Has anyone used Traverse PC.
I'd like to know more about it too as I've seen it a couple times before. I use C3D almost exclusively but I know it's not the best fit for surveying and the perpetual license interests me
I was told about it from a friend that runs a solo operation. I have not had time yet but they will let you download a free version and he texted me they are doing some online training next week for anyone that downloads a free version. ?ÿI have been so busy studying and making Hay that I have not downloaded it. He was a civil 3d and carlson cad user. But he said once he got his mind to think surveying again and not autocad he loves it. Said you have to kinda mentally dump the cad techniques and think like a surveyor again. I did look at some of his plats and they looked fine to me. ?ÿHe had everything he needed it was great looking nothing out of the ordinary stuck out. ?ÿI always try and use cogo to draw boundaries anyway not lines even though it??s quicker i just like to not have that snap be off and cost me.?ÿ
Has anyone used Traverse PC.
I'd like to know more about it too as I've seen it a couple times before. I use C3D almost exclusively but I know it's not the best fit for surveying and the perpetual license interests me
I was told about it from a friend that runs a solo operation. I have not had time yet but they will let you download a free version and he texted me they are doing some online training next week for anyone that downloads a free version. ?ÿI have been so busy studying and making Hay that I have not downloaded it. He was a civil 3d and carlson cad user. But he said once he got his mind to think surveying again and not autocad he loves it. Said you have to kinda mentally dump the cad techniques and think like a surveyor again. I did look at some of his plats and they looked fine to me. ?ÿHe had everything he needed it was great looking nothing out of the ordinary stuck out. ?ÿI always try and use cogo to draw boundaries anyway not lines even though it??s quicker i just like to not have that snap be off and cost me.?ÿ
I do so much engineering (grading, utilities & construction related aspects) that I would have to keep C3D. But I would like a better option for surveying analysis, mapping/legal descriptions and maybe cut sheets for construction staking if they offer it?
@ncsudirtman If I ever get it figured out will let ya know. I have know idea about it??s capabilities really. The little I have found out from a couple people only is they mostly do boundary surveys rural boundaries. They love it for that. Occasionally a topo create a surface etc. ?ÿALTA plats. ?ÿI have no idea how it handles raw data either. ?ÿJust know they chose it over the more expensive softwares with more power as it works for them. Now off to bale hay as i darn thunderstorm is headed my way and it was not supposed to rain until tomorrow. Arghhhh. Make Hay it rains. ?ÿWash car it rains. ?ÿNever fails. ?ÿ
@olemanriver good luck!
@ncsudirtman well race race to get hay up before thunderstorm but no rain. ?ÿBut you can bet your paycheck if i would have not baled it would have rained all over it. ?ÿ
no politics. But weather men and women and politicians are the only folks that can be wrong @90% of the time and not get fired but get a raise. ?ÿLol. The rest of us would be fired. But thank the Good Lord I got the hay up. ?ÿAnd I had extra help today. ?ÿ
Make hay while the sun shines.................that's the old motto I heard since I was knee high to a grasshopper.
Raking and baling today on what was mowed yesterday, believe it or not.?ÿ That's dry!?ÿ Putting off mowing more for a couple of days as there is a chance of thunderstorms headed our way.?ÿ Will work a patch to plant some soybeans as it still has some subsoil moisture.?ÿ Must get the header ready to start cutting wheat the first day possible, followed a week later by a few acres of oats.
@holy-cow you got that right. I really needed another day of drying before baling but weather forecast change i had to get it up. I have about 100 acres ready now but rain next few days. I need to cut tedd rake and bale. Between work (surveying) and hay i am beat. Also trying now to prepare for PS and state license exam. ?ÿGot the FS behind me. Now state exam. I will het it down. Lol.?ÿ
?? Get it done.? ?ÿLet it down. ?ÿ ?ÿ ?ÿSorry. Stupid smart phone spell check and my lack having eye glasses on after getting off tractor. But nothing better than making hay with the family. ?ÿ11 year old pulling hay wagon and the rest picking up and stacking squares. And everyone having fun. Now time for watermelon and a cool beer ??§. ?ÿ?ÿ
@rover83?ÿ
Some things that intersect/overlap with CAD operations benefit from multithreading, like 3D modelling, and support has been added for them (albeit slowly). But for the vast majority of CAD functions, you're better off targeting a higher core clock speed than adding more cores. Whether or not a CAD program uses multithreading for fundamental CAD work (which is rare) isn't really a benchmark for how "good" the software is.
