Think you know autocad

"A bold new interface"

Ton of people out there still want R14.

Just paid our Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite Premium Commercial subscription through July 2017...

Interesting grabber, when considering the many dissatisfied customers due to their pricing practices.

Think you know AutoCAD? Think again.

It may be packed with new features and a new bold interface, but the question is do I need it, or to rephrase that, is it that much improved to justify $$$$, and the answer in my case is nope. The one I have now does exactly what I want, and does it very well.

> It may be packed with new features and a new bold interface, but the question is do I need it, or to rephrase that, is it that much improved to justify $$$$, and the answer in my case is nope. The one I have now does exactly what I want, and does it very well.

:good:

In my case, my 2012 Civil3D is MUCH better than the newest version. AutoDesk is distancing itself from the google earth functionality, so options that used to be integrated, like inserting google earth images and surfaces, are no longer included in the program. Even export directly to KML, a huge time saver, is now magically gone. A huge step backwards and very frustrating.

Also, the new version DWG file is very not backwards compatible. Just try opening a DWG from 2015 in 2012. There are a lot of new and "innovative" unsupported objects that throw errors, if you have a 2015 file you can't even import survey points into it in 2012. Oh, and I dare you to even try to save a file backwards to a standard, such 2010, using 2015.. even that throws errors.

AutoDesk was a bitch before with pricing, now they're removing real features and adding crummy features that aren't even supported in their own software from three years ago.

No thank you.

I was running 2006 until I found a deal on 2014. Not impressed yet, but I will adapt.

A Viable Alternative

I believe that the 2015 release of Carlson is going to have the very latest version of Intellicad, which I understand is now a LOT BETTER, and is now truly a formidable competitor of AutoCAD.

I could not be happier about this, and I look forward to the day when the arrogance of AutoCAD is slapped.

"I was running 2006 until I found a deal on 2014."

A deal? on Autocad? Hell, I thought the only "deal" you could find on Autodesk products were on the pirate torrents. B-)

I was running 2006 until I found a deal on 2014."

I hope you have budgeted an ENORMOUS amount of time and $ to adapt - the learning curve for that transition is incredible!

A Viable Alternative

They have been saying how good the next version intellicad is for 10 years and its still got issues, its got some hangups that get me going everyday and I cuss it for one reason or other . They need to port to Briscad and be done with it. Briscad has figured it out . What a great program .

I personally find the bold new interface extremely hard to see and work with. Thankfully I don't actually have to use it.

Terry,
Are you finding latest ver of Intellicad good? Better?

I'm not working with it, they want 500 per year just to produce add-ons. They don't support managed .NET applications and I consider it to be 4th/5th in line on the CAD engine capabilities list anyway.

Then there's always Carlson Survey, either with embedded AutoCAD or Intellicad. BOTH systems are very good, easy to learn and fully compatible with your client's software. ALL at better than half to a third of the cost.
Those still longing for LDD will find the transition VERY easy. It does EVERYTHING that I need to do and I can make it do what it is supposed to do. (I cannot say that about Autodesk products any more.)
Those of you on older versions of LDD that soon will not work with the new versions of Windows need to take a long, hard look at Carlson when you are forced to upgrade your computers.
I am running Carlson Survey 2010 on a new Dell 64 bit computer and this thing screams!! Running Windows 7 Professional and have had NO PROBLEMS out of Carlson yet on this setup.
They have killed XP and your clients cannot send you drawing that you can easily use on your AutoCad 2000i software. Save yourself and ton of heartaches and headaches and switch over. I have yet to meet anyone that regrets making the change. (Especially after they have actually learned how to setup and use the software.)

The problem is will the IntelliCAD Engine. It is really sub par to the AutoCAD engine in so many ways. We used it for about a year and finally just bought C3D 2014. We still run Carlson on top of it and I couldn't be happier. You can search my posts for my tirades about IntelliCAD but the constant bugs, lack of features, inability to see/open objects from clients using AutoDesk products, etc, etc, etc...not worth the hassle.

People can say what they want about AutoDesk but it is 10,000x better than Microstation and significantly more powerful and less buggy than IntelliCAD.

Tom

We upgrade out Autocad every year, in fact, just now downloading 2015 to my laptop. Working with a surveyor buddy's drawing in Carlson/Intellicad, eeeew! We are primarily a civil engineering firm, so we have to have the most up to date software to comingle with state and federal agencies. Pain in the butt, as I finall got used to 2013, now skipping a year to 2015.

If you are only producing drawings for clients, then by all means, use what blows your kilt up, laddy! But if you are sharing files, etc then you need to stay "mainstreeam:

Just my HO, and 2 bits!

-JD-

It's not necessarily the Carlson thing that is the problem just IntelliCAD...that is unless you have clients who want C3D drawings which we have a few.

If you are getting/sending lots of CAD files to and from engineers, architects, etc. then you really need AutoCAD. We had some issues last fall that are really what prompted us to upgrade. We had to layout some stuff inside a building and the stuff we got from the mechanical/architectural guys would now show up in any saved back versions even when using TrueView. All we saw was boxes. It almost cost us the job because we were the weak link that held things up. We're finding that more and more of our clients want deliverables in C3D so thats what we are starting to do more often.

My survey firm is owned by a major engineering firm. We send them Carlson Survey drawings with no problems or complaints. We also do work for the Corps of Engineers with no problems. We also provide survey data to a good dozen other engineering firms without the first complaint or problems with our drawings.
We are running Carlson Survey 2010 with Embedded AutoCAD. The only feature that we lost was being able to use custom lisp routines. I did not use them much anyway and the ones that I did use came with the Carlson software. Some of their versions are better, do more and are easier to use that what I had before.
The trick, as with ANY software package, is learning how to set it up, configure it and use it correctly. Once that is done all will be well.
If you are a small firm on a tight budget, Carlson is the solution to so many problems. I just could not justify the per-seat cost and the additional training costs that would have been required to stay with Autodesk. We made the change, production is way up as are profits.
But then, everyone will use the software that they know. Heck, some people still rave about Terramodel! :excruciating: