Thank you Eric and Robert...
It's good to know that there are at least a few other Revit holdouts.
I cringe every time I hear Revit used as a synonym for BIM or that it or Autocad is the industry standard.
We should strive for diversity in the software we use and not blindly follow the crowd. I would rather have dozens of talented software designers competing to develop just the right tools for me than have a single fat cat using his limited talent to figure out ways to keep charging me more for the same old crap.
We should avoid becoming partisans for the software we use (I've been guilty of this) and become its harshest critics instead. We are the ones that know what the software should do. They just need to make it work intuitively. That's assuming there are any software engineers get intuitive.
We should demand real interoperability between all the platforms. There is so much potential in the BIM concept that we should be able to choose the add-on special purpose packages that suit us the best and not be limited to the halfhearted products of a single source that tries to use its weight to capture every market.
Thank you again. I'll get off my soap box now.
Paul...
Don't lose heart. I know it seems daunting but you can do it. You just need to take it a step at a time and not get overwhelmed. I recommend that you download the free packages that some of the others have recommended. Stick with 2D for now. Ask your friends to send you some completed job files both in paper and electronic form. At first focus on how to find your way around in the files and look at individual drawings. Flip through the paper set and bring up each drawing on your screen just as it appears on the paper. Learn how to turn on and off layers and zoom in and out. Don't try to draw anything at first.
With your knowledge of how buildings and documents go together you will have a lot to offer with just these skills. There are so many CAD operators out there that haven't a clue about architecture and someone like you is needed to look at their work and mark up their mistakes.
Bentley has a product call Redline that is designed for supervisors to markup CAD drawings. You can add notes and draw simple shapes just like you would red line a paper set of drawings. It reads both Microstation and Autocad and I think it can be downloaded for free.
Good luck.
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Douglas Sangster AIA
R. Miller Architecture
Winter Park FL
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