AutoCAD / Revit / Tekla

[xez]

Hello all,

Apologies if this is not in the correct forum.

I'm at a cladding company and we are mainly still drafting in AutoCAD. However, we are looking to get into BIM and automation of shop drawings. Would someone be able to briefly explain the differences between Revit and Tekla? Are there any preferences? My understanding is that Revit is catered more toward architects and Tekla is catered more toward structural engineers and steel fabricators. It seems like both are needed.

Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[r13]

I don't know the difference, but to offer my opinion, that you should pick up the one that is used by the majority of your customers.

 

[robyengIT]

working in Portugal I met a company using Tekla : they did good jobs (for the one attached, a church in Lisboa with the shape of a boat and the the bell tower of 100 meters, I had the opportunity to see the construction of some beams and a partial erection in the factory to verify any problem

PS : church of S. Francisco Xavier - Lisboa
Arch. Troufa Real

 

[jayrod12]

Tekla, as far as I know, is really geared towards structural steel design.

But I may be incorrect.

 

[Budding_SE]

The light gage engineer that i work with uses Navisworks. Tekla is really for structural engineers for designing and detailing.
I think Revit would be enough too for cladding type of work. But designing it would have to be outside of Revit.

 

[r13]

Revit was used a lot in powerplant constructions, very good for interference checks for varies disciplines work together remotely.

 

[Brad805]

We use Revit and Tekla. You can use Tekla for structural drawings as well as detailing. Tekla is much better in my view as you can create custom components that automatically create a lot of the details, and allow the user to change many different aspects. The downside of tekla is the licensing cost and the fact that most archs seem to use Revit. Revit is a master of creating lots of pretty pictures while allowing the team to use a lot of traditional drafting setups in the background. You can find a many different detailing examples in Revit, but when you dig into the "how" part, you will find the user had to create a lot of their own families to make it work. I looked at an example of precast detailing in Revit, and could only imagine how much time it took on their part to create the various families.

How standardized are your parts? I have seen some detailing architectural components with Tekla on the user forum (a window company somewhere in EU doing awesome modelling), but it takes a lot of time and patience to create the tools you need. Out of the box, this software is geared toward structural steel. Tekla originated as XSteel, and when Trimble acquired this they started adding features to detail concrete and rebar. You might want to look at some other solid modelling software. Some of the options will have more of the fasteners and different profiles you use. Some of those will allow you to create very nice rendered images as well.

 

[AaronMcD]

I used Tekla at my first job out of college and Revit in college. Tekla is wonderful if you are used to AutoCAD. You can draft any shape at all. We modeled full 3D steel structures. We even put bolts in. You can model any shape you need. We modeled every rebar in foundations. Good for detailing all parts accurately. Yes architects like Revit, and with Revit you can put the various models together and hopefully find clashes. When I used it a decade ago it was very cumbersome and unintuitive. It'll be more of a learning curve.

http://www.hellodwell.design

 

[Veer007]

With 5+ years of experience in Tekla structures, is really good for making 3D modeling of the steel structures, and produce shop details, reports, bolt list and etc...

In this, you can even import an IFC model and if you have a profile catalog, you can build a 3D model, You can use this software to create 3D models much better than Auto cad.


Thanks in advance!!

 

[rowingengineer]

I suggest rhino with grasshopper, you can port it work in tekla or Revitif required. I find grasshopper easy to script compared to non visual methods which allows for the automation your looking for I would think.

http://www.nceng.com.au/

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."