Architosh Staff ([email protected])

15 Feb 2001

Letter's to the Editor: "Top Dogs" at CAD Shootouts

Our recent story on the John F. Kennedy High School's CAD Lab switching to Autocad on PC's from existing Macs has created a lot of excellent feedback, all of which was sent directly to David Link, the parent involved in that story. We will be sharing more of that information soon.

However one such letter written to us deserves more immediate attention as it addresses the CAD Shootout events and their significance in the CAD industry.

Top Dogs

"I'd like to make a minor correction in your recent article, [Reader Q: Any good Mac CAD programs for architecture?]

Therein you state that "ArchiCAD being top dog two years in a row" at the 'Designers 3D CAD Shootout for Architectural CADD Systems' [That's the full name of the event]. This is incorrect. The following list is a complete list of the 1st/2nd/3rd place winners of the Architectural Shootout since its inception:

1996 - Arris / Archicad/ MiniCad

1997 - MiniCad / Arris / ArchiCad

1998 - Arris / ArchiCad / Microstation

1999 - ArchiCad / Arris / VectorWorks

2000 - No winner (the format of the shootout was changed, but ArchiCad did not even officially compete)

I personally was present at all of these events and was captain of the first-place winning team in 1997 and the third-place teams in 1996 and 1999. I'd appreciate it if you could correct the statement on your website; Thanks!"

Robert Anderson, AIA

Vice President of Integrated Products

Nemetschek North America

Editor Reponse

Our apologies to Nemetschek. And we stand corrected. The article has now been changed to read: "with ArchiCAD being at the top, first and second, two years in a row", as shown in red highlight above.

It's important to note that both ArchiCAD and MiniCAD (VectorWorks) have been in the top three (minus MiniCAD in 1998) every year that contest has had winners. And even more important to note that Autocad has never even made bronze in the event.

This brings us back to one of the major points of the article. People tend to believe that in architecture, in particular, Autocad sets the gold standard because it has over 50% of the market. What people don't realize is that it had that dominance long before such events as the 'Designers 3D CAD Shootout for Architectural CADD Systems' were able to demonstrate Autocad's true stengths and weaknesses when placed next to powerful rival CAD programs.

Now that architects can see CADs side by side—and on different OS platforms—a serious trend has emerged toward considering other architectural CAD systems and the platforms they run on. We stand by this claim that this trend is not only recognizable but growing stronger as company's introduce new model-based CADs like Revit and BOA.