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Autodesk criticised by architects

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191–200 of 387 posts

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#191

Post by fsloth »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #98

Admittedly, I don't know very much about the requirements for CAD software, but I will say given building CAD software is extremely laborious and expensive, a key step is settling on a standard format for data exchange. When and during the time Google owned SketchUp, they made Collada/.dae export part of the community product, and eg Blender has really great support for Collada import (worked out of the box for a non…

There are many standards. Unfortunately the most used ones are called DXF (Autocad file) and RVT (Revit file).

There is an open standard called IFC that has a foothold.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_Foundation_Classes

Unfortunately, it's still second place in most cases.

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#192

Post by irjustin »

jxf wrote: post #190
Hokusai wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's easily a multi-billion dollar opportunity If I was able to build such a software that has potential on stealing Autodesk software. And Autodesk showed at my door with $50,000,000 in cash. I would sell it so fast that I would be flying in a hired private jet to some island free of the pandemic by next morning. The rational is simple. I will make up some numbers: If I have 1 chance in 1,000 to get 10 billion,…

> If I have 1 chance in 1,000 to get 10 billion, that is an expected value of 10 million (10b/1000). 50 millions is way better return than the expected value of 10 million. That sort of logic is true if you're starting from scratch. But if you've already grown to a $50M company, your chances of being a $1B company are much better. Put another way, if I pick a random person and ask you what the probability is that the…

It's easy to say. Hard to do.

$50m realized, now... cash in your pocket vs. maybe $1B.... but you don't know - there's a very real chance the company will die before that.

50m now vs 1b later is way too simplistic of a view.

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#193

Post by fsloth »

ur-whale wrote: post #63

There's so many bad things to say about AutoDesk beyond the unhelpful/broken "move to the cloud" ... But if I had to pick one, it's AutoDesk's systematic attempt to build a closed ecosystem à la FaceBook / Apple. They do it, among other things, via tight control of the data file format, and an ever-changing unpublished specification for those. There was a time when there was decent exporters in AutoDesk products, so…

"Getting a DXF or DWF into any other app in 2020 is a freaking nightmare."

At least you can do it on a non-Autodesk affiliated software stack that more-or-less works https://www.opendesign.com/

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#194

Post by syshum »

pyb wrote: post #33
geokon wrote: post #25

Does anyone know how caches and the internet archive are legal? I mean like some dude wrote this article (to I guess drive traffic to his website or freelancing work or for whatever reason) and then people are just straight up copying it over to their servers and redistributing his work. I'm just wondering what the legal mechanism is

Not everybody likes to hear it, but archive.is is an illegal operation. In some countries, posting archive.is links may even be illegal as well (it might be interpreted by a court as "Aiding and Abetting Criminal Copyright Infringement")

how i archive.is illegal but Way Back machine not? Seems odd that you isolate a single archive service as illegal instead of saying "Internet Archiving is an illegal operation"

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#195

Post by poseva »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #149
poseva wrote: post #50

As an structural engineer and former Autodesk user, I completely agree with the letter. I always saw Autodesk as a company where software goes to die a slowly painful death. It started with Autodesk Structural Detaling. They bought the software from a small company, renamed the product... and that was it. It had the same bugs release after release... we as customers tried our best to report the bugs, but nobody liste…

The gold standard around these parts is purported to be Tekla Structures. No affiliation, just a structural steel guru who’s happy to work with the fabrication drawings it spits out. I can spot Autodesk fabrication draws a mile away. Either the steel detailers don’t know how to configure it properly, it, as I suspect, it’s a steaming pile of dumpster fires. I used Autocad for 2D CAD quite a bit, and I don’t see the a…

Indeed. Autodesk Advance Steel generated fabrication drawings need a lot of effort to get it right but AS was ahead of Tekla in regard with connection design and modeling/detailing super strange parts/structures.

As for the prices...in 2014, 2 Advance Steel licences were something like 12000 euros and one Tekla license was about 18000 euros.

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#196

Post by buovjaga »

wappa wrote: post #36
buovjaga wrote: post #22

Would be great, if architects invested in free & open source software: https://www.patreon.com/yorikvanhavre https://blenderbim.org/ https://community.osarch.org/

They are so bad, it's not worth learning those tools, or even using them for hobby/home projects.

Are you arguing that the fundamental design choices in the code architectures are so bad that it is not worth investing in development? If so, what are you basing your claim on?

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#197

Post by tedd-the-tiger »

sfvisser wrote: post #20
CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #6

I'm surprised nobody in the Eurozone has raised similar issues about Adobe.

Europe should build their own software. Instead of complaining about US monopolies the EU should stimulate innovative startups right here. Create an environment where talent doesn’t flee to the US. And if it’s not about creating multi-billion dollar/euro companies, but civil liberties and data protection: just invest some spare pennies in open source alternatives. The only reason US (and Chinese) tech companies form…

CERN sponsors Kicad for EDA.

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#198

Post by syshum »

fsloth wrote: post #185
gorgoiler wrote: post #26

I don’t really understand SaaS for such mature products. My work (woodworking) is about making pieces of furniture. Using software is only a part of the process. It is not the actual goal. I want to pay a one off price for a stable and feature complete tool. I don’t want to fund a bunch of developers noodling around with new features I don’t want, or fixing bugs they should be patching anyway, as part of the original…

Large AEC clients actually prefer subscriptions. It's OPEX vs CAPEX. Purchasing a license comes with a huge CAPEX cost, while paying a monthly fee is OPEX so looks much less scary in the budget.

I always love comments like these,

Having been through this cycle a few times at different companies, the bean counters always love OPEX until you move everything to OPEX causing that annual budget to explode then all of a sudden they want to "Reduce costs", so people start shifting things to CAPEX until that budget explodes then they want to "Reduce annual capital spend" so people start shifting thing back to opex.....

And so the cycle goes, over and over again

bean counters and MBA's live in this mythical land where $100,000 over 5 years or $20,000 a year is some how different

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#199

Post by [deleted] »

amelius wrote: post #94
wappa wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way - you would have to teach all your employees - new software, and existing know-how templates will be all gone. Plus compatibility issues with your sub contractors would be nightmare. Productivity lost by adopting new tools would render firm non-competitive in this thin margin business, will likely make your P/L red.

What if the software has an almost identical UI?

[deleted]

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#200

Post by bitxbit »

cosmotic wrote: post #11

You could swap Adobe in for Autodesk and almost the entire letter holds true. High cost, few improvements, few alternatives. There's a little more competition these days with Adobe at least.

I actually wouldn’t mind the subscription model if they priced you for daily use. $0.99/day to use Adobe suite would be perfect.
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