I'm a part one student who is really interested in finding out about parametric design. I am trying to find out what programmes are used in offices. Is it Rhino, GC or something else. It seems like an invaluable skill to have in the future
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richard l
I used to work for Oosterhuis who specialised in parametric buildings, and they used Rhino then which was a few years ago now and no use Revit I think.
suzanne_73
We use Revit Architecture on all projects and encourage our consultants to use it also - eg Revit Structure and Revit MEP. You can get a free student copy of it from the Autodesk website.
david a
I studied in stockholm where i actually took the parametric course. We used Bentley Generative Components, which was incredible to use, but really required all the tutors and support staff to teach us. Its more like Java/C++ programming really! Once we completed simple GC models we where able to export this to Rhino, where we made further changes, then rendered in V-ray. Theres lots of forums etc on GC which can get quite intense. We where actually lucky enough to go to offices such as Aedas and KPF in london who had divisions in the office who worked solely in GC. So I would learn it if you're interested in joining such companies as these. I currently work in a small office and programmes like GC are just too expensive and don't actually help in designing small prjects. Good luck!
P.s as you're a part 1 student, look into the ERASMUS exchange programmes, where, like me you can choose to do one of your years abroad, in Uni's like Stockholm where they actually have dedicated programmes to GC etc..
chris_1
I personally use Revit Architecture. I can say with confidence this is an amazing program with alot of potential. I brought Revit in to the company I work for and its a long experience curve. But when you are "one" with it, its uses are limitless.
The 2010 definitely is an improvement and I would suggest even as a starter to go on to bigger and better things, use Revit as a base for BIM modelling.
The biggest thing to get your head round is that everything has parameters, its how everything is customizable. Not to mention it links with all other Autodesk products and Google sketch up via import or export.
All in all a very good program.
Regards
Chris
Christiaan
[ Editor ]
On the Mac side:
ArchiCAD: http://www.graphisoft.com/products/archicad/
Vectorworks: http://www.nemetschek.net/
Revit is for the zombies.
swisscheese
There are many CAD applications which use parameters to 'drive' the model. You need to decide whether you want to study a mainstream application, which is used widely and will probably be more useful in the long term, or a product which is more niche in this industry. A lot of parametric CAD applications are geared towards manufacturing, such as Solidworks and Inventor, and some, like Catia can require that programming expertise mentioned in earlier replies.
Rhino is a generic 3D modelling application, and although it is a brilliant product, it isn't specifically geared to the architectural profession beyond its visualisation capabilities (and if you're getting complex, exporting data to rapid prototyping machines). If you wanted to extract some useful project information, you'd probably end up exporting a Rhino model to something like Revit, and develop it from there.
Although Revit still has many areas which need to be addressed before it can live up to the hype, it is parameter driven, and the conceptual editor added on in the last release (2010) is very capable. You can see some examples of what can be achieved by messing around with parameters at http://buildz.blogspot.com/ and bimtroublemaker.blogspot.com
Given the investment Autodesk is pumping into Revit, like it or not, it'll probably be the industry standard design application for architects within the next five years, so my advice would be to go where the money is!