CAD for Salesmen?

[Anonymous]

We are looking for CAD software for our salesmen to use to sell ideas and buildings. The drawings files they produce should be able to be downloaded into ArchiCAD 10 (may upgrade to 12).

Salesmen generally are not CAD people. We need a system that will generate floor plans, elevations, and perspectives.

Is SketchUp the best way to go? The program is more economical to purchase for five laptops for five salesmen. Not sure on how it downloads into ArchiCAD.

What other options do we have?

Rich

[Anonymous]

Salesmen that are going to sell buildings who don't know how to design them.

[Dwight]

SketchUp would be ideal for your guys since almost anyone can have fun using it - any other application is heartbreaking for the newbie.

I am just finishing a series of illustrations from a model created in SketchUp and rendered in Artlantis - there's no compromise at the design stage.

[Dwight]

Sjaak wrote:
Salesmen that are going to sell buildings who don't know how to design them.

And how is this different than with any architecture firm?

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:

Sjaak wrote:
Salesmen that are going to sell buildings who don't know how to design them.

And how is this different than with any architecture firm?

You mean like the Blob Boys hiring Boeing after the napkin is signed?

[Dwight]

If you say so.

What i mean, as scientifically as i can,

is that every building requires more than one dance around the teapot.

But you can only get the job once.

Even the idea that these SketchUps will be exported to Archicad is suspect, since we all know a clean Archicad model built from scratch is the fastest way to translate preliminary design.

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:

But you can only get the job once.

Even the idea that these SketchUps will be exported to Archicad is suspect, since we all know a clean Archicad model built from scratch is the fastest way to translate preliminary design.

True.

True.

I've never used Sketchup, but isn't (or shouldn't) there is some way (maybe separate pln and module???) that the sketch model can be used as an electronic "go by" or on screen reference for that "clean AC model"?

Though, I think I remember you saying once before that you find it just as quick to have somebody read you the dimensions from a paper copy.

Dave

[Dwight]

Depends - most rectilinear structures - especially apartments - are going to be modular in some way. If you just walk a zigzag wall around the perimeter in a clockwise fashion [y 10, x3-3, y6, x-2, etc] It is faster and more accurate than scanning and tracing. It takes a little planning.

As for sketchup to Archicad - depending on the investment in the model - you'll probably be reworking the whole thing in Archicad, ESPECIALLY if some idiot salesman has had his way with it, promising them thirty foot spans and four car garages.

However, when Four Seasons Greenhouses got a special Archicad version with a special greenhouse module library it was a success because they limited the options to real ones.

[Richard Morrison]

"Selling buildings" is not very descriptive. What kind of buildings are you selling? Office buildings? Residential?

I would think that something like Chief Architect or Cadsoft Envisioneer would be fairly easy to learn and could quickly generate concepts, which could then be imported into Archicad with DWG files. (Would have to be traced.) But I also think that there is likely not a lot of design information that a salesman could provide that would be worth exactly replicating, so I don't know how important the file transfer is likely to be.

[Anonymous]

"when Four Seasons Greenhouses got a special Archicad version with a
special greenhouse module library"

What does it take to get a "special" ArchiCAD version? Do we pay full price for each additional "special" license?

We are looking at SketchUp because it is more economical - it would be great to have a special version but we don't have standard modules for each building we sell.