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Best/most affordable cad software
For a single surveyor that you can own (no seat licenses). I??m mostly interested in an easy program for boundary surveys, traversing, etc…I??m used to working with microstation and inroads but I??m not allowed to do private work on my work computer and this is for side projects to make extra money. Thanks.
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37 Replies
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Take a look at PC Survey. Priced well. Short learning curve, and good folks.
Mike -
Carlson running Intellicad
hands down
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Traverse PC
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generalcadd.com
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ProCOGO or Lot Plot. Both from AGT. They are really affordable.
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Hands down TraversePC. Been using this since 2007. Check out their website and talk with John. Won first place in the Maryland Society of Surveyors plat competition last year in 2 categories with TraversePC.
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alright ill check those out, thanks
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Is your employer OK with you moonlighting?
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It’s none of the employer’s business what they do on their own time. I own my business and I am not at all worried about moonlighters. I don’t compete on price. For the life of me I don’t understand Land Surveyors obsession with moonlighting. I don’t hear about this in any other business or profession.
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A timely thread as I’m also looking for same. I have Traverse PC 2013 and although it works, it does have some peculiarities such that I’d like to get something else (of course, they may have fixed all or most of the quirks by now :). On the other hand, my perception of said quirks in TPC may just be personal. For the record, I also use MicroStation and InRoads at my place of employment.
The only superior evidence is that which you haven’t yet found. -
I really thought about using their software and the project management side too, but never pulled the trigger. I should have. Are you using it?
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Some State BORs will differ on that opinion.
I’ve had helpers that moonlighted and actually used my monument caps that were found by other surveyors and I had to prove that I had never been there and nobody would come out and identify the culprits, I know who, just can not prove it without a witness.
The subject should be shared and discussed with employees and agreements made before problems arise.
That was in the past and it is not heard about in several years.
Then, sometimes takes decades or more for these things to be found and come into play.
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I’ve never heard of carpenters or plumbers or lawyers or anyone else complaining about fellow employees moonlighting. Can a surveyor work part time as a bartender? Is that okay? What about the full time bartenders? Is that fair to them? Do you think they care? I really don’t understand this obsession with complaining about surveyors working part time after working hours. I know doctors who work part time in different hospitals (after working full time in their regular job). I’ve never heard any complaints about that practice. Realtors work part time, nurses work part time. Part time work is a fact of life, it exists throughout industry. There is nothing special about surveyors working part time after working hours.
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Oh, one more thing about TPC: in my opinion, they have everyone else beat with respect to price. You can produce good-looking surveys with it with much less initial cash.
The only superior evidence is that which you haven’t yet found. -
Working part time, even for anther surveyor, is one thing. Building your own business while competing with your employer is quite another. Part of an employee’s job is to help bring in more work for the business. The only time I ever moonlighted, I was helping a friend with a engineering and surveying focused on residential and commercial clients. My full time employer was focused on state, railroad and utilities, so there was no competition. I spoke with the company president before agreeing to work part time for my friend, so there was no secrecy involved.
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Generalcadd is just a drawing program. It’s an offshoot of Generic Cadd which was an excellent program, which I used for my Survey business in Ohio, but I had to write a number of routines to bring my data into the program. Autodesk bought it to get it off the market as a competitor to AutoCAD LT. Several companies have produced Windows workalikes since Autodesk buried Generic Cad.
Were I you I would look at pieces of software produced by Carlson: Sight Survey and Carlson Survey. Both come with Intellicad included, with Sight Survey being the less costly, but both are good pieces of software. I used Microsurvey for years as County Engineer in Ohio while the Cadd engine was Felix Cadd, a good drawing engine. Since they joined the Intellicad consortium, it’s also another excellent choice. You can view current pricing on their websites.
The problem that will drive you up the wall is that Microstation operates bass ackward as opposed to the way a draftsman thinks and normally operates. I used Microstation while I was at ODOT, and then a few years later at NCDOT. I’ve spent over 10 years using Carlson Civil Suite on Intellicad and I’m transitioning to Microstation and Geopak again. Microstation is annoying as a drawing program, with the drawing engine being inferior to Intellicad in ease of operation. I have tolerated the program, but I will never love Microstation.
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Lately, I’ve checked out DraftSight and NanoCAD. The latter has a free basic version and reasonably priced “professional” versions. DraftSight is now subscription based and can get a bit pricey.
I do like the basic DraftSight for what I’m doing. My boss has decided to stick with AutoCAD LT since we are updating. I’ve only played with NanoCAD a little bit, but it seems like a decent program.
I don’t know what to expect in the new AutoCAD, but in the past, when Autodesk has updated CAD, features we used about daily evaporated and other things were broken. Personally, I’d rather go with something that does more for cheaper. Oh well.
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Land Surveyor’s shouldn’t be competing with one another. Ever hear of a doctor or lawyer say “I can beat that price”? Land Surveyors are not selling fish at a fish market, they’re providing a professional service.
I don’t bid. I work by the hour. If they want to use my service fine…if not so what?
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When I was in business in the 1970’s & 1980’s, I did everything for an hourly fee. Most of my work was route surveys (probably 98%). In 1975 we surveyed almost 600 miles of gas pipelines and buried telephone cables around the State of Wyoming. All charged out for an hourly fee. At that time I had 11 people in the office and 24 people in the field. We also fit in some subdivisions and other surveys along with some engineering work. Lot of long hours and everyone had plenty of overtime also. Overtime was far cheaper costwise than hiring a bunch of new people.
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Bricscad
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