quondam @ archinect/79/7900k.htm
ARRIS
Stephen Lauf 2003.06.24 15:49
I have used ARRIS since 1987 (when I bought my own system--before that I was using INTERGRAPH, since 1983, first at Cooper and Pratt Architects, and then as system manager at UofP's Graduate School of Fine Arts). Presently, I'm using a version from 1996, and don't plan to upgrade because I don't use CAD for business anymore, rather for "artistic" activities like www.quondam.com, which is presently exhibiting 1331 2D drawings all generated via ARRIS (since c. 1990).
I went with ARRIS in 1987 because back then it was the only viable 3D CAD on a PC--INTERGRAPH had great 3D from its start (because of work for NASA, and the early programmers of ARRIS first worked for INTERGRAPH. Unfortunately, I have no experience with other later developed softwares, so I really can't make comparisons, but ARRIS is powerful, and since I learned CAD via INTERGRAPH, the ARRIS command structure was practically the same. I like it's database configuration because they are all dimensional, ie, there is no distinction between 2D and 3D.
As an architect, I feel ARRIS is well taylored toward what architects do and how architects organize drawings. That's not to say other softwares don't, but there's no denying ARRIS does. Arris never got a sizable architect market niche because when it came out most architects were not using CAD, but their engineering consultants were, and the engineers were then all using AUTOCAD, thus most architects followed their engineering consultants primarily for ease of file transferability. I do know about how it is now, but AUTOCAD was shit then compared to ARRIS.
If there are any specific questions about ARRIS operations, I might just be in the mood to answer them. Or I might ask a question, like, do you know how to (easily) draw this with ARRIS?
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