Chief Architect For Large Residential/commercial Houses

[designerp]

Hi everyone,

 

I am new to this forum n so wanted to post few questions. If any of you have information, please share your unbiased thoughts.

 

I want to be an architect cum builder. I have been looking into all the major tools available in the market. I have tried trial versions of few softwares and here's my thought.

 

Sketchup- complicated, since i have to draw everything in 3D rather than 2D like other tools.

Archicad- OK

Revit- OK, looks complicated. But the rendering is great. 

Vectorworks: 

Chief Architect- Good, really impressed.

 

My questions:

 

1. i browse to see the leading market leaders in BIM and many sites do not even mention chief architect. Why? I don't think its a marketing strategy. There should be some logical reasoning of this

 

ex:

http://www.cad-addict.com/2010/03/list-of-bim-software-providers.html

 

2. Does CA generate structural drawing with columns?

 

3. I want to use CA in india where the construction is different from US. Its majorly brickwall and RC designing. Does this matter. 

 

4. If  building complex residential and commercial homes, does CA support with all the necessary options/tools?

 

5. If i want to use other rendering tools like lumion/3DS/Vray etc, do they all support the CA file format?

 

6. Designing house in CA was really easy compared to stetchup or archicad. But why CA is not as popular as these? Does CA have any known constraints?

 

Can someone share your thoughts....

 

thx

[CJSpud]

Lots of great questions for someone out shopping for a design program.  I would suggest you contact CA directly and talk to one of their sales reps and have ALL your most important questions (if more than you've posted) written down so you can go through them one-by-one with whoever you talk to.

 

You should get some feedback from other users more familiar with other software (you mentioned) as they get time to respond.  You could search the forum as there have been similar posts in the past.

 

You can always download the trial version to test CA or purchase and use for 30 days and if not satisfied, get a refund.  [https://www.chiefarchitect.com/products/guarantee.html]

 

You also can rent CA on a monthly basis.  [https://shopping.chiefarchitect.com/checkout/cart/]