Any Traverse PC users? What are your thoughts on the product, and how does it stack up to other CAD programs you have experience with?
I??m planning on doing a little solo work in my spare time, with the possibility of eventually shifting to full time solo work. I??ve heard good things about Traverse PC, and the price is great. I use Civil 3D at my day job and really like it, but I can??t justify spending that kind of money to ??dip my toes? into a solo venture, which may end up being more of a hobby. I was watching a few of the tutorials on their website and was quite underwhelmed by the field to finish (or lack thereof) in the demonstration, so I figured somebody could shed some more light on its functionality for me.?ÿ
In my day dreams I would be doing smaller boundary/mortgage surveys, FEMA certs or maybe small topographic surveys. Would love to be able to move onto ALTAs at a point where things became a bit more serious. (I can dream, can??t I?)
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Thanks all
I would say if you never used an AutoCad type program it should work out fine. I used it for a short while after a number of years with Carlson and found it somewhat frustrating, as certain functions were either lacking or difficult to do.
I'll admit I never put too much time into it and that is required with any product to make full use of it's features.
I use Traverse PC as my daily Survey and Mapping Program. It is very user friendly, has regular updates and excellent support.
I would advise you to contact them if you haven't already and try the demo version and see for yourself.
I have a Professional seat of the program that I use to plot and do basic stuff. I don't use it at work, it's on my home machine. It's part of my bug out kit - AKA, if I get laid off I can start solo tomorrow.
I haven't done a lot with it. As mentioned above, the price is right, customer service is great and yes, it is really different than CAD; very spreadsheet/text ran. I feel like it's perfect for boundary but may be odd for topo work? But then again, I haven't tried.?ÿ
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@stlsurveyor Yeah I’m working on my own bug out kit. My old boss is selling me one of their old Topcon conventional total stations for dirt cheap and I said well, why not get a few more things?
Been thinking the same, what's the price difference in it and Carlson Survey with IntelliCAD?
I know it will cost a little more, but I think one must always consider the investment in time (which equals real dollars) you have made over the years in software you ALREADY know how to use.?ÿ?ÿ
Take the rate you wish to bill people, divide it by at least 2.5, multiply that by how many hours of learning it will take you to equal your ability in the other software - and that is the true cost to purchase.
I am a big fan of Microsurvey at this point.
Their XYZ automap system is pretty good.
Their support will respond same day.
And it is just like AutoCAD.
You might also want to take a look at PC Survey. The price is hard to beat. The learning curve is quite short and it really does a lot. You can import and export cad files and geo-referencing allows you to bring in jpeg or tiff files. I've been using it for 20 plus years at my little one man show and I really like it a lot. It was designed for surveyors and thinks like us. You can also run closures by course. And auto draw if you prefer. It will write legals although I prefer to do this manually.
@plumb-bill I definitely agree with that. But this is going to be a “in my spare time” experiment. I doubt it is going to replace my day job, and surely don’t plan on hiring somebody. So I’m just going the cheap route (if it appears to be serviceable software)
@ontarget1 never heard of it, I’ll check it out. Thanks for the tip
Civil3D is $290 per month. If you think you'll do two projects per month in your spare time tack on a $145 software surcharge onto the price (whether you itemize it to them or not) - and the software is basically free and you've saved yourself learning time. Boom!
& I'm pretty sure you can pause/re-start the subscription as needed - you just don't get the yearly discount that way.
I'll throw in a vote for Carlson Survey on IntelliCAD, it runs crazy fast on my four year old underpowered Surface Pro 4 that doesn't even have a discrete GPU (which is recommended by Carlson). I bought it for personal use in 2015 and I routinely take it to the office because it will absolutely run laps around our shiny new upgraded desktops running C3D 2019.
I upgraded to Carlson 2020 recently and it is rock steady.
I started running Carlson on Intellicad a few months ago. I did about an hour of tutorials then went bull in a china shop. It's a great product at a fantastic price.
If I were also processing data I would have to demo Microsurvey. As has been said, low price isn't the whole story. Productivity and a clean product are critical.?ÿ
