and
modify compared to what I am recommending.

Chief Architect was literally developed by a rocket scientist from the
defense industry and unbeknownst to most people it made history as it was
literally the first object oriented CAD program to be sold commercially and
really does deserve the historical distinction. I can say this as I was 'in
the business' in some capacity since 1984 and have owned, resold, or used
practically every CAD program on the planet. About 2 years after Chief
Architect was released the copy cat Revit was developed and was quickly
snapped up by Autopimp who continues to sell it using the same name.

Let me put things into perspective though: Chief Architect is an outstanding
best floor planning and spatial design tool around -- arguably the best --
but its vector line work was always poor as was its detailing and
construction documentation capabilities. Its dimensioning was also flakey as
it had a goofy implementation of witness lines and so on. Things do change
though as my last reference point was release 3.5.

Here's the good news though... 3D Home Architect can be purchased for $69
from Broderbund which *is* Chief Architect rebranded and downsized. Since
day one Chief Architect has been licensed to Broderbund to raise money for
marketing Chief Architect. 3D Home Architect can literally be thought of as
Chief Architect Light.

3D Home Architect has all of the floor planning and related functions as
Chief Architect and is fantastic for residential or commercial floor
planning and space studies but does not have the residential builder
quantity take-off and estimating unctions that the more expensive Chief
Architect provides. I do not remember if 3D Home Architect supports dxf
export which would allow you to export to AutoCAD. Check it out because 3D
Home Architect is the best value. I've cranked preliminary designs in as
little as 30 minutes and had an agreement to proceed signed sealed and
delivered while sitting at a client's dining room table. I kid you not it is
the f*cking cat's meeow. 3D Home Architect is what you want to try out if
you want to buy into Chief Architect and even if you decide not to buy up 3D
Home Architect remains valuable.

Hey, why be a dummy and rely on us for advice though? Contact your local
residential builder's association and ask if you can attend a couple of
meetings as a guest. Talk to the builders themselves and find one or two who
use Chief Architect and get yourself invited to their office to see how it
is actually used in practice. I've NEVER met a residential builder that
would turn down a free lunch.

Finally, if you can justify paying the price of admission you should
evaluate Graphisoft's ArchiCAD as it is Autodesk's most successful
competitor for 2D or 3D A/E/C applications.

--
<%= Clinton Gallagher
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/

 

About a year ago, I was going to use 3D Home Architec to do a preliminary
for a custom house. Turns out that it is limited in the angles you can lay
the walls at. Ended up using Floorplan 3D. Worked much better.