A very thorough response! One thing I need to stress though is AutoCAD's (relatively) laggy performance. The competitors I mention actually perform far faster than AutoCAD overall (but not without their flaws however, but performance-wise they are way faster and smoother). Perhaps focusing on multi-threading isn't as important as other factors. For example, many programs still aren't even optimized for 64 bit architecture. The key point here however is how laggy AutoCAD performs; it's just not good, especially for a program that asks users to pay thousands for it each year. If it cost far less there would be little to debate.
Whether or not a CAD program uses multithreading for fundamental CAD work (which is rare) isn't really a benchmark for how "good" the software is.
I guess my point is performance from the end user's perspective. Whether it's achieved with or without multi-threading doesn't matter.
The nature of CAD itself makes it extremely difficult to develop code to support multiple cores
Any program that does multiple things at the same time can make use of multiple cores. Programs that don't are literally limited to things like Window's built in calculator (and I might even be wrong about that). A program as complex as AutoCAD most certainly could make use of multiple cores (hence why it's competitors do). For example, everytime you hatch something in AutoCAD it needs to run quite a few calculations in the background. In AutoCAD 2023, it's not handling this very well. It's not terrible, but again, thousands per year.
you're better off targeting a higher core clock speed
But clock speeds have really reached a plateau in recent years have they not? My current Laptop has a lower clock speed than the one I owned a few years ago (and that one burnt out ironically). A Google search will shed more light on this, but it has much to do with delegating more duties to the system's GPU, and multi-threading. Most hardware guru's I know would advise against prioritizing clock speed unless there is a clear and concise reason for it. Trying to buy a PC simply because it has the highest clock speed out there means you're going to shell out a lot of $$$. For what it's worth, my current laptop runs every single program (even AutoCAD) faster than my previous, higher-clocked PC. Most programs benefit from modern hardware architecture. The handful of Autodesk products that don't are actually outliers, hence my original criticism of them in that regards.
@jph?ÿ
I won't be surprised if ICAD starts becoming more popular soon
When a company charges higher fees it opens up the possibility of competitors jumping in. When the subscription model started, competitors were very slow to take advantage of it. I'm only now just starting to see the competition become good enough to actually use on a production level. I'm not sure about Civil 3D's competition since I don't use that program. AutoCAD however... the competition is really heating up.
I think of CAD more like a basic program, almost like a word processor. MS Word is the go-to editor. But if they ever charged way too much for it, you'd just go use something else (which people did). When AutoCAD got too expensive there just wasn't anything else to use.
Sometimes I think that the lack of competition is due to the competition being so divided up: Literally hundreds of smaller companies trying to do their own thing and take on the big giants independently.
And Trimble. I still regularly get amazed by how much they rip us off. I won't ask my employer for a 2nd quick disconnect to use on the pole with my mt1000 because I looked it up and it's $1400 used? Seriously WTF? That's not even discrete thievery. Trimble should be sending vasoline with every purchase we make.?ÿ
I really am having a hard time comprehending someone having performance issues while running vanilla AutoCad. I don't have performance issues running C3D. If you're having to twiddle your thumbs waiting for hatches, perhaps your boundaries are not closed. That's the only time I ever notice a lag, but I'm not really big into hatching.
If you don't like AutoCad, there are alternatives out there. There are people on this board who use Intellicad, there are people who use Bricscad, there are people who use the watered down AutoCad used as a cad engine for Carlson, and I'm sure there are people who use other platforms as well. All of those would be cheaper than AutoCad.?ÿ
I don't have performance issues running C3D
I have both Carlson w/ACAD and C3D on my machine and, for me, C3D is more responsive?ÿ
One thing I need to stress though is AutoCAD's (relatively) laggy performance. The competitors I mention actually perform far faster than AutoCAD overall (but not without their flaws however, but performance-wise they are way faster and smoother). Perhaps focusing on multi-threading isn't as important as other factors. For example, many programs still aren't even optimized for 64 bit architecture. The key point here however is how laggy AutoCAD performs; it's just not good, especially for a program that asks users to pay thousands for it each year. If it cost far less there would be little to debate.
