Built on AutoCAD
AutoCAD Architecture is a product from Autodesk. It is built on AutoCAD and is intended specifically for architects. The product has been around for some time, even though its name was only changed in recent years. It was previously called AutoCAD ADT, which stood for Architectural Desktop.
In AutoCAD Architecture, objects known as building components have been predefined. The components represent, for example, doors, windows, walls and rooms. With the associated property sets, a wealth of data can be maintained in the components and custom values can be added. Multi-view blocks (MV blocks) display these on the plan, for example as room tags.
DWG and IFC
As AutoCAD Architecture is built on AutoCAD, it also uses its DWG and DXF formats.
A short story on this: in 2006, Autodesk planned to offer the IFC file format. For ADT, there was already a fairly good IFC interface from Inopso. This add-in had been developed over many years and was quite reliable. Negotiations with the company failed because Autodesk found the purchase too expensive. It then developed its own IFC interface. We were eager to see the first version and were quickly disillusioned. The IFC export worked with small drawings without any special features. As soon as real plans with more complex architecture were involved, there were regular crashes. It took another 3 to 4 versions before IFC in AutoCAD Architecture improved in quality and became truly usable.
Future
While sales figures for Revit are rising, those for AutoCAD Architecture are falling. We are curious to see whether it will still be on the market in 10 years. Although there are many users who like AutoCAD Architecture, the strengths of Revit are obvious.
Our experience
For AutoCAD Architecture, we have developed both add-ins and a special CAD-Viewer and CAD-Editor for displaying and editing plans with building components. It can be started independently of AutoCAD and embedded in programs as a component.
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