Oh @#% LDD3 to Civil 3D 2013

Be aware that some commands you are used to, are hidden in C3D. Often you can only find the command by using a right click of your mouse while in a particular mode of operation.

On my initial exposure to C3d I thought that ACAD did away with much of the survey commands, until I spoke with someone who went through formal training. Only then did I learn the secret handshake as to where the commands were hidden.

Anyways, seek out formal training. Its worth the time and cost.

I would second the seek formal training comment. While you may be able to teach yourself enough to get by, there will almost always be a better way to do things. We had three days of training for Civil 3D 2012 and I think we could have easily used another three days. Best of luck.

Remember, alcohol purchased in volume is much cheaper than by the pint. This can save you enough money to apply towards the formal trainning. You will need both.

First - forget everything you know about Land Desktop.

Second - make a bookmark for the Civil3D Discussion Group

Third - start with this thread and the links in it.

Resign immediately and take up a new line of work.

If you are not smart enough to do so, seek immediate formal training. Buy lots of aspirin or whatever you take to keep your brain from exploding. Do not expect to be productive for months. Tell your significant other to expect very strange behavior due to sleep deprivation, worry, and extreme frustration.

You have a long road ahead my friend... I've been on it for about a year now. It does get better with time, but I will never get over it.

Above all, remember that it is not the same as it used to be, and never will be.

Best of luck!!

Depending on your level of Cad expertise you may be able to train yourself...or you may have to bite the bullet and pay for real training.

Run through all the tutorials, then run through them again.

Get your point and label styles established, focus on one thing at a time while using a small sample set. In civid3d everything is about styles. If your styles aren't setup it will be a nightmare.

It will take many trials and errors to get it to a point where it works the way you want it....and then you will be updating it weekly.

Once it is setup is works great, until then it can be a headache of epic proportions.

We are making the change from Eagle Point to Civil 3D. I started with a small dataset and many tutorials. It's different, and even challenging, but so far I've made good progress. Like my friend Phil Stevenson also said when using new equipment. Test in on something where you already know the answers.

Same with Civil 3D. Small dataset with codes and linework and begin to understand point group, point styles and all the other terminology.

The ribbons take a bit to get used to but often a right click brings up what I needed.

The surface models and tin edits are much nicer than those in Eagle Point. The cogo commands not so much but I'm still in the infanct stages. Hard to compare something new against and old friend you have used for 20 years.

Deral

Wow... that is a huge change. My first suggestion is look at Carlson Survey. It will work with the CAD engine of LDD3 and it is very surveyor friendly. Support is top notch and Ladd even surfs this site (SurveyorConnect) and helps. We got tired of the endless updates with poor program performance and the costly maintenance fee to keep the software current. But... if you have the desire to move forward with C3D, like everyone else, be prepared for lots of down time and reading and learning. It is a totally different program than LDD3. Good Luck and GOD BLESS!

Zoloft & Xanax

They help a little, and lower your caffein in take.
Idespise c3d and even Autodesk employees tell us it is the most bug-ridden software they've ever seen.

What others have already said, but in bold, italicized, giant, red letters:

Forget everything you know about LDD. Honestly, it is much easier for people who never worked in AutoDesk products to make the switch to C3D, than it is for competent LDD users. I know it doesn't make any sense, but nothing else in C3D will either (in the beginning), so get used to it.

Good luck. It does get better after a year or two. Don't hold your breath waiting for S3D to come out. B-)

I've been exposed to C3D 2012 and although quite different than older versions of AutoCad that I've used through the years; I'm impressed that every old key-in command I knew still works.

I had forgotten most of them back in the 12 and (ugh) 13 days...

Minimum Resource Requirements

Make sure your box can handle C3D. I have an under powered box with XP and it crashes so often I hardly notice it.
Seriously, if you do not meet minimum computer resource requirements you are in for a difficult time with C3D.
I just re-booted from today's third crash and had to call another office just to vent. The frustration becomes a problem as it becomes increasingly difficult to complete a drawing, although a rather large drawing with OLE' embedded PDF files.
I want MicroStation again, he cried!

Thanks for all the input so far. I fell like I might be able to get by without training (I do have funds set aside if need be, time is more of the problem.)
I have been using Autocad and Softdesk/Autodesk for the last 20 plus years and trained everyone in the office on it.

Today I have finished all the mapping I needed to get done. Now its time to install the nasty C3D. I have a separate computer set aside for this that is more that capable of handle the software. I feel this will give me a little confront knowing I still can get all the needed work done in LDD3 until I have all my styles and templates setup and running.

I guess the first styles I need to setup are the points and labels. We will see. Here I go. Will post back with more updates and probable more questions.

Lee

In Civil3d there is a hierarchy of styles. You should start at the most basic level, as these will be the defaults that apply to C3d objects - unless you override them at a higher level.

Open a new drawing, find the Settings tab on the Toolspace dialog and right-click on the drawing name to get access to the Drawing settings. Go through the tabs and get the defaults set to suit your drafting standards etc. Once you have things set save this drawing as your new default template. (Don't overwrite the templates from Autodesk)

As you start to do new projects and build up a set of styles and settings you will be able to add them to your template.

If it makes you feel any better..

>...I going to have to make the jump from Land Desktop 2003 to Civil 3D 2013.

I don't think that a jump from LDD3 to C3d would be all that much different than a jump from LDT2009 to C3d. By LDT2004 development on the LDT side basically stopped except for operating system compatibility upgrades.

If you like, I'm available to do one- to two-hour training sessions via the web in how to handle Survey with C3D. Any more than a two-hour web training session, and most people's brains turn to mush, so that's probably the max you'd want to do. But you can do as many as you wish, taking breaks between each to digest the info, and the web sessions are a lot cheaper than flying an instructor out, or attending a class at your local ATC. I also work with you on your own data sets, rather than "canned" sets, so you solve the problems that are most-important to you, as opposed to trying to figure out how to apply "canned" demonstrations to your real-world work. Feel free to contact me at sinc at quuxsoft dot com for more info.

And if you don't know who I am, I've been doing Survey Tech work with C3D for almost six years now, very productively, and also create the Sincpac-C3D set of add-on utilities for C3D. I've also been an instructor at Autodesk University. So I've "been around the block" with C3D.

There's also some videos on my website at quuxsoft.com that might be useful to watch. As well as some of the articles I've posted on the Edward-James Surveying website. They might help you navigate your initial forays into this software.