Which is faster? Autocad LT or Revit for drawing a house? The results are in!

You would hope this result is a reflection of the prices of Autocad LT and Revit, which is that at the time of writing, Autocad LT is Australian $530/year, and it seems they do not sell Revit by itself, but comes in a Revit Collaboration Suite, which is Australian $3,515/year, which presumably includes full Autocad.

The results are:

Autocad LT : 2.5 hours

Revit: 1.5 hours

Proof can be viewed at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCnowQThv4s

I came across as a bit of a novice user occasionally, so in the hands of an experienced user, you would expect an even quicker time.

Still, drafting is not all about creation of geometry, as I am finding in my job that the focus is not so much on the drawing as on the annotations.  I would prefer Autocad to do 2D annotations, but this could be my lack of familiarity with the Revit detailing options, which do have all sorts of nick nacks, for example to draw insulation, you just pick two points and there it is.

So.....which is faster, Autocad or Revit?

I have just spent most of the weekend producing 10 videos, uploaded to Youtube, for the Autocad section of this test.  Just a bog standard NZ house, single level, part brick and weatherboard.

Plan, elevations, and 2 sections: 2 and 1/2 hours, which is not too bad I thought.  So why have I just spent 6 hours at work, just altering a house that was already drawn?  Not sure really- could be that I am still feeling my way with how things are done.  For example: with a roof plan layout, you do not normally show the internal walls, unless they are load bearing.   Plus if you have land that is on a slope and you have to do a sectional view, all bets are off, as you have to massage a site plan to be acceptable.

Here is the link to the first of the 10:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieMeaGc8pDU

I am hoping to do the identical plan in Revit, which may cause skewed results because I am not a long time Revit user, but I will get a bit of practice in beforehand, next weekend.

It could be argued I do things the slow way, but I have tried my reasonable best to think of quicker ways of doing things.

About half my time was spent organizing blocks and a pull down menu.  I tried to do a few screen shots, but you cannot hold a pull down menu down and then use the snipping tool. If you watch the videos, you will see this in action - albeit with some blocks not coming in because their name was not quite right!

Pull down menus are really easy to make, and if someone else on the network wants it, it takes 2 minutes to install it for them.

This is the format to use:

***MENUGROUP=GMB
***POP18
[Details 2D]
[->Decks-Joining to House]
[Weather boards]-insert;"C:/CAD/GB/Details-2D/Decks-joining to house/DTH-150X50 Joists-to Weatherboards.dwg";\1;1;0;
[Bricks]-insert;"C:/CAD/GB/Details-2D/Decks-joining to house/DTH-150X50 Joists-to Weatherboards-to Existing Lower Brick Wall.dwg";\1;1;0;
[<-butynol ecks-joining="" etails-2d="" font="" house.dwg="" house="" insert="" joists-deck="" sloping="" to="" towards="">
[->Decks-outer edge]

You just make this using Notepad, then in Autocad use customise user interface, to insert it.

There are no doubt really good explanations on how to do this on the internet.

One of my ones I was was quite proud of was an inserted window block in plan, which brought in it's elevation at the same time.  Another time saver was the one to insert whole rooms at once, eg bathroom, toilet and so on.  The block for doors was not wonderful, and a bit clunky to use.  Could have been a dynamic block.

Here is the final result: