Lee Roy Posted January 30, 2012 Posted January 30, 2012 I'm being pushed and pushed to "evaluate" this software. Upon reading up on it, and looking through it...I find nothing spectacular. I have yet to install it simply because it looks to me like a waste of time. Does anyone have any real or relevant experience with this software that can weigh in? Quote
addesigns Posted January 30, 2012 Posted January 30, 2012 Are you talking about Revit? Revit is pretty sweet and powerful if you can manage a library and figure out how it works. Quote
Lee Roy Posted January 30, 2012 Author Posted January 30, 2012 No, I'm talking about AutoPREP. http://www.autoprep.com I'm very well versed in Revit (Arch/MEP/Struct) and AutoCAD. Quote
Jack_O'neill Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 I've never used it myself, but it looks like a tool that could come in handy if you inherited someone else's mess and needed to update every drawing in your archive. Be very careful with it. It has the same potential to automatically screw up thousands of drawings as it does to fix them. I can see where upper level managers with little or no cad knowledge would be attracted to this program. It makes lots of promises that it may or may not live up to. My experience says that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Quote
Organic Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 After watching the first Youtube result for it (official), I am unimpressed. Their sales pitch is pretty bad. Quote
Lee Roy Posted January 31, 2012 Author Posted January 31, 2012 Ok, so it's not just me... They want $1k per seat for it. Quote
Jack_O'neill Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 Ok, so it's not just me... They want $1k per seat for it. Holy Crap! Ain't no way. I don't see anything in that program the standards checker teamed up with some lisps or a script or two wouldn't do for...uh...well...free! Quote
Lee Roy Posted January 31, 2012 Author Posted January 31, 2012 Yeah, that's what I've said for about a year now. It's from the same company that does AutoSprink. Quote
Organic Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 If it did reduce cleanup work from 20 hours down to 30 minutes (and frequently) as the owner of the company claims, then it would probably be worthwhile. I can't see that occurring though. Quote
Lee Roy Posted January 31, 2012 Author Posted January 31, 2012 IMHO if a drawing requires that much "cleanup", someone needs to review their drafting practices. I watched the video...completely unimpressed. -Manage x-ref's without opening the drawings (We use Project Navigator, makes this fairly simple) -Clean up drawings (They're not dirty?) -Compare changes (Why are there multiple copies of the same drawing??? That's asking for trouble) Quote
Jack_O'neill Posted February 1, 2012 Posted February 1, 2012 Most of the jobs I draw don't take 20 hours to do, much less that much clean up time. I hate xrefs, so I rarely use them. When I do a revision, I archive the old one in an appropriately named folder and rename the original file so that I know it's an archive. all of this is easy for me to say, since there's only one of me, but we didn't have all that much trouble with stuff like that even when I worked at the dinosaur, and there more than 100 of us then. Quote
Lee Roy Posted February 1, 2012 Author Posted February 1, 2012 "At my old job..." we didn't have these issues either. I don't think I've really ever run into issues where this program would help me (from what they demonstrate it does). Quote
Lee Roy Posted February 1, 2012 Author Posted February 1, 2012 They want $1k per seat for it. ...per year. Yeah, I argued down everyone. Looks like we might get a few seats for 1 year for free with purchase of AutoSPRINK upgrade, but I think the software is going to be a huge waste of time. Quote
Jack_O'neill Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 Sounds like your management just wanted you to come up with a justification for a decision they'd already made. I hate it when they do that. Quote
OTRT Posted July 12, 2012 Posted July 12, 2012 (edited) I was looking for an informed review of AutoPREP and came across this thread, which appears to be a workplace grievance post and not an actual review. I’d like to offer a review since I’m now an actual user of the product. I had been looking for an AutoCAD add-on that would help me deal with thousands of AutoCAD files on our servers. I needed to quickly identify which files were host, xref, missing, corrupt, etc. and have it automatically fix hard paths and AEC object issues. This program will sort, re-path, and identify thousands of files in just minutes and give me a report when it’s done. It creates proxy files for the missing or corrupt ones which act as placeholders -I’m not prompted with anything when I open a drawing with xrefs. As for the comment about never using xrefs,most construction projects of notable size use xrefs like mad, so that person would obviously not benefit from this part of the tool. I also needed a way to see the differences between change order versions of drawings, preferably in a batch mode. Another feature (that I haven’t tried yet) is the batch cleanup tool, which sounds like would save many hours. To address one of the concerns in this post, AutoPREP makes a copy of each original file before doing anything to it, so nothing is lost. It amazed me how much this program was trashed in this thread by people who either haven’t tried it or obviously are not in the target market. As for cost, I’m happy to pay $995 per year to save thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of dollars in design labor. I’ve used it for 3 weeks and it’s already paid for itself! The biggest contractor in the US (Tutor Perini) is using this. That has to count for something. I will update my review after I check out the cleanup feature. I will also check out "cookie cutter" as suggested by another too-serious member of this site. Cheers Edited July 12, 2012 by OTRT grammar - word spacing Quote
Lee Roy Posted July 19, 2012 Author Posted July 19, 2012 (edited) WALL OF TEXT FOR 23950674 DAMAGE!!!! I was looking for an informed review of AutoPREP and came across this thread, which appears to be a workplace grievance post and not an actual review Grievance? I just re-read my thread and I didn't see anywhere that I'm complaining about my workplace. Merely that I was being pushed to evaluate software that didn't appear to be of any benefit to us, so I was asking if anyone had any real-world experience that could provide a review. This thread was asking for reviews. Nowhere in the title am I claiming this to be a review. What was said by others was said by them. Please don't confuse their opinions with the intent of the OP (Original Poster : Me). Again, it was determined that our use of Project Navigator and meticulous file structure and naming standards, deemed this software to be of little value or use to us. Edited July 19, 2012 by Lee Roy Quote
OTRT Posted August 10, 2012 Posted August 10, 2012 WALL OF TEXT FOR 23950674 DAMAGE!!!! . Grievance? I just re-read my thread and I didn't see anywhere that I'm complaining about my workplace.... . Hey, as Nacho Libre would say, "Take it easy". Lighten up. Mildly amusing obscure gaming reference. Receive 4 quintillion damage. Lose a turn. I just re-reread it and I guess I took your comments the wrong way: “I find nothing spectacular” Your review of the website info? “it looks to me like a waste of time” Again - sort of a review / opinion “ Ok, so it's not just me...They want $1k per seat for it.” It saves me many hours in design time - that’s no joke. “IMHO if a drawing requires that much "cleanup", someone needs to review their drafting practices.” You should get out more often. Really. “-Manage x-ref's without opening the drawings (We use Project Navigator, makes this fairly simple)” I’ll have to check that out! “-Clean up drawings (They're not dirty?)” Ha. “-Compare changes (Why are there multiple copies of the same drawing??? That's asking for trouble)” Seriously? There are large projects out there that have thousands of “copies of the same drawing” otherwise known as 'revisions'. Maybe you were kidding here. “I think the software is going to be a huge waste of time” It sounds like it would be for you. Most importantly: “All your base are belong to us” Prodigious use of emoticons - I win! Semper Fi Quote
OTRT Posted August 10, 2012 Posted August 10, 2012 ...per year. Yeah, I argued down everyone. Looks like we might get a few seats for 1 year for free with purchase of AutoSPRINK upgrade, but I think the software is going to be a huge waste of time. Arguing? At your workplace? :-o Quote
Lee Roy Posted August 10, 2012 Author Posted August 10, 2012 Hey, as Nacho Libre would say, "Take it easy". Lighten up. This is "easy" and "lightened up". “I find nothing spectacular” Your review of the website info? Nothing in their presentation of info stands out. “it looks to me like a waste of time” Again - sort of a review / opinion Opinion. It cannot be a review as I clearly stated that I have not used the software. “IMHO if a drawing requires that much "cleanup", someone needs to review their drafting practices.” You should get out more often. Really. That response doesn't make sense. If a drawing is drawn efficiently from the get-go, there should be little need for "cleanup" much past audit and overkill. “-Manage x-ref's without opening the drawings (We use Project Navigator, makes this fairly simple)” I’ll have to check that out! There's things I hate about it, and things I like, but it does its job pretty well. “-Clean up drawings (They're not dirty?)” Ha. Go up two responses... “-Compare changes (Why are there multiple copies of the same drawing??? That's asking for trouble)” Seriously? There are large projects out there that have thousands of “copies of the same drawing” otherwise known as 'revisions'. Maybe you were kidding here. Ever thought to put the revisions on a layer? It saves disk space and makes searching the file system a lot easier. “All your base are belong to us” That meme's been dead for a couple years. "Arguing? At your workplace? :-o" *GASP* I know! Holding different opinions NEVER happens in the workplace! Quote
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