ARCHICAD vs. Tacton Design Automation

ARCHICAD, is well suited in presenting all desired projects in building and construction works more so where the client has just an idea but lacks the actual picture in mind. When doing all commercial buildings where proper records and evidence is record is needed, ARCHICAD should be considered. Projects which involve complex and large volumes of labor require well-presented drawings or representation done with ARCHICAD for proper and easy execution. ARCHICAD is less appropriate for small jobs like shades which are not complex and need less attention.

For design automation for SOLIDWORKS, I feel Tacton Design Automation is the best solution out there. It's simple to develop and implement for the design/engineering department. But can be implemented within the sales team as well with Tacton CPQ. When a company has products that are modular and/or have many sizing updates, this is where Tacton excels. If you have products that are completely customized, then Tacton or even design automation isn't the best suited for that.

Incentivized

• User interface is super cool. It helps you customize any new theme on your architectural objects.
• Minimalistic approach in the toolkit helps in quick editing.
• Render realistic images.
• Collaboration with other team members is an awesome feature.

Incentivized

• Tacton has a non-linear solver, meaning it can solve lots of equations without them being is a particular order. This enables the software to be incredibly flexible.
• Tacton has a great interface to set up configurators for people to use. No knowledge of programming languages is required. The configurator uses equations similar to Excel equations to control what the users options are.
• Tacton has the ability to easily add lists of data like product lists, beam or pipe sizes that because available for user selections or for calculations.
• The Tacton configurator also automatically builds the user interface as you set up user inputs making it much easier to set up then competitor software.

Incentivized

• ArchiCAD lacks a few feature sets, including an automatic Keynote database extraction system, an expandable Phasing/Options manager, and an easy way to transfer standard details into a project.
• The Revision/Change Manager, as well as the new Stair and Railing tools, while impressively flexible, are too complex to set up and customize.
• It is an underdog product. Revit has a market share because it spends more money on marketing, and less on product development.

Incentivized

• Layout mode is probably the most lacking aspect of the software (within Tacon Design Automation Engineer). Something so powerful as having modular parts should be more heavily supported. Although, I've heard Tacton is focusing on updating this with better functionality.
• The constraint editor does not display complex/lengthy constraints very well. I end up using Excel to visually break out in cells the different aspects of the constraint.

Incentivized

We have rapid responses from their support team, and they often go the extra mile to pinpoint the root cause of an issue and assist the team in resolving it. They are honest when a problem is down to user error, or a glitch on the version we are on.

Incentivized

AutoCAD uses line works in actual presentation whiles ARCHICAD uses real structural walls which are easy to use and present compared to line works. Revit largely and mainly focused on structural design and is more complex to use compared to ARCHICAD which helps one focus on different aspects of drawing and is easy to integrate with rendering software like Lumion 360 panorama.

Drive Works is the main competitor for the TactonWorks module of Tacton. We actually discovered DriveWorks and purchased it before we discovered Tacton and started to use it. Once we discovered Tacton we liked it so much better we dropped using DriveWorks and switched to Tacton. I think you could accomplish what you need to in DriveWorks, but it is easier to setup in Tacton and Tacton has alot of features that really can make your product configurators nice

Incentivized

• This product allows us to draft on a Mac OS.
• The tool we use to make our product (Architectural Plans).
• Helps 3D model and render images for clients.

• Time to produce submittals went from 1-2 weeks down to a couple of days. Then, once approved, normally to produce the fabrication drawings (70+ unique parts) it would take from 4-6 weeks. We can get it down to as little as a few days.

Incentivized