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AutoJC Computer-aided Follies Presents:

The Liberation From AutoCad™ Page

This is the heart and soul of the AutoJC site.

The issue of AutoCad™ and its use in the architectural profession is at the foundation of what caused me to create this site in the first place.

In many a professional forum I decried the use of AutoCad™ and challenged those who defended its use in my profession, and held it to be the standard in CAD in the office today.

Let me make several points perfectly clear:

  1. I have no intention of deriding AutoDesk for its efforts in its field. AutoDesk exists objectively for its own purpose and they make products which many of us have found to be helpful and useful. They were pioneers in the adaptation of computer-aided design to the common desktop. AutoDesk's right to exist is a matter of fact.
  2. I pursued the option of AutoCad™ on at least three occasions. First, back in 1983, for the same reason that many other architects pursued it- to find a solution to the burgeoning problem of how to deliver service on a tight schedule that would ensure me a competitive position in my field and ensure my clients that projects would be delivered on time and accurately. Second, back in 1993, when it was to be developed for my platform of choice, the Macintosh. Third, to adopt a simplified version of AutoCad™, AutoCad™ LT, such as to enable and expedite the accurate translation of my documents for those who would use them in AutoCad™.

It was on these occasions that I encountered frustrations with AutoCad™. At the time I found the program to be grossly deficient, as opposed to the programs I was using, in the following areas:

  1. Its inability to easily place objects such as lines with ease and with definitions, such as thickness.
  2. It's insistence on working in model space, aka world scale, which makes text handling tricky.
  3. It's setting up plots for printing, complicated by the model space concept.
  4. Only in recent releases was AutoCad™ able to execute autoscrolls, and, then, with the need for a scroll mouse.
  5. Only in recent releases was AutoCad™ able to display multiple documents
  6. Only in recent releases was AutoCad™ able to fill solids AND display such fills.

I drew the conclusion that what I was using, which had none of these deficiencies, was more intuitive and more useful to me, and more appropriately extended my talents by my using computer-aided design for the purpose it was meant to be used- to help expedite my work and thus, make me money.

I believe, through my research, that AutoCad™ became widely used because, at the time of its greatest growth, the early 80's, it was there to answer a demand by architects for a tool that would relieve the architect from his heavy workload, expedite the design and drafting process, and thus return a profit for the architect. Once AutoCad™ dominated this market, it would become difficult to convince design professionals that there were alternatives that were truly superior out there.

So has the profession succeeded in its mission to automate and, thus, increase productivity and profits? A survey taken by the AIA in 1995 resulted in a response that CAD had increased productivity only 25%. Since 78% of architects had adopted AutoCad™ in 1995, it can be deduced, then, that productivity with CAD is little better than productivity with traditional hand drafting practice.

It becomes clear, therefore, that the professionals really needed to research the CAD issue more carefully, audition the programs more diligently, rather than rely upon experience and expedience and fabricate the excuse that they had no time to do such research and audition the programs.

And, according to a recent survey, nearly half the architects on CAD have done so.

Programs like VectorWorks™, DataCad™, and ArchiCad™ provide very real alternatives to AutoCad™. If the architect must stick to 2D design then the best choice becomes PowerCadd. All of these examples are superior to AutoCad™ in their ability to produce documentation expeditiously. As proof, in particular, in a CAD shootout by ArchitecturalCADD, Arris™, ArchiCad™, VectorWorks™, and DataCad™ all were preferred to AutoCad™.

I call upon the architectural profession of seriously consider that they have choices here- and the choices seem to favor the liberation of the profession from AutoCad™.

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