Bluebeam vs. Kami

As stated before, the mobile application is a great companion to the desktop version. Either one works great in viewing, editing and saving documents. While the measurement tool is handy to have, we have found the precision to be lacking when measuring scaled drawings (construction design drawings). While it is a good rough place to start for measurements, we wouldn't recommend relying on the precision of the measurements taken on something with a very large scale.

Incentivized

When dealing with absent students, and giving them classroom material, Kami is great. I never make extra copies of worksheets anymore. If a student needs/wants a second one, they can get it digitally from me. Additionally, being able to track the feedback that I give to students is a real plus.

Incentivized

• Overlaying pdf drawings to identify changes made by architects.
• Scaling dimensions when the architect has not provided required dimensions to proceed with work in the field.
• Hyperlinking construction documents with required information makes it much easier to look through multiple sheets in less time.

Incentivized

• Kami does a great job at helping you reshape pdfs and share documents from different formats.
• I like being able to give all of my students a copy of a document, and having Kami organize each student's work product in real-time.
• I like being able to annotate directly on a student's work so that they can receive feedback in real-time.
• I like being able to merge, cut, and edit documents quickly.

Incentivized

• If you have several tabs open and you try to drag one out for a side by side view then you do not have all the modification options and you have to combine them back together.
• There is a lag time when hitting the print option.
• There is also a lag time when opening files, sometimes I think the window is frozen.
• I wish the basic version also had basic file editing, as in editing a document as Adobe does.

Incentivized

• When I am multitasking on multiple screens, there are times when I am trying to scroll with my stylus and I end up writing on the document.
• When Kami creates folders and organization, there seems to be almost too much redundancy. The same file seems to be in multiple places. I don't know if that is a Kami problem or a me problem, but I'll probably start trying to clean things up a little soon.
• I think that the tool restriction for students method could be improved.

Incentivized

Bluebeam is a powerful PDF viewer and mark-up tool. We are more familiar with it than Adobe Acrobat Pro or other viewers, and it has more features geared towards construction document managers than Acrobat Pro does.

Incentivized

I'm constantly finding that Bluebeam Revu does more than I knew it could. And when I find something that it can't do, I've found that Bluebeam truly listens to its user base and will work to incorporate any good suggestion when feasible.

Incentivized

There is a small learning curve with some of the annotation tools. There is also a learning curve for embracing exactly what you can accomplish with Kami. However, with just a little practice, you can master just about all of the Kami features.

Incentivized

Its hard for me to give a rating on this one as we rarely have to use the support feature for Bluebeam. However, when we have used it, they have been ultra supportive in helping us get exactly what we needed. I know another engineer was trying to figure out a feature and the rep gave a detailed tutorial on how to complete the task

Incentivized

Bluebeam is a diverse program with many functions and tools, whereas competitive programs only specialize in one or few tasks. Although there are many tools within the program, users can still quickly learn how to use the program to best fit their needs. There is always a help tab for any assistance needed.

Incentivized

I like Miro better for teacher directed lessons, and group discussions. I like Nearpod more if I have to include a number of different interactive aspects to lessons. I find Google Slides and Adobe to be more clunky and less user friendly than Kami generally. However, if I want to just make a document better, or I want to give my students independent work, or if I want them to complete homework than Kami is my go-to tool

Incentivized

• A major positive aspect is being able to take your computer home without taking the entire set of paper drawings. They have made it so easy to navigate a set of drawings that I can work at home using only the digital drawings.
• Collaboration with owners and architects has been a great feature. Setting up a Bluebeam studio and having everyone get in and mark things up, then having the architect be able to go in and see what markups have been added, has made the constructability review process much much better.
• Even when not working on drawings, Bluebeam is a very good tool for working with standard PDF documents. The markup tools are very easy to use.
• The negative aspect is the takeoff function because some people would like estimators to use the Bluebeam takeoff because it would make their job easier down the road; however, the actual act of doing a full scale takeoff in Bluebeam would require much more time.

Incentivized

• My desk has about 10% of the paperwork sitting on it than it used to have.
• I never have any arguments about whether a student turned something in or not.
• A student doesn't have to physically see me for me to help them with work. I can write and they can see what I write.
• Sharing documents with colleagues is now a breeze.

Incentivized