I know at least of one local firm (Praxis 3) in Atlanta which utilizes Revit for all their CDs. I have two friends working for them and they swear by it. I think its going to be the way of the future and I know how you feel about learning new programs... you always seem a few steps behind. I'll have to convince my firm to take on 2006 so I can try it out... it does sound very interesting.

It doesn't seem that the command line is actually gone, it just gives you yet another way to input commands. From their website "you no longer need to shift your focus back and forth between the command line and the graphics cursor (unless you want to)" I didn't think that was really a problem... Who does autodesk think can afford to buy a new version every year?! It was ages between the release of R14 and 2000.

Anyway, I doubt ADT and Revit will revolutionize architecture. Autodesk is kind of becoming like Microsoft, releasing new products all the time with features nobody needs. They already have saturation in their targeted market so they have to generate sales by hyping the new product as the "future". People twenty years ago said CAD would revolutionize architecture, and in some ways it has, but for the exception of being cleaner and somewhat more precise, the end product doesn't look all that much different than it did when it was done by hand. Twenty +/- years of CAD have not lead to inherently better buildings or better design.

revit (and other similar programs if autodesk doesn't buy them all out) will be the 'wave' of the future. make aviator joke here. :)
but it's no surprise. it's logical. the basic premise is that you will build a building once i nvirtual space, entirely accurately and precisely, then the program will translate the virtual space in to documents. i don't think any serious graphics people/renderers will be using it for sexy images for a while, if ever, but that's not really important. the paradigm shift it represents is in the process of creating architecture. instead of being insanely focused on the administration/creation of documents, you should be able to completely focus on just the building itself.
problems though (as you may have read in arch/arch record recently) include the transitional period, which is always difficult. also, the issue of architects then being forced to decide on materials/technical details earlier in the project could cause problems, but i'd hope that this gets taken care of by a patch that allows you to construct 'generic' wall types, etc, and therefore allow decisions that are often made a little later, be made later. the program may also force architects to take more responsibility for technical issues that aren't typically considered architectural in scope. but once again, i think that will be sorted out pretty quick as architects start using the software and submitting all their critiques, etc..
so yeah. very exciting stuff.

BIM - Building In Modeling has been a long time coming. I believe that the GSA was hoping all submittals for their buildings be in BIM by the end of the year. (They have since pushed back the deadline.)

Some people are considering it to be as big as a change in the industry as paper to CAD was. We'll see. No doubt it will be big.

Personally - The idea of having a (computer) prototype of my building up and running before the actual building is built is kind of ideal. After all - industrial designers get to go through so many more prototypes than we do when it comes to design.

geeze it is depressing to listen to all you lazy thinkers get worked over by marketing strategies. numerical control, like all the other technological determinisms in architecture, is only exciting to people who are truly unfamiliar with its limitations and history in technology. on those whose life are so dominated by technology without their knolwedge of it, are comppeled by these perennial technological arguements. it is so painful to watch you all struggle through the arguemetns and thinking that they give to you rather you thinking deeply and powerfully about technology and architecture. i don't know how it is so possible for you all to think so irrationally about so purportedly a rational subject such as technology. the bottom line is revit will only revolutionize the way motel-sixes are produced and fabircated-that's it. talk abotu ghery all you want, but you are not gehry and you DO NOT use the same contract as gehry. it is as simple as that. why is arhcitecture so boring to you all? bim's, cad, cam, cnc. dig fab, pre fab, it is as if any but architecture occupoes your minds.

can we have the voice command option for the 3d-dictator?

but i find tzenyujuei's comment interesting because he's commenting on people who use revit.

it's be nice to know why. more intuitive? or???

Switters has been hand-drafting for years- not that there is anything wrong with that...(sorry- cheap joke, but wth)

Our office has been implementing Revit on new projects and we like it. We don't do Hotel-6s, but we're not Gehry level either. We like the way we are "forced" to consider design details and systems early on... it gives us an edge and gets our design blood going early without losing track of larger issues.

Issues with the tectonics of the design emerge early- we can input our structural system with humbling accuracy and speed. The implications for CPM and design build are obvious. Messed up corners and unresolved details stick out like sore thumbs. We solve so much more before DD.

I find that "production" staff are suddenly much more engaged with the entire design. No more AutoCad cutting and pasting.

I don't know if it is the "future" but it certainly works.

