Small Project Design

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  • 1.  AutoCAD Architecture and Revit on the new iMac

    Posted 11-15-2012 11:26 AM
    This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Small Project Practitioners and Technology in Architectural Practice .
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    I run a small practice and use AutoCAD Architecture (phasing out) and Revit on PC's, I've been considering getting iMac computers for some time with either Boot Camp or Parallel Desktop to install Windows 7 64-bit, but the limit of 16 GB of RAM was a big issue.  Now thet the new iMacs are available (due this month) with up to 32 GB of RAM makes the move more atractive.

    Does anybody have experience and/or comments in transitioning from PC's to iMac using Revit? I'm planning to use native applications for iOS for all the other applications (MS Office, Adobe, etc.)

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    Jorge Pena AIA
    Jorge Pena Architects, Inc.
    San Antonio TX
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  • 2.  RE:AutoCAD Architecture and Revit on the new iMac

    Posted 11-16-2012 09:20 AM
    I don't know about Revit on macs using some kind of emulation, but I have heard on more than one occasion that versions of Autocad for macs is more cumbersome than the versions of Autocad for PC's.  That may be an indication that you might be in for glitches along the way.

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    Ken Brogno AIA
    Architect AIA LEED AP
    San Francisco CA
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  • 3.  RE:AutoCAD Architecture and Revit on the new iMac

    Posted 11-19-2012 10:30 AM
    I don't use autocad but do have pc programs on my mac.  I use the Fusion software as the interface and it is seamless (and cheap!)

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    Polly Osborne AIA, LEED AP
    Osborne Architects
    Los Angeles CA
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE:AutoCAD Architecture and Revit on the new iMac

    Posted 11-19-2012 12:02 PM
    We run full licenses of Revit 13 & AutoCad on Windows 7 64-bit on iMacs w/ 16 GB RAM - no glitches , no problems.

    BTW - we run both Macs and PCs on our network, and when we were transitioning to Revit, gave our IT team carte blanche to custom build whatever hardware configuration they wanted to for best performance - no agenda, no restrictions - they evaluated PC & Mac custom build machines and chose iMacs, but to be honest there wasn't much in it.
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    Jamie Pancino AIA
    Design Director
    Valerio Architects, Inc.
    Los Angeles CA
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  • 5.  RE:AutoCAD Architecture and Revit on the new iMac

    Posted 11-25-2012 03:29 PM
    We did a switch over this year from PC to Mac. We run autocad lt and now revit lt along with sketchup, when needed. We still have a PC that runs these as well and we will eventually switch that out too. It was a good size undertaking but the Mac's are pretty intuitive to use and we run the Autodesk products and Quickbooks with parallel desktop in windows 7-64 bit. The apple mouse is not very easy to use with autocad so I ended up getting a USB mouse from Logitech. I tried the apple magic mouse as long as I could because it works well in other applications but it was hurting my productivity in cad. The parallel desktop is quite a powerful emulator and does a great job of mirroring/syncing the desktop on the Mac and PC. One reason we still run a stand-alone PC is that there is a glitch we still have with our 11x17 epson scanner that is about 6 years old. The Mac drivers are generic for it so the file size of the output scans are far too large. Also, the parallel desktop will not recognize it through the PC shell. I have been running autocad lt for awhile now in parallel desktop on the Mac and it has performed great. The reason we didn't go with the Mac version is because it was missing some key features that we use often that the PC version had. I have not logged many ours in revit just yet but so fair it holds up well. I run an iMac 27" with 16gb ram and 2gb of video memory. You can customize the amount of resources parallel desktop will use from the Mac environment which is a very nice feature but there are certain limitations there but it hasn't held us up. We don't do a lot with MS Office products anymore because we switched from MS Outlook to Google Business email/contacts/calendar/tasks. It was a big deal for me to switch away from Outlook because i had used it for the past 15 years or so. I use Apple Mail/Apple Contacts/iCal which syncs with the Google applications. Another guy in the office just uses the web browser to do these things because he has an Android phone. All this being said, I would do it all over again. Partly because I have an iPhone and iPad which have the same exact feel and look as an iMac or MacBook Pro. About 5 years ago I was going to make the switch but it just wasn't the right timing for various reasons. Then I purchased an iPhone about 2 years ago and I could quickly see that my PC days were numbered because of the ease of use. It also didn't help the argument to stay with the PC since my iPhone synced better with MS Outlook (PC) than my previous Windows phone did. One thing to keep in mind when purchasing the Mac's is to order them with the minimum ram memory and then order the maximum memory from an online source and install it yourself. Apple charges far too much to upgrade the ram memory from the base package. ------------------------------------------- Chris Macklin Christopher Macklin Design, Inc. -------------------------------------------
    Original Message