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I’ve seen people comparing AutoCAD and MicroStation. How they love it, and don’t understand why would people choose the other one. So which one is the best? Which one should you use?
This article is my personal opinion, you are welcome if you want to write yours on comment section below.
It’s not an apple-to-apple comparison
To me, it’s not really apple-to-apple comparison. They are not really competing each other.
Really? Aren’t they both can do about the same thing? Well yeah, but it doesn’t mean they are competing on the same area.
AutoCAD was designed as drafting tool
Yes. AutoCAD was designed as drafting tool. It was the best ever, and still is. If you mainly work with detailed drawings, I think most likely you will say AutoCAD is better than MicroStation. Later, many applications use AutoCAD as platform. Autodesk puts many tools to AutoCAD, even change the rendering engine to mental ray. The same rendering engine for 3ds Max. But still, the AutoCAD strongest point is its drafting capability.
MicroStation was designed as platform
MicroStation was optimized as a CAD platform. Bentley is working hard to make almost all of their products run on MicroStation. It makes MicroStation has the ability for drafting/detailing, 3D modeling, rendering, and even animations. I’m not talking about simple walkthrough here, but complex animation like I found here on YouTube:
Here also some sample tutorial how you can create traffic animation in MicroStation, and this is a result from Bentley Civil channel.
Yes, Bentley can create great renderings too.
So MicroStation is better than AutoCAD? As a CAD platform, yes. But not as drafting tool.
Of course you can create detailed drawings in MicroStation. MicroStation has tools for drafting, but I find AutoCAD is much more convenient than MicroStation.
I believe that’s why Autodesk acquire Revit, replace AutoCAD Mechanical Desktop with Inventor, and bundle their products as suite. Because AutoCAD is not enough.
In the end, it’s about solution
So Bentley is better than Autodesk? Not really.
Today, 2D drafting probably is still dominating many industries. So it makes sense if more people use AutoCAD than other CAD software. But today, many industries emphasize to move further. In building industries, they have BIM. In manufacturing, they have digital prototyping or PLM. Not sure what are other terms in different industries.
Autodesk already have AutoCAD as the most powerful drafting tool. They have the most powerful visualization tools in their portfolio too. The reason why I didn’t put Autodesk rendering samples is because you must have seen them. Almost every computer graphics in Hollywood movies used their solution.
The problem is they need more power in their arsenal, because AutoCAD can’t handle more than what it can handle now. So now they have Revit for BIM. They have Inventor for manufacturing. Each of them are good.
Bentley won’t have many problem because they already have good CAD platform. Autodesk needs to create interoperability between their products. Bentley doesn’t have to. They all use the same CAD platform and file format.
Yes, Autodesk has the best drafting and visualization tool. But MicroStation offers enough capabilities. By using it, you can avoid steep learning curve because basically it’s the same tool.
But do you really need to master that many software?
So what do you think?
Above is just my two cents. I believe there are many of you who use both AutoCAD and MicroStation.
You probably want to share yours?
AutoCAD lies not even close to MicroStation.
We had a very big .dwg file, around 200 MB. Two or three people tried to open it in AutCAD and it failed (long waiting with no effect or a crash). Then someone popped up with an idea of opening that file in MicroStation. And it worked in the first attempt! After 2 minutes the file was open. You should see the faces of AutoCAD fans in our office…
In 3D there in no comparison. Autocad is not close. Add a 3rd party software such as cadworx and the problems only get worse. Crashing for no reason, saves take forever. I never experianced these problems in microstation. Right out of the box it is so much better suited for 3D work. I actually like it better even in 2d after getting use to the differences. Does microstation need so improvements? Sure but who couldn’t? Just my two cents.
I’m going to look at this comparison from a software design angle (since they are both PROGRAMS).
I’ve been using both AutoCAD and MicroStation for years. I haven’t used InRoads much, but I’m a Civil3D pro.
As far as the software is concerned, I think the developers at AutoDesk strive to create a well-integrated, understandable, intuitive product, one that makes sense and is easy to use.
– MicroStation suffers from the lack of a command-line. The command-line in ACAD makes issuing commands happen at hyperspeed compared to the slog of button-mashing a user needs to make in MicroStation.
