Just an observation, but I'm sitting in a Civil 3D course and all I can think about is that I see some severe design flaws in the software. I don't know a whole lot about it, but it seems like an awful lot of moving parts to get something very simple done. The instructors are very informative and educated, but I have to admit I have a bad taste in my mouth so far about the software.
For you C3D users, is this something you get used to over time? I'm used to the old LDD train of thought. Sometimes it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and yet I'm only 33 years old. o.O
Hang in there, Jeremy. Once you get point styles and point label styles down, you'll never want to use anything else.
Dave
I agree.....forget controlling points via layers and get used to the idea of setting up point groups based on descriptions. It will make the transition easier if you just accept that right away. It's definitely tricky getting it setup, but it's worth it at the end.
Another great tip is to right click in the command line, pick options, and pick drafting tab and check replace Z value with current elevation. Then you can work in 2D. Just make sure to uncheck that when you are putting in surface info.
I have used it for several years and still call it "CIVIL FN 3D". Some things you will get use to and like. Most things are a pain to work with. I long for LDD, Survey Complete, or my old dos software.
Mike Evans
I'm with Mike... I'm 2-1/2 years in and still find it extremely cumbersome and HIGHLY unproductive. There are some things that I'm sure I did with LDD in a quarter of the time...
If you liked LDD, then you would LOVE Carlson Survey. Just saying.........:whistle:
Its more of a civil engineering program than any survey program.
I do like how C3D handles points.
The rest of it is very bloated.
I started at about 59 after LDD for 5 years. I try to learn something new each week. Otherwise it is too much of a bite at once and you must un-learn while learning. Abd it is a design package with any survey commands not always easy to find and/or use.
Now I would have to adopt to LDD if I went back.
In my opinion, Civil 3D is a lot, lot, lot powerful than the LDD. I used Land Desktop for many years in my work but when I tried the C3D, I went straight ahead and never looked back. With C3D, I can now finish mapping work a lot, lot faster and lot, lot more efficient. C3D simply rules over LDD.
I guess you need to realize that C3D system is an object based design concept. As such, every C3D object behaves like a real world object. That is, if a real world object like car has physical properties like color, size, and weight, a C3D object screen appearance can also be identified, controlled, or managed via styles. C3D style is simply a method used to beautify to your satisfaction a C3D object.
A great advantage of object oriented concept is reusability. Style can be reused repeatedly in a drawing. You can also create methods in C3D and can be reused as you desire. Given this capability, C3D provides extremely powerful and extremely efficient environment.
C3D also supports encapsulation technique thus providing you leverage to create group of groups or objects and so on. If given a task to compute volumes wherein you survey lots of material stockpile, you can simply create a surface model then reuse it for each stockpile. In LDD, this task is quite confusing as number of layers grow.
Hope this helps.
Civil 3d is focused mainly to the Engineering side of the shop, not surveying. There are some useful add on tools that make it much more surveyor friendly. Check out the SincPac software from Quuxsoft.
I can do lots of things in Civil 3D that I can't do in LDD but of course not everything. Yes, tools made by Sinc can simplify one's surveying life.