Chief Vs Autocad

[RMorrison]

Richard, not having spent too much time with Chief yet I would be very interested to hear more specifically what you think are cumbersome on the construction document side compared to AC?
Ben

Well, several things:
1) Schedules. Chief has difficulty with door/window/plumbing fixture schedules, etc. After you get used to highly customizable schedules in AC that can give you opening square footages, say, along with subtotals, it's hard to accept the limitations of Chief. In AC, anything can be scheduled. In Chief, not so much. At version X5, I am frustrated that I really can't a decent light fixture schedule out of Chief.

2) I have trouble with Chief's fill patterns not having a user definable origin for each instance. I depend on this for accurate tile layouts in elevations, especially.

3) Chief starts bogging down with lots of CAD elements. AC doesn't break a sweat. The user interface for drafting is very transparent. Find and Select elements is available, as well as easy group changes of different types of elements at one go.

4) Then there are lots of small things, like automatically generated drawing titles, linked reference bubbles that automatically update when a detail is moved, ability to display elements on upper AND lower floors, ability to make walls with multiple layers intersect correctly, absolutely accurate terrain models, etc.

To be fair, Chief has some advantages in the design stages; its cabinets are far superior to AC's, and I find the House Wizard very useful. You can throw together a model very quickly.