Autodesk criticised by architects • Hacker News Board

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#311

Post by MiroF » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #268

heimatau wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an emerging EE, I fully agree. I honestly believe it could be done with solid quality. Early today I saw this very old video of Elon at SpaceX with their design software [1]. It's amazing to me that this video was six years ago. Revit is the prized gem. Whomever creates it, focus on Revit and focus on the pain-points. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNqs_S-zEBY

Musk is espousing a UX fallacy by saying that a more "natural" interface is superior. Natural interfaces have a shallower learning curve for beginners, but CAD designers are all going to be expertly trained in their software. This is why pros always know the hot keys even when the mouse is simpler. Hot keys are faster. Learning how to pan, tilt and zoom with a mouse and keyboard is an 1 hour lesson that they will app…

I think that many commentators here on HN will be very unused to the market that Autodesk serves - mostly trained engineers who have been doing this stuff for decades, not so easy to "disrupt."

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#312

Post by MiroF » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

mcnaKa wrote: post #175

jacquesm wrote: post #27

Interesting that the criticism is levelled at Autodesk 'the company' rather than that it admits what people don't want to say: Autocad is pretty good, and it will take a large and well funded entity to take it on. Using anti-trust tools may be the right tool here but the industry as a whole was quick to adapt to Autocad long before it became a dominant player. Autocad - not Autodesk - has many 100's of years of devel…

But what value does it bring, especially for architects (the topic of this discussion)? Buildings are getting worse and worse, perhaps people should be creative again, throw their computers away and literally go back to the drawing board instead of pushing buttons.

Okay, well that can be your startup's idea, meanwhile Autodesk will keep chugging along with CAD.

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#313

Post by MiroF » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:09 PM UTC

jfindley wrote: post #256

twelvechairs wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not just Autodesk, all big software shops tend towards low innovation. Look at Adobe, ESRI, even Microsoft office etc. Core products often haven't changed appreciably in 20 years - the business/money isn't in innovation, it is in having proprietary file formats that are industry standards and bundling big packages of software together that makes it hard to shift off the platform.

Whilst that's true, there's also a question of degree. Revit, which is the source of complaint here, takes long enough to open your file you might as well go make a sandwich while it does so. The developers only found out that CPUs have multiple cores somewhere around 2017, and still haven't really worked out how to actually use more than one core for anything much. They still appear to be largely unclear what a "GPU…

Multithread is not as easy as you think for a legacy application this big.

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#314

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

syshum wrote: post #198

fsloth wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..…

[deleted]

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#315

Post by neutronicus » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #264

tomxor wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps i'm being idealistic but if the cycle is that aggressive this screams for architects to start caring about buying FOSS. When you buy software it's an investment - you invest your time in integrating it into your workflow and your employees learning to use it... your investment is tied to the future of that software. If it's FOSS (funded), no amount of money autodesk throw at it can bury it's source code, buyi…

I think it's definitely possible. Look at Blender and GRASS GIS, some of the most successful open source projects among non-programmers of all time. Architecture tool is merely the midpoint between those too domains, right? :D

Blender is programming-adjacent (a lot of Blender users are employed by software businesses to create assets for distribution with software products). In particular, I think that's where a lot of the funding for it comes from.

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#316

Post by Ericson2314 » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #283

Ericson2314 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's definitely possible. Look at Blender and GRASS GIS, some of the most successful open source projects among non-programmers of all time. Architecture tool is merely the midpoint between those too domains, right? :D

Architecture tools are way more niche. I think a better place to look is mechanical CAD: how many decent open source mechanical CAD programs are there? Approximately one: SolveSpace. And that is quite basic - even simple stuff like bevels is not supported. Absolutely nobody whose livelihood depended on it would use it. It's just too niche and too complicated for there to be enough developers willing to writing it for…

My uneducated guess was that engineering tools have a lot more hard requirements than architecture CAD. That's why architects higher engineers to say whether their buildings will fall down!

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#317

Post by neutronicus » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

clusterfish wrote: post #69

imgabe wrote: post #5

There's easily a multi-billion dollar opportunity for anyone who can unseat Autodesk from the building design industry. Revit is the standard, and while it's improved a lot over the years it's still so ridiculously far from where it could be. I don't think people in software realize how incredibly far behind software tooling is in other industries. Take an idea like "version control for X" or "package manager for X"…

It seems to me that breaking into this industry, that is, defeating network effects that work to Autodesk's favor, would actually be harder than building the superior product itself. Anyone on the inside, am I wrong? Would your company readily switch to a superior product, retrain its employees for it, deal with business partners who haven't heard of that new product, etc.?

I work for a company that makes a living off of poaching Architectural AutoCAD customers.

Granted, it has also existed for a quarter century so it has its own network effects going.

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#318

Post by neutronicus » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #99

amelius wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the software has an almost identical UI?

It doesn't matter if you can't simply import Revit projects into it and work as usual. That is how Excel got its foothold into the spreadsheet market dominated by Lotus 123 at the time, you need to support the current de facto file standard for that industry/task.

Revit / AutoCAD import / export is sine qua non - everyone in this space is going to offer it before going to market.

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#319

Post by MiroF » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

bfuclusion wrote: post #71

tsimionescu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think it will take less time and money for a firm of architects to build an equivalent to the most powerful architecture CAD system in the world, even for their specific use case, and that they wouldn't run afoul of Autodesk patents when doing so, then you have probably not played around with CAD software to much.

Let me clarify. I absolutely, completely, think doing this would be painful and take years. But if it's line of business critical and someone has you by the throat, then you have to make the long term investments to survive. Even better, when you're done nobody can take it away from you. I just think by the time you get to the EU lobbying, regulator rulings, Autodesk dragging their feet, the appeals process, the fine…

> shorter and easier to write the software

There is nothing short or easy about writing Revit/BIM software and it couldn't be done with the 5 million dollars that these firms had been spending on ADSK products.

Re: Autodesk criticised by architects

#320

Post by polygotdomain » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

bschne wrote: post #14

aut0away wrote: post #2

It is a bit of a monopoly. I always respected people who used Rhino, while secretly thinking of them as needlessly contrarian. Now I just respect them. Besides the free Fusion 360 moat, Autodesk owns 3DS Max and Maya. Enough said.

Is rhino actually used for serious CAD work? From what I‘ve read/heard I thought it was mostly something used in student projects or design explorations because of grasshopper‘s visual programming functionality

To add to what the other user has said, it is used at a number of firms, but primarily in early stages of design. It's actually very solid for actual drafting (Rhino originated out of an AutoCAD plugin), and does freeform surface modeling very well. It's the middle piece, bringing the design into a set of drawings, that is the sticking point, and something that Revit automates very well. It's not that Rhino can't do it, it's that it's a very manual process that requires a lot more steps and structured process than most firms are willing to invest. Also, the kind of work you'd use Rhino for doesn't flow well to other downstream CAD or BIM software that architects typically use. Yes, you can easily export linework, but at that point, you might as well keep it in Rhino.

Somewhat unrelated, but Rhino's SDK is really solid and gives a ton of access to the software. It's amazing some of the things that can be done with it, and Rhino as a whole, but at the same time it's producing construction documents that's where the rubber meets the road as far as Architecture is concerned.

Source: Former architecture student and Rhino plugin developer