the things are getting even better:

Solid Works Live Building Preview

-rpict

Looks kind of like Revit meets TwinMotion.............VERY cool.
Nice 3D interface--modeling in perspective/camera view.
Love the Levels which let you "slice" the bldg. on the fly.
Adesk should be watching and learning from this.

They will probably be buying it...

I was thinking the same thing.....

Hey Carl did you hear Solidworks has these really cool features?, maybe we should create our own and implement them into Revit!

Carl: Nah, we'll just buy them out next quarter

There is an interesting discussion going on at the Solidworks forum. They are actually not really happy with the direction SW for AEC is heading. They get the impression that SW is after the general market instead of leading edge projects, which according to them is a wrong path to go. The "brick colonial" market is already covert by Revit, archicad, VW, while SW has a huge advantage in modeling tools over these applications. They should go after the concert halls, olympic stadiums, museums, clad structures in freeform stainless steel panels projects.

I do agree with these arguments, but I think it is easier for a software company to ad documentation tool, than to ad modeling tools on a weak geometry kernel. Revit has been struggling for years to improve it's modeling tools and to date it isn't near the capabilities of a mechanical application like Inventor, Catia or even Rhino. And catering to the masses generates more money. So, in that sense, I don't think Autodesk will try to acquire SW.

Thats precisely what I was thinking when I saw this. Not to be a downer towards Solidworks, but Inventor is much more robust than solidworks is. Granted, I have never seen Inventor do large things (an entire building) like I saw in the solidworks video. As a whole though Inventor seems to be much more robust and talks to Revit already now rather than maybe talking to it tomorrow.

Well, I can certainly see the argument that, if you make a tool that is really good for mediocre architecture, that is all you have. Make a tool that is really good for world class architecture, and somebody can still do lousy strip malls with that tool if they want. Revit is now trying to go that second route, without understanding that modeling great architecture isn't the whole of the practice of great architecture, and curvy forms are not the whole of great architectural forms either. I suspect Kahn would have been purple in the face at the lack of any meaningful alignment of annotations. And yet Revit now can model most anything Kahn ever did. Well, we can model everything but detailed masonry walls with half height reveals and such.

In any case, it will be interesting to see what aspects of Solidworks' efforts Autodesk decides to rip off in a fit of "innovation".

Gordon

Yeah It will be pretty interesting...

Having used Inventor a little bit, frankly an MCAD approach just doesn't work for the whole building. I think I'd rather stab myself in the hand with my Wacom pen over and over than try to model a whole building in something like that.

It's wonderful for parts of the building, and can be way better than Revit at the more complex parts of a building (as we see here with SW for AEC: it's all about the crazy skins & canopies). But it's just not the right approach for whole buildings IMHO. I think the BIM programs, like Revit, or Tekla, Vico, et. all have the right idea when it comes to buildings. The organizational structure is just totally different.

Even those fancy Catia projects just have the outer skin & structure being done that way, and from friends who have worked with DP it just sounds like a nightmare to manage.

And Andrew, I was wondering when you'd show up here. No one to insult on AUGI anymore? I thought that Revit was just for us doing 'typical' work and not for special people like you.