BIMx is a mobile app for Building Information Modeling, provided by GRAPHISOFT. It aims to bridge the gap between the design studio and the construction site, by providing integrated 2D and 3D building project navigation with data access from any device.
N/A
Revit
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Autodesk’s Revit is a Building Information Modelling (BIM) tool. It enables architectural, MEP, structural, and engineering design, and provides analysis to support iterative workflows
$350
per month
SOLIDWORKS
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Dassault Systemes offers SOLIDWORKS, a computer-aided design (CAD) system for education and manufacturing supporting 2D or 3D design, electrical design, simulations, and product development with collaboration tools.
$1,295
per year
Pricing
Bimx
Revit
SOLIDWORKS
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Monthly
$350
per month
1-Year
$2805
per year
3-Year
$8415
per 3 years
Solidworks Annual Subscription
1,295
per year
Solidworks Standard
3,996
per standalone license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Bimx
Revit
SOLIDWORKS
Free Trial
No
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
Pricing available for monthly, annual, or 3-year subscriptions. Longer subscriptions offer greater discounts.
Direct publishing to a 3D model can be done with a few other tools, but if (and only if) you are using ARCHICAD, it is the easiest to use. For Revit users, there is more choice, including Revit Live or some online model-viewers and publishers.
Revit has more architectural design functions, which work for rendering the structures into a polished style. SketchUp is unlikely to be used for a large structure modeling, more towards the interior design or small model demonstration. SOLIDWORKS is a more generalized software …
Autodesk Revit is more user-friendly than the mentioned software and is easy to create a custom family within the software. Multiple users can work at the same time in Revit, as with the other software mentioned, each user has to work on a separate file. Faster workflow and …
Revit is a more creative tool compared to others software like AutoCAD. More people can work simultaneously on Revit files but in AutoCAD only 1 person can work on 1 file. File management of Revit is good whereas in AutoCAD multiple AutoCAD files are created for the same 1 …
SOLIDWORKS is better in terms of design speed of 3D parts. It is also better for pieces of high technical detail. Other CAD programs do not have a simulation of forces, SOLIDWORKS does. The user interfaces are, in my opinion, friendlier and easier to use than other programs. In …
As an ARCHICAD user, this is almost a no-brainer. BIMx is included (although there are some paying options) and works well out-of-the-box. There is little to setup from the ARCHICAD side. You prepare a set of layouts/views and can publish the model on Ine go. The free version focuses on the 3D-model viewer. You publish an interactive model and can walk through it. With the PRO version, you also can publish the "Hyper-Model" - an integration of 2D and 3D views. If you are looking at tuning your own interactivity, e.g. in precisely defining what can happen and what information to show, you cannot customize BIMx that way. You have to look at alternatives, such as game engines or other 3D visualization software.
Revit is very well suited to creating designs and construction documents for standard buildings. Buildings that need to utilize phasing in their construction process are also well suited to this software. Revit is not as well suited to buildings that have irregular shapes or components that need to be highly detailed.
As a mechanical engineer, it is one of the best tools to just start modeling and engineering with. The UI tools are intuitive and engineering analysis such Mold Analysis, FEA, are great! Other 3D CAD modeling tools have a longer learning curve to master. All in all, if you're not planning to design an entire airplane with large assembly files, then Solidworks is your tool!
Revit allows users to create real buildings and is very much rooted in making functional buildings.
Revit allows users to collaborate both within their own firms and with other types of firms as well. This is particularly useful for coordinating buildings between architecture and engineering firms.
Revit integrates fairly well with other programs such as AutoCAD and Sketchup. This allows us to bring in elements modeled in other programs into our revit models.
The collaborative work environment is a cool and useful feature where groups of people can work on the same model at the same time, and SOLIDWORKS ensures that you don't overwrite each other's work.
The ease and amount of customization options are very useful for creating a personalized and intuitive user interface, whether SOLIDWORKS is your native CAD package or not.
It is very easy to quickly edit a model you have already created. The software allows sketch and feature editing without having to take the time to actually enter the sketch/feature environment.
The use of configurations and configurations-specific dimensions in the same sketch is very useful for creating different forms of the same part
Versioning - Revit is not backwards compatible. This creates issues if you are working with people who are using older versions as you cannot save to a previous version. I understand why this is and I do not see this ever changing, however, Its very annoying.
Autodesk - They are the 800 pound gorilla in the industry. The lack of competition inhibits development and it seems Autodesk has put more effort into its BIM 360 platform and Revit development has suffered because of it. I would like to see better competition so Autodesk would step up its game.
Save DWG 2D files in inches or metric easily, defaults to metric and has to be manually converted to inches
When using the sketch feature, the ability to disable ALL references. If I don't know the exact shape and I want to draw/adapt my design, it harshly interprets the references which have no value to me. The easiest exact is to think about when you have a Microsoft Word document that has a lot of formatting, photos, tabs, etc. If you accidentally hit the "enter" key, you can explode the formatting and everything goes crazy. SW does this to me, I just want to "doodle" my sketches, edit/delete/etc and not be bound by arbitrary references.