'this is the most drastic improvements I've seen since R14.'

...and if you run LT this means f**k all because most of the features are disabled!

the only thing that slightly makes me mad is that they release an autocad every 18 months (20 versions in 27 years) with minimal imporvements and that they thing EVERYONE can afford these things. How much is revit for anyway?

I think we will see a merging of Revit with the AutoCAD software product. Autodesk created Revit as a stand alone product to introduce AEC sectors slowly to Building Information Modeling. There is buy-in building up and when Revit takes off (as it is starting too) it will be merged with the AutoCAD product.

I am completing a thesis on BIM in Project Management during all phases of the program. There are some great articles on the internet about BIM. The largest issue with BIM is that the consultants on a project still have a tendancy to remain information islands. BIM really comes into its own when the BIM system can be shared by all parties on a project during all phases. Imagine the contractor/subs estimating as the design is being done. Imagine all Engineering diciplines able to design and see conflicts realtime. These are just a few of the opportunities BIM offers.

MACattack

what's better than the contractors/subs estimating, is the architect estimating using BIM and taking that slice of the pie...
I agree with what Macattack & heter are saying, except that as a revit user for a year and a half, I don't see Revit merging with ACAD, but the other way around. ADT is a product of Autodesk buying out Revit & creating a sortof bastard stepchild (Autodesk didn't come up with Revit, they bought it from the original programmers after realizing it was "the wave of the future")
I also agree that Revit engages the production team so much more than CAD ever can - as an intern, I understand so much more about how a building works from fully modelling the structure (it took about a half a day for a 3500 SF steel frame building) and HVAC systems for coordination. And then coordinating the problems - finding interferance - immediately. While you can't quite yet share the BIM system with all disciplines (watch for revit building 9) it's very easy to work with CAD drawings in revit and vice-versa.
I can't imagine, at this point, going back to the (pointlessly) abstract world of CAD drawings, when for both creative and pragmatic reasons modeling the building is so much more effective. when I'm working on CD production I'm thinking as an architect instead of a draftsperson. programs like revit will eventually make CAD techs obsolete.
can you tell I am sold on this?...call me a sucker, or just a satisfied customer...

i won't take the extremist viewpoint of switters, but i do wonder how much using a BIM-based software limits what you can design. For example, could the TWA terminal be designed in Revit or ArchiCAD? Maybe it could, I don't know. I think BIM has the potential to really change the profession, but I just hope that the software remains open-ended, or it could be a change for the worse.

I too think that Autocad and Revit will merge one day. In a way, Revit seems to be what 3D Autocad should have been.....During the presentation, the guy showed an example of a Revit file rendered (it looked like a Sketchup rendering) and exported it to Viz for final rendering.......The rendering was actually a picture, and I mentioned that in a nice way in my question to him asking him how Revit compares to Viz in rendering, he just said "they are different beasts".....so I guess he has no clue (I doubt revit is as photorealistic as Viz or other 3D programs are)

I wonder if they can (will) merge autocad/architectural desktop/revit/viz together as a monster application, that would be sweet.......

for the forseeable future, i'd doubt that revit will be the program for choice for high end, pioneering designers. it's bound to be a little too restricting at first. but i'd be surprised if it didn't open up its flexibility level dramatically within 5 years.
i think switter and those who think it's nothing more than another cad program aren't seeing it in perspective, or don't know enought about it. i personally don't think that cad changed the profession THAT much. it was just another way to make the same sorts of documents we'd always been making. it allowed us to be quicker (some times), copy more easily, and share more easily. but it didn't change the construction document/design process that much. at least not relative to the scale of change revit may present. it's not just another way of making drawings. its another way of thinking of developing a project. instead of translating the building in to 2d a bunch of times, you BUILD it once in 3d, and the program contructs the documents. so the architect focuses on ARCHITECTURE instead of drawing management. if a change needs to be made (which it always does) then its made once, to the model, and the program carries it over to everywhere in the documents that it needs to.

It will probably have the same impact the calculator has now. Our young interns cannot do any Math(s) in their head they need to type it into a machine. No problem you may say but when a glaring error occurs, often they cannot see it because no personal intuition has been developed to recognise the ball park parameters.

good point bots. in general, you have to worry about what would happen to humanity if a snake pliskin-escape from la situation ever happened. corny scifi reference, i know, but a reasonable concern.