If you don't like the cost, then don't use it. Despite what you claim, there are plenty of competitors out there.
For comparison, I'm running full Civil 3D on a stock Dell Precision 7700-series laptop, reading/writing to files over VPN from my home setup with moderately decent Internet, working with engineering drawing sets that have 10-15 xrefs, multiple surfaces, pipe networks, etc. etc. Occasionally a point cloud or two. While opening up drawings can be a slower than "in the past", drawing files "in the past" were also a lot less complex. But drafting functions? I've been using ACAD and its derivatives since the early 2000s and the change has been barely perceptible.
Any program that does multiple things at the same time can make use of multiple cores.
While this is technically true, in any program there are many processes that depend on other processes and thus cannot be performed at the same time. Just because a program use multiple cores/threads does not mean every single aspect/function is multithreaded. And in CAD work, since the drawing file is essentially a database with many dependencies on other items in the database, order of operations matters.
On the other side of the scale, Autodesk 3ds Max uses lots of multithreading because its types of operations (3D rendering and animations) can easily be multithreaded. Autodesk isn't dumb - they know what is worth doing and what isn't.
Because even if they really wanted to try and rewrite all of those functions for CAD, that's a heavy-lift operation whose benefits might be a couple of microseconds here and there - along with the possibility of crashing or fouling up the drawing database. And they're certainly not going to move away from the DWG format.?ÿ
And Trimble. I still regularly get amazed by how much they rip us off. I won't ask my employer for a 2nd quick disconnect to use on the pole with my mt1000 because I looked it up and it's $1400 used? Seriously WTF? That's not even discrete thievery. Trimble should be sending vasoline with every purchase we make.
Are those costs not factored into billing rates? They certainly are around here. We're making quite a bit of money with Trimble equipment. Far more than the differential between what it costs and a low-budget mix-and-match solution.
Same thing happened with power tools going cordless. Those Li-Ion batteries are super expensive, and you need a lot of extras, sometimes of different models. But my contractor buddies just factored the extra cost into their rates. Of all the things they complain about, investing in the tools that make them quite a bit of profit isn't one of them...
I'm on a Carlson demo now and it runs noticeably quicker than the Civil 3D 2023 demo that I ended a couple weeks ago (my desktop is a beast too so it's definitely not a hardware thing).?ÿ I'm quickly becoming a fan of Carlson though.?ÿ It seems to do some quirky stuff that is kind of dumb and seems to be that way just for the sake of not being like Civil 3D, but overall I like how 99% of the buttons on the UI are things I'll actually use.
@bstrand?ÿ
I've said before, I switched to Carlson in 2004 from LDD, and I hated it at first.?ÿ And then I loved it.?ÿ
We have C3D where I work, so I have the option to use that if I want.?ÿ I only do when I have a topo that will be used by someone I know is using C3D.?ÿ But I usually do 90% of my work in Carlson, and then export/import to?ÿ a different C3D dwg to contour and finish.
Just beware of points on Real Z
@rover83?ÿ
Not the same thing in my mind. We don't mind paying $1700 for a good hammer drill, or several hundred for a replacement battery.?ÿ
But I'm not going to ask my boss to pay $1400 for a $100 quick connect. I expected with the Trimble tax it might be $200.
I was hoping to not have to use more than 1 cad program, and to do so without running into problems making surfaces for clients.?ÿ Mostly all I've heard my entire career is how engineers throw a fit if you give them a drawing that isn't a .dwg?ÿ Is that why you switch to civil 3d at the end?
If you're using Carlson, you will produce a dwg file. If you use Carlson with Intellicad, the party using AutoCad will get a message when they open the drawing stating something to the effect that the drawing was not produced by an Autodesk product.
If you are transmitting files to a C3D client, you should get in the habit of including LandXML files.?ÿ
@bstrand?ÿ
Basically, yes, since we have it here.?ÿ When I didn't, I would send a dwg without points, but include a txt file of the points.
I've also sent xml files to some engineers, and they were fine with it.?ÿ So it can be done.?ÿ
I've said before, it's usually in-house engineers who seem to have an issue and attitude about not getting C3D.?ÿ Others seem to have no problem with what I'm able to send them from Carlson.