For the sketch feature, ability to use a DraftSight plugin of some sort. I'm super fast in DS, if I could draw using the commands in SW then I would probably never open DS again and convert to SW full time. Currently, I only use SW as a way to convert 3D files so I can build everything in DraftSight.
Most people using it are thrilled about it. But our use of ARCHICAD in projects is (alas) a bit limited, especially compared with the attention for Revit with our clients. And as an ARCHICAD teacher, I have to remember to keep introducing it as it is accepted well with most users.
We will almost certainly be renewing all of our current seats of Revit and will likely be adding seats as we look to get more and more of our staff trained and using Revit. The software is starting to become the standard for our projects as we move forward as more and more of our clients are requesting or accepting use of it
It is a professional environment, but far from easy and overly complex in many places. The system is often too deep in settings and overrides (see Visibility/Graphics in combination with linked files, filters, color overrides and view templates). I don't really like the dialog-in-dialog interface and its spartan looks. But it works well overall if you know what you are doing.
I have been using SOLIDWORKS for around 12 years as of writing this review, so have learned where most things are and how they work. When first starting out it was quite daunting, but the interface is well laid out with like functions near each other which made finding new functions relatively easy.
Revit seems to always be available when I need it. I have not experiences an outage. There are occasions where we need our internal IT department to trouble shoot a file on our Revit dedicated server and that sometimes causes a delay however that is not a software access issue
Revit is a fairly graphics heavy piece of software. It is powerful in its capabilities but as a result it takes a lot of the graphics card, the memory, etc. For all that it can do and the specs of my computer I find it pretty good from a performance standpoint
Autodesk has always had a good support system in place. There is a massive user base for Revit, and there are thousands of forum threads and other discussions online about any and every problem that you could ever run into. For being such a large program with so many different options, there aren't many roadblocks or pitfalls that users can fall into.
We have an unusual arrangement. We don’t pay for support, but we’re partnered with a VAR for second-tier support.
I work with other users if I have questions but when we’ve had to ask the VAR, they always have answers. It appears that all of the VARs have access to a support platform from DS SOLIDWORKS that helps them answer most questions.
The training was Revit Essentials and it was very beneficial. I would say that it is best to get the training right before you know you will be using Revit as learning the basis then applying what you learned immediately is the most effective and best value for your money.
The online training is hit or miss. I feel that its better to be live to be able to pace and ask questions to a live person as you are learning hwo to do things. Its not natural to learn Revit especially if you know AutoCAD so my suggestion is the live training
Implementing Revit as your main drafting software (i.e. moving to BIM from CAD) may be a tough decision if you have learned drafting. It is a different way to approach and think about developing a project. However, if you are able to adapt to a new way of thinking and get used to it by working through a few projects than it is as efficient as CAD in most areas in general and will also be both better/worse in some areas
Direct publishing to a 3D model can be done with a few other tools, but if (and only if) you are using ARCHICAD, it is the easiest to use. For Revit users, there is more choice, including Revit Live or some online model-viewers and publishers. For full custom interactivity, you have to look at e.g. Unity3D or Unreal where you can include and extend endlessly, but you will lack the ease of BIMx. You'd also have to look for good similar navigation. Especially the link between 2D views and 3D model sections is hard to beat. But in that context, if you want to e.g. allow users to choose design alternatives, select another material or include animations and sound, this is not possible in BIMx.
Revit is used primarily for creation of contract documents and documents that need to be used to build in the field. Sketch Up is great for a quick concept sketch, but lacks the details that Revit has which are needed to construct. AutoCAD is a great tool for details as well, but does not have as many building capabilities as Revit.
Onshape is a direct competitor. It has great entry level pricing and it is easy to access with no installation required. Being a web based app there is sometime some lag being based in NZ. Management also have concerns over where the data is stored on the cloud. With SW we can control where it is stored
While I am not directly involved with the deployment of Revit, it seems that our internal IT department has appreciated the ability to increase or decrease the number of seats. I have never had an issue with the deployment if and when needed, especially regarding the availability of a set
Though implementation of Revit is usually front heavy which means a lot of effort is put in at the front end of the project, the return of investment towards the remainder of the project is really good. All the effort in decisions made at the beginning of the project pays off with Revit incorporating all the building information in the model so the team can glean from this throughout the life of the project is a major plus.
A major negative is the many false assumptions that comes with using Revit on a project. Just like any other computer application, Revit is only a tool. It's only as good as the operators who implement this tool. Revit is not a cureall for fixing all the problems that still can come out throughout the life of a design & construction project.
A major positive for our office involving the use of Revit is the ability for our staff from multiple offices to work on the same project central file. We don't need to maintain an expensive server. With the addition of Collaboration for Revit the entire project can be stored in the cloud for our staff to access and complete the project faster than ever.
