"...should be no problem.
?ÿ
Ahh - but there are. I have confirmed this with two 2018 users who have provided drawings "saved back" to 2016 format and all but 1 exhibited problems. One crashed AutoCAD completely - every time I opened i. I had the author save it for me again and it exhibited the same behavior.
I often wonder how this has worked. Every place I have worked (civil and surveying companies), save one or two, has kept up to date with the latest Autocad version. I've never been on the side where I am having to ask somebody else to save a drawing down for me. I've saved back drawings for others a fair amount of time. I've gotten almost no feedback from these people, so I've just assumed that it worked fine. The only time I recall where somebody had problems was an architectural firm that was using LT while we were using C3D, probably 2013. I don't even normally have old versions of Autocad loaded on my computer to check the result before I send it out.
I'm curious if the drawings you received were Civil 3D drawings or plain vanilla Autocad files.
On a side note, I wonder the same about XML files. We recently had to sub out some survey work for a trail we are designing. The surveyor we used is on Carlson. I provided them with an XML file of our alignment so that they would have the path we were following. When I got their finished topo drawing, they had the alignment in their drawing, but it did not match my alignment exactly. I didn't check how far off it was, since it really doesn't matter (it probably wasn't more than a hundredth or two at the P.I.s), but that is still a matter of concern for other projects. We don't normally share XML files with Carlson users, but we share a lot of files with Microstation users.
OK so the only way that I've been able to get this to work (C3D 2017 to C3D 2016) is to export using the "export civil 3d drawing" option on the application menu from C3D 2017 also right click the drawing name in prospector and select export land xml. Now open the file that it created when you did the "export civil 3d drawing" with 2017 again, whereupon autocad will find and fix a number of errors. Then do a "saveas" and select 2013 drawing as the format (at this point there shouldn't be any civil 3d smart objects in the drawing so it should save). Now you can open the drawing in 2016 and all of the civil 3d smart objects are blocks, mtext and 3d polylines. Now import the land xml to get smart objects back. PITA
Autocrash?ÿ simply has no love whatsoever for surveyors.
How often are we going to do this Randy? Have you ever done this? I haven't. I've never tried to work a project backwards, and can't imagine a scenario where I would do it. It may be a PITA, but it would be self imposed.
Maybe you are talking about transmitting drawings to someone using a previous version of C3D? I don't think I have ever done that either. Regardless of us being a prime or a sub, working with other Autocad firms, only the latest version of C3D is specified in the contract as the desired drawing format. Saves a lot of headache.
OK so the only way that I've been able to get this to work (C3D 2017 to C3D 2016) is to export using the "export civil 3d drawing" option on the application menu from C3D 2017 also right click the drawing name in prospector and select export land xml. Now open the file that it created when you did the "export civil 3d drawing" with 2017 again, whereupon autocad will find and fix a number of errors. Then do a "saveas" and select 2013 drawing as the format (at this point there shouldn't be any civil 3d smart objects in the drawing so it should save). Now you can open the drawing in 2016 and all of the civil 3d smart objects are blocks, mtext and 3d polylines. Now import the land xml to get smart objects back. PITA
Autocrash?ÿ simply has no love whatsoever for surveyors.
How often are we going to do this Randy? Have you ever done this? I haven't. I've never tried to work a project backwards, and can't imagine a scenario where I would do it. It may be a PITA, but it would be self imposed.
Maybe you are talking about transmitting drawings to someone using a previous version of C3D? I don't think I have ever done that either. Regardless of us being a prime or a sub, working with other Autocad firms, only the latest version of C3D is specified in the contract as the desired drawing format. Saves a lot of headache.
I've never been in a situation where a "consumer" of one of my drawings is ACTUALLY in Civil3D, let alone exactly one version behind me.?ÿ ?ÿ In my neck of the woods, I am generally asked "Can you save it to Land Desktop Version 2004?"
There is no good reason to try and export a Civil3D 2017 drawing down to Civil3D 2016.?ÿ You will not "get" any civil objects after you are done with the export, so why even bother??ÿ The resulting drawing in 2016 would be simply an "AutoCAD" drawing.
XREF that sucker!
If the guy in 2016 really needs object data, then you are stuck with LandXML.
If the 2016 guy is in the same environment as the 2017 operator, you may be able to get what you need done with some DataReferences.?ÿ ?ÿ Hell, If you and the 2016 operator can even collaborate over DropBox, you can get DataReferences to work over a synced folder.
The only reason this situation exists is because the 2016 user was able to acquire a perpetual license under the "suites" purchase, and 2017 users are all subscription.?ÿ (2015 was the last year of perpetual licenses for non-suite software.)
I've stopped even wasting my time exporting drawings for other engineers.?ÿ They need to learn how to use PDF underlays, and if they need topodata they need to learn how to use LandXML and build their own surfaces.?ÿ (Of course, the engineers that are using Vanilla Acad or even AcadLT still exist, and they expect full cooperation and back-saving.)
Sometimes you just can't win.
All of that is mind boggling to me. I honestly have not heard anybody mention Land Desktop in 15 years, other than this forum. All of the firms we deal with are either on the latest version of C3D or use Microstation, or both. As I've transitioned to being among the older guys at work, if not the oldest (like I am at my present firm), I doubt anyone I work with has even heard of Land Desktop. Heck, when we got a recent survey done by a firm that I know uses Carlson, I had to explain to people what Carlson is.
There was an architectural firm that I dealt with in Houston that used LT, and a solo rural guy back there that did not use CAD at all, but have never known an engineering or surveying firm that used plain vanilla Autocad. When I first started Autocad back around 1987 or so, we did our work on a mainframe using a point based software system that I don't remember their name at the time, but I remember they eventually changed their name to CivilCADD once they became WYSIWYG. Autocad gave us the opportunity to import our plot files from the mainframe system to make the drawings look nicer, but that's the only time I went plain vanilla. I moved to a surveying firm in 1988 and we were using third party software called VisibleCogo even back then.
We hired a guy about a year ago who has been in this business almost as long as I have but had never used anything other than plain vanilla, so I know those companies must exist. I can't imagine how I would even do a project trying to work with no software. About the time he started, I was having to crank out a preliminary trail design that had about 30 P&P sheets and about 70 cross section sheets, and I did that from scratch in about 3 days. I doubt I could have even built a surface (do you need a surface if you're doing it with no software?) in 3 days if I didn't have C3D.