– AutoCAD commands are intuitive. Type “line” to draw a line. Type “copy” to copy an element. This requires very little memorization. Microstation commands are based on a numeric system and are therefore not at all intuitive. Type “31” to copy and “Q2” to draw a line. Ridiculous. As you can see, to memorize MicroStation commands takes users lots of time, and is just a pain in the ass.
– MicroStation icons are not only plain ugly from a visual standpoint, they’re also poorly designed. A user can nearly always correctly guess the purpose of an AutoCAD button. Buttons in MicroStation, though, look like they were designed by a 6 year old with Microsoft Paint and do not fulfill their semantic purpose, which is to quickly communicate the function of the tool being clicked.
– Editing text in MicroStation documents is a buggy, poorly documented nightmare that is almost impossible to understand and forces engineers and designers to come up with genius workarounds. The text editor in AutoCAD is well-designed, straightforward and very capable.
Additionally, I’ve found Bentley products to be poorly documented, and full of other seemingly minor but actually major design flaws (such as the inability to resize file previews in the browser to a reasonable size where you can actually SEE the file). You’d think such an ability would be a normal part of any modern program.
I actually enjoy using AutoDesk products.
But that’s just me! :)
Print preview in MicroStation should be done better, I don’t understand why it is done as it is.
I totally disagree with all the rest of your comment. What Microstation version are you referring too? You should refer to the latest one. The tool icons are nice and intuitive there.
– MicroStation doesn’t suffer of lack of a command line. You probably didn’t study MicroStation functionality too much. It is called key-in command line and you can type any command there even autocad commands. Autocad command line is a relic of old times and it is poor and confusing – T is mtext, TE is TEX is text edit, TEXT is place text. In Autocad it is a nightmare to get to deeper options by a command line. Very slow.
– Autocad commands as you see are not pretty much intuitive. Microstation command shortcuts like 31 or Q2 maybe looks ridiculous but lots of users like and use them. Not me. I like something better embedded in Microstation. It is possible to set up one and two letter shortcuts, eg. c for copy, m for move, r for rotate and so on. And there is no need to hit enter after. It is much quicker then in Autocad where you always need to hit enter. Funny bug in Autocad – if your cursor is over an selected element handle then the command line doesn’t work. Funny and ridiculous.
– The whole text concept i Autocad is bad. Why there is a need for mtext and normal text? There should be one type of text only. Scaling texts is really poor in Autocad, why can’t I scale text by stretching it by a handle?
Additionally:
– Making orders between elements is like making sand castles. It works until the next time the file is open.
– Selecting elements works only if all elements are physically visible on a screen. You can’t start selecting elements in the left corner and then pan a view the the right one. All elements always need to be visible on a screen… Is it a joke?
Of course you can live with all of those “little” things. Poor view rotation, poor reference options and so on. But for me Autocad is disqualified because it shows “50-pence” stroke lines instead of real arcs.
I agree, I use Microstation about 10 years, and now I need to use AutoCad at my new job – it is horrible!!! But when I come home I open the same dwg file on Microstation and can work with pleasure.)) Thanks
You do realize that AutoCAD users will say the same thing when they use MicroStation, right? :)
1. my apologize for my horrible english;
2. before Microstation I used AutoCAD too (5 years), so I don’t realize;
3. I worked (in Microstation) side by side with AutoCAD users and always heard their complaints, and I understood them;
4. how many versions of AutoCAD? – it is amazing, every year, right?)) Is it so good!?
Slava,
No need to apologize :)
I understand that there are software fanatics who don’t want to use another software, especially if they have used it for years.
My point is, it is common to hear that AutoCAD users say MicroStation is bad. And MicroStation users say AutoCAD is bad.
1. hi again);
2. as i told, i using both software (even 3DS Max for 3D);
3. i’ve never said that AutoCAD is bad, but i could compare these two software;
4. Microstation works more correct then AutoCAD – this is more important (for me);
5. I don’t want to argue, so let’s we do some comparison (if you want and have a time), i’d like to know some more about AutoCAD.)
Thanks
A few comments from an old user (architect) – just for the story.
I had used Microstation PC back in 1987 for a couple of years(*) as a general drafting tool. It was much easier to learn than AutoCAD (You just sit down and start drawing), had friendly icons on the menus, displayed real curves and was very fast. It also supported dynamic panning while on AutoCAD you had to define the vector of displacement, and a user usually pans a lot. It was also using a database (though I never tried to use it, but I knew people that were using it).
