We use PowerCadd on our macs as our main drawing program, honestly, its ok, but it crashes often (about 8-15 times a day), and as far as exporting, it does save to dxf and dwg file types, but the layer and all dont translate, so it comes out really crappy, a lot of our contractors don't like it.
I have proposed to the office that we switch to PCs with Architectural Desktop, but that has yet to happen. With new architecture-oriented software out, I see no reason to learn a drafting-only program, the new architectural desktop has a lot of good features I think you'd like.

My firm uses ArchiCAD on Macs and we really don't have any problems with converting drawings back and forth to and from AutoCAD format. ArchiCAD has good built in translators for AutoCAD so it's been pretty seamless. There are, of course, always frustrations when working with consultant CAD drawings when they don't give you their fonts or penweights or when they have wacky layering, but that would all be just as true if we used AutoCAD.

I don't know if your post gave enough information about what type of work you do or what level of collaboration you expect to offer a lot of specific advice. The main reason I can possibly see for you to switch away from the Mac platform at this point is cost. If you have any employees or ever think you will hire more than one or two people, the cost of buying, maintaining, and replacing Apple hardware will likely be significantly higher over the years. Once your office has an established hardware platform and CAD software it's virtually impossible to switch later without incurring huge costs.

impala: ArchiCAD (available in pc and mac versions) is widely regarded to be superior to Architectural Desktop in terms of 3d modeling capabilities. It has a lot of the 3d capabilities of Revit and the drafting abilities of Desktop. ArchiCAD also seems to have a more intuitive interface and is a more complete solution out of the box. Desktop out of the box I've found to be very awkward and requires a lot of customization to make it work well. I do think ArchiCAD would be insufficient for doing a very large project like an airport or a skyscraper, but for anything else it really excels.

I just got a Mac having used PCs for about 8 years with Autocad. I switched to Vectorworks and was able to pick up on it very quickly. Vectorworks accompanied with it rendering program, Renderworks, can provide great 3d representations of your spaces. As far as 2d drafting is concerned, it is very easy.
ArchiCAD which was mentioned I am less familiar with. When I was in undergrad, the interior design depart. used it for a lot of their stuff, and many of the people I talke to enjoyed using it.
So, it is true, AutoCAD cannot run on a Mac(despite people who might say you could with Virtual PC, but don't try it because it is real slow), but programs like Vectorworks and other programs can produce just as good and if not better construction documents.
If you call Nemetshek, who makes Vectorworks, they can tell you about all the prices. I want to say a professional license for Vectorworks 12 is around
$2500. Student copies without training discs are $160, and with the training stuff it is around $500-however, you'll get kicked out of business if you get caught using a student copy for professional work.

Since I'm a one-man office doing mostly residential design work, i don't have the problem of big conversion costs, whichever way I choose to go. I have had a very brief exposure to AutoCad at a friend's office, and it seemed strange and non-intuitive to me; that being said, I don't really have any Mac CAD program to compare it to. I work frequently on projects with other firms who are AutoCad-based (being limited to small jobs that I could draw by hand), and I see a time coming (if not already here!) where I feel I will be virtually "unemployable" without some kind of CAD skills. I want to stay with the Mac, and probably learn VectorWorks, if this will allow me to still work with the PC/AutoCad community. I am still a bit concerned about the learning
curve necessary to become project-useful, regardless of what program I choose--additional advice on the best training tools would be appreciated.

if you want to maintain that "small projects" + mac tract, consider adobe illustrator with a plugin called cadtools

Pros:
more like hand drawing
cheaper ($250 for plugin, full Adobe CS2 is $1100 I think)
instruction/tutorials for Illustrator are easy to find
no mac issues

cons:
still don't gain any real "cad" skills
cumbersome on larger, more complicated projects

Archicad is easier to use and learn for someone with no previous experiance. If your a small office 2 or 3 people whith little electronic collaboration Archicad may make sense. But if you sent me files I'd have to hurt you. Archicad is a terrible choice for architects involved in large collaborative projects with continuous changes. Its not that fast and its interface is very cartoonish and mac-like. And regardless of what others say - yes I could open DWG files but there was always a glitch somewhere. Dont even get me started on hot links. Im so glad I never have to see it again. But for, it sounds like a good choice. I love America - something for everyone.

i learned vectorworks in about half a day. it is very intuitive, compared to other software. I think the main thing is to know how to set up a drawing, which you already have...the learning of cad is not such a big deal and more a matter of practice than anything else.


i have never had the experience of a seamless transfer when working with other subs or specialists, though i am told it is theoretically possiblle...;-)

vectorworks to autocad is not very good.
archicad to autocad is so-so.
never tried it with powercadd, but never liked that software so much anyway; much better to stick with VW.

autocad is definitely counter-intuitive, but still not so hard if you can stick with it. same for the windows environment if you ever decide to switch over. personally i find the difference between platforms is shrinking so much lately it doesn't matter which you use.

i am btw an autocad user..

Powercadd is decent and real easy to learn. Believe it or not, I still use the drafting feature in Form-Z for my own stuff. Exports nicely to AI, which is key.

Learned VectorWorks in half a day? It took me that long to get the box open.

Ah, to be young again!

for small residential projects VW was alright, i guess. i used to use it on a mac. there were file-translation problems with engineers but b/c of the project size it never became a huge issue. the bonus of VW is that it is VERY intuitive -- you click on a line icon, then you make a line. you double-click on the line, you change the length.

but: don't plan on using VW on a slow old mac. i had vectorworks 8 on my 800MHz iMac and it was slower than christmas. at work i used a dual-processor almost-brand-new G5 and it was still pretty slow, especially if i was trying to work and print at the same time.

I just got a powerbook and VW runs fine. I have done 3d renderings on highest settings and it has done great.

VectorWorks specifies a minimum of a Mac G3, 256 MB memory, OSX 10.3.9, 1.2 GB free on hard drive to run Architect 12. Is this realistic? Am I still in the Stone Age with a G4, 400MHz, 640MB ram?