Drafting and designing have an essential function in human progress from the very start of civilizations, it makes ideas simpler to understand through pictorial and symbol illustrations, and this brought about the development of “engineering artwork”. Drafting is a manner of the use of snapshots and logos to offer principles, ideas, or perspectives at the same time as drawing is a pictorial representational of any actual-world item or aspect. To make designing and drafting simpler in virtual form, many corporations launched distinctive software and the two well-known software are ArchiCAD and CATIA. Let’s evaluate those and find out the quality for customers in keeping with their needs.
CATIA may be understood as an all-in-one computer-aided design (CAD) software program to construct blueprints and 3D fashions of various objects. Dassault Systemes designed the CATIA and launched it in 1982. Latest version hits the market in 2020. It’s far available for windows and Unix running systems. It is utilized in distinct fields like aerospace, mechanical, electric, automotive, electronics, shipbuilding, and so forth.
Advantages of CATIA
- It has advanced equipment for surfacing, modeling, and 3D designing.
- It allows us to carry out simulations easily.
- It lets for the calculation of life cycle management.
- C++ scripts are used for customization.
Disadvantages of CATIA
- It is not compatible with Mac operating systems.
- The charge of CATIA is more in comparison to AutoCAD.
- It lacks multilingual features.
ArchiCAD is a computer application for engineering and architectural designs. It is used for constructing data Modelling and computer-aided design works. ArchiCAD presents a whole package of tools that facilitates designing 2D and 3D environments like parking areas, buildings, interiors, etc. It can be used on windows and Mac systems. Its stable model was released in 2021. Graphisoft is credited for its development.
Advantages of ArchiCAD
- It has a clean user interface that can be custom designed without problems in keeping with the person’s preference.
- It comes with strong equipment which helps in rendering excessive exceptional and practical models.
- It offers advanced shadow, brightness, lighting, and texture functionalities.
- It is a pleasant choice for designing digital buildings.
Disadvantages of ArchiCAD
- It consumes more time in rendering.
- Sometimes standard file transfer results in data loss.
- No third-party integrations support is provided.
Following is a table of differences between ArchiCAD and CATIA:
|
CATIA |
ArchiCAD |
|
|---|---|---|
| Definition | It can be understood as computer software that is used for drafting, surfacing, 3D modeling, etc in different industries. | It can be understood as a BIM platform to simplify the construction work of 2D and 3D models. |
| Developer(s) | It was developed by Dassault Systemes. | It was developed by Graphisoft. |
| Features | Some of the features of CATIA are Lifecycle Management, Project Management, Reporting/Analytics, etc. | Some of the features of ArchiCAD are BIM Modeling, Issue Tracking, Version Control, etc. |
| Price | Its one-time purchase price is $11,200. | It is not available for one-time purchase and costs $196 per month. |
| Official site | Its official site is www.3ds.com | Its official site is www.graphisoft.com |
| Free Version | It does not provide any free version. | Student version of ArchiCAD is free for one year. |
| Integrations | It allows integration with SYNCHRO, Shapr3d, Total ETO, etc. | It supports integration with BIM Track, Revizto, Toric, etc. |
| Asset Library | It doesn’t have an architectural symbol library, so all the symbols are required to be created manually. | It comes with an in-built architectural symbol library which contains a large number of symbols. |
Conclusion/Summary
Both ArchiCAD and CATIA are engineering design tools that help in creating 3D models of different buildings, machines, objects, etc. ArchiCAD is comparatively more popular due to multiple language support and the free version which is available, especially for students. On the other hand, CATIA supports only windows systems but offers advanced tools with a clean and easy interface.