A very important point was that, at that time, Microstation was able to work with two displays on a regular PC equipped with two display cards (displaying the drawing content on both displays while AutoCAD, the best it could do, is to display the text menu on the second display).
I had also seen some photorealistic building interiors that AutoCAD users couldn’t even imagine (I think created by another Micorostation product).
At that period, I had also read a comparison test that proved that a user could produce the same drawing with the half keyboards/mouse clicks on Microstations PC.
–>That’s a test that should be repeated <–
(I also remember that it had command line, as mentioned by Robert, and I do remember that you could type in AutoCAD commands).
An unfortunate point is that most CAD users learned to use AutoCAD and it was(/is?) hard to find Microstations users.
It is possible though that for other fields (electrical. mechanical engineering) AutoCAD may be more powerful.
(*) After that, since I am architect, I switched to Architrion (a CAD software similar to today's ArchiCAD) that supported easy 3d construction, heliodon and real shadows, not just shades that most CAD offered at that time.
Thank you for sharing Demetrios.
I only started using MicroStation circa 2007. At that time, AutoCAD is already a decent software. Some MicroStation features were still better than AutoCAD.
But unfortunately, many AutoCAD users don’t care. All they need to know AutoCAD is faster for what they do: drafting.
I must admit that if they only do drafting, AutoCAD is their better option. But AutoCAD is not so great for 3D. That is why Autodesk needs other 3D software like Inventor and Revit.
Bentley on the other hand, can use MicroStation as the platform for all their other software.
Again, there are many reasons why we choose AutoCAD or MicroStation. And sometimes we don’t have to choose. Our employer makes us use it, whether we like it or not.
There are some AutoCAD behaviors that are very annoying to me:
– copying from reference (It’s a nightmare. Imagine that you have to copy 1000 elements from a reference. Selecting them one by one will take ages. In MicroStation it will take a couple of seconds.)
– displaying arc and circles as stroke lines (This is actually the worst thing in AC. Even setting smoothness to 20000 doesn’t help much. Why do I have to set up smoothness for each file I open? Why arcs cannot be arcs?? It’s not a problem in MS.)
– undo works together with drafting operations and views (why should I click hundreds of times to go back to e.g. previous line length? Only because that after changing the line I zoomed out and in or panned a view? It is done well in MS.)
– selecting elements with Shift button (Why on Earth with Shift? Why not with Control button as all the other Windows applications do? This is really annoying.)
– rotating a view (why is it so difficult to simply rotate a view? Why a new coordinate system needs to be set up? Because of the poor functionality of view rotation not many people rotate views at all. Some even ask me why I rotate a view or even tell me that we shouldn’t rotate a view. Sic!)
– unreconciled new layers message (I get it each time I want to plot a drawing. Totally annoying. Most of users just start ignoring the message after a while.)
– poor working with references (why can’t I switch off snapping to elements in a reference file? Why can’t I set up one color for reference elements, regardless if they are “by layer” or not? Why just to know an element layer I have to copy it to my master file?)
– poor working with linetypes and line widths (Why the linetype scale changes depending on view zoom? If I have it set up nicely in my model and then I want to print it in same workable scale in layout the linestyle scale is totally bad – dash line is shown as continuous. If I set it up nicely in a layout then it is very poor in my model. This very annoying. Line widths are also working badly. And because of that people avoid using linetypes and different widths. It is really easy to recognize a drawing done in AutoCAD. It very often has only continuous linetype used and almost everything is done with one width. And there are a lot of yellow lines on a drawing…)
I hope you don’t get it personal I am writing about a program only. Just can’t understand how badly designed AutoCAD is. Why is it so popular then? Is it because that it is poorly secured and easy to hack and thus most students can have a full hacked version easily?
Robert,
Me and some colleagues who also use other software than AutoCAD agree that AutoCAD needs to be rewritten from scratch. It’s an old software and they keep adding new features to it. It may work but not optimal and bloated. It’s also not consistent with new UI and operating system.
However, I believe it works as designed. It’s not easy to change an 30 years old software with millions of users. Even now, many users prefer to use the older versions because they feel they work faster and more reliable.
If someone already uses AutoCAD for decades, I believe they will not love it immediately either. But I also know some users start to like MicroStation more than AutoCAD.
