I've got two new engineering clients. One of the firms (two PEs) came from a big civil,survey,planning type of shop and they complained that the surveyors were stuck on LDD 2009 and the engineers spent a lot of time converting data to work in C3D. The other firm (3-4 PEs) used to use another surveyor, but started calling me after a developer started using both me and said engineering firm. The other surveyors were using Carlton maybe? These engineers said they liked the surfaces, pipe networks and corridors I was sending them. For both companies I have made a hybrid between my template and their templates (one for each of the two firms), so when I send them file it looks close to the way they like it.
I am sure XML would do a lot it. I am a nerd and I love to tinker, so giving a jacked-up program that pisses everyone off is perfect my tinkering at 2-3 o'clock in the morning. :-S
Expensive? Yes. Difficult to learn? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely.
We jumped to c3d on release 2006 for our engineering projects, and ran next to LDD until release 2008. By 2009 we were running civil 3d for both engineering and survey projects.
Once you have properly setup civil, and learned how to use it, it practically drafts the engineering plans for you. Boundary plans are still a challenge no doubt, but with the survey database, the points are no longer only embedded in the drawing. Survey tool space has been around since 2007, so to say the points are embedded in the drawing is only accurate if you're talking about drawings created in c3d 2005 or 2006.
The plans look better than LDD plans, and also important are the huge improvements in plain AutoCAD since release 2009 (when LDD was obsolesced)
I ran subscription up to release 2013, where the most mature and stabile release of C3D occurred. 2014 had no improvements, no idea if there will be a 2015.
My biggest pet peeve: trying to downgrade a civil 3D drawing to autocad 2004 format. (Which is common when I need to interface with local one-man engineering shops)
We're glad we jumped on civil, and can't imagine life without it now. You need to be a tinkerer, and someone who wants standardized plans and excellent results.
Craig
I use Carlson Civil Suite 2014 on top of Civil 3D 2008. There are certain features in C3D that are great, like the automatic scaling of symbols, points, and labels when you change the plan scale. The day is coming soon, however, when I'll be giving up on the C3D because it is a 32 bit program, and I'll be moving on by necessity. I won't pay $6000 to upgrade C3D.
I have installed the 32 bit C3D on a 64 bit machine by editing a couple lines out of the Autocad install program, but I think that would catch me up after a while.
Surveyoring???
A new term?
Surveyoring???
> A new term?
Kind of like GLOveyingChap3erator...
See Brann v Hulett post below ...
DDSM:beer:
> Today we have moved into a near complete digital world and the biggest problem is that of proprietary rights among the major retailers who each appear to have a good product and are all failing because they cannot agree upon a standard platform for everyone to share their product.
>
I am much more cynical. I don't accept that they cannot agree, and would wager that the major retailers in both software and hardware are purposefully alienating each other. They are intentionally creating proprietary languages. We used to be big Geodimeter fans but early on we saw how Trimble was making a move to alienate their stuff from the rest of the tech world and we moved away. I don't live in World of Warcraft and I refuse to play in their world.
I miss Eagle Point . . .
We had our own symbol and line libraries and I could draw the map in the field with the right coding. The symbols would come in with the right blocks on the right layers. Same with the line library - I could tie multiple lines in the field that when downloaded would draw the lines on the right layers. All simple and easy to learn. Civil 3D looks to be a pain to become proficient in. Wish me luck. Sigh.