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Carlson Software


dlcratty

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Lots of people. Maybe not so many here since Carlson is almost exclusively civil, survey, and mining - which is a small percentage of CadTutor readers...

 

What kind of info are you wanting?

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I have just taken several classes from Carlson College and am in the process of switching my company over from LDD to Carlson.

The end of LDD will cause many in the survey field to make this switch. The cost factors involved will be the main reason. Why buy a civil package when I need just the survey portion? Why not get just a survey package that does everything I need in an AutoCad compatable format (DWG).(It's built on the AutoCad kernal, or loads on top of AutoCad or can use Intellicad if you prefer.)

I have heard that the Civil package is comparable to civil 3d and the costs are much less and it is easier to use.

If your company can handle the trainning costs that will be required and the possible consultant fees to set up the program, then, by all means go with Civil3D. It's a good package.

If you need to hold costs down, check out Carlson.

Oh, Carlson is much more than just civil, survey and mining. Check out their web site. If you are in Texas or the Southeastern area, check out a company called Carlson Desktop Solutions. They can answer your questions.

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Oh, Carlson is much more than just civil, survey and mining.
That is 90% of it, and basically everything for regular consumers. Machine control, takeoff, and accident investigation are pretty specialized.
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We have switched from LDD to Carlson within the last couple of months and are very pleased with the software. There is an article on cenews. com called "Site Civil Technology Automation" that describes the process we went through. (I can't post web links yet.) I'm the company's SME for the Civil package and was involved in the pilot package the article talks about.

 

I was hoping to generate some discussion about Carlson; I haven't seen too many forums mention it yet.

 

Am I in the wrong forum for Civil/Survey/Land Development?

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As good a place as any.

Just don't tell them about the field to finish FLD file set-up. Don't want to get them all excited. Many here are older and have blood pressure problems.

That one set-up and all that it can do is worth the price of admission alone!!

 

To be exact, Carlson has software for :

Survey

Civil

GIS

Point Cloud

Data Collection

Machine Guidance

Crime Scene Investigation

Hydrology

Mining

And they have plans to link to MicroStation in the future.

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  • 1 month later...

You may need to try a reload. I have been running Carlson for over a year now and have had no stability problems what so