Chief to Revit - 3D

[portrait]

Crowley,
I have all the programs you specified, plus 3D Max. I believe importing the Revit-made 3d model of a large hospital building is not a good idea, since it's very likely that Chief is gonna crash or give some errors if you want to import such big 3d data.
I mostly do the opposite; modeling the building in Chief, and import it into 3D Max for rendering. Even though you succesfully import your 3d data into Chief, rendering will be so slow or unsuccesfull.
If you decide that you need multiple Autodesk products, then don't purchase them seperately. Instead, consider having this suite which i also have: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...&siteID=123112

[portrait]

Oh, by the way beware of Autocad Architecture! It gives me the creeps!

[sutcac]

I think it would largely depend on how much of your business is residential. If it is a large percentage, and you have staff dedicated to that end of the business, then I would recommend Chief. If most of your work is hospitals and larger scale commercial, then you're likely better off with Revit, which can do the residential obviously too.

As far as rendering, I wouldn't buy Chief just for that as the rendering engine in Chief, IMO, is not it's strongest feature. You would be better off, I think, exporting to 3DS or 3D DWG and using Sketchup as a platform for rendering in Thea or other rendering engines that support Sketchup.