In my country, it’s not easy to get support for MicroStation. Not easy to find a user. I don’t know how it is in your country. But in a company point of view, it’s just easier to use AutoCAD.
It only looks like it is easier to use AutoCAD because other companies use it. If I was a boss of a company I would choose MicroStanion because it can work unlike AutoCAD in both dwg and dgn mode. It can attach dwg files as references and it all works very well. It can simply replace AutoCAD features and give you much more flexibility.
If your company needs to work on both dwg and dgn drawings then the answer is MicroStation. MicroStation user never complains when he gets a dwg file. But try to send a dgn file to AutoCAD user – you’ll be asked for dwg in the very next mail…
I don’t understand what AC drafting tools are better than MS ones. Both programs are not comparable as Microstation is far more better in almost every aspect (it’s easier, faster, doesn’t crash all the time, has much better tools for references, runs texts scripts, etc.). It is like compare old Blackberry phone to new iPhone. They both can call, send messages, connect Internet… I don’t need to mention the difference in performance though?
I’d like to mention that I have several years of experience in both programs and now I am working on AC. Sadly, because every day I am surprised how poorly Autocad is designed.
Autocad and Microstation are not comparable…
I’ve been using Microstation since before it was called Microstation. Back then it was Intergraph and the software was written specifically for the hardware. When the Bentley brothers left Intergraph and started to write the software for use on the PC my company got in on the ground floor with version 1. Back then it was basically a drafting tool. There were no other applications as today. At the time AutoCAD was not very usable for our industry plus our main client used Microstation so that’s what we used. Just within the last year or so I started using AutoCAD and, even though I have much more experience with Microstation I find AutoCAD much the same. There are pros and cons with both platforms and even though I am able to work much faster with Microstation I am finding as I use AutoCAD there are some aspects of it that I prefer over Microstation. I think, for most people, it depends which platform you were trained on as to which on you perceive as “better”. For me, as I get more experience with AutoCAD I’m finding either platform does a good job.
After using both Microstation and AutoCAD, I prefer Microstation as CAD-tool, Autocad has many benefits but crashes often and is bit harder to use (once you master Microstation). I can also compare Civil and PowerCivil, Microstation PowerCivil is totally unusable software before Bentley fixes some major bugs in the program, Autodesk Civil is relly slow on large files, but seems to work better than PC.
I’m an Electrical & Instrumentation (E&I) designer. I’ve used AutoCAD, AutoCAD Electrical & Microstation. I find Microstation to be quicker, easier and way more user friendly than the other two.
Every E&I designer I’ve worked with over the years has preferred Microstation, however every Mechanical, Structural and Civil designer I’ve worked with say they prefer AutoCAD. So I guess it depends what you’re using it for as to which one is best to use for you.
There’s only one way to figure out which software is best. None of this “personal opinion” junk. Find 2, 10 year veterans at each software, sit them down and give them a task. Do this for each discipline, and you’ll have a winner.
In the end, it’s the company decision. I know a company that use AutoCAD in my country, but they use MicroStation in the headquarter.
The reason is, it’s not easy to find MicroStation users here. It’s easier (and cheaper) to switch and hire AutoCAD users.
Sometimes to be the best is not enough. The pricing, support availability, and many more reasons are used to choose a software. Not simply because the software can do everything.
Sorry, but no, you wont. All you’ll be testing is how cute the salesman/manager of the product in question is. They will use countless tricks to promote whatever is best for them personally. Whenever you have 3 people or more in a room, y0u have politics, and politics and perception will always rule the day. This has been Bentley’s problem from day 1.
Personally, I have been working with both platforms for almost 30 years now. I find Microstation infinitely better for larger files, complex 3-D modeling, and design. AutoCAD still rules for drafting, but still behaves like an enhanced 2D platform.
That fellow’s article was bang on.
:)
I worked with Autocad solely for 6 years and mastered it even to the point I was writing my own Lisp programs. Now I’ve been using Microstation and Bentley Rail for only 7 months, already I can see how much better Microstation is for design and drafting the functionality and versatility of the software really shows. But believe me when I first started using microstation, naturally I wanted autocad back because I wasn’t used to the new working environment but only 7 months down the line and I can see the potential and I can’t wait to take things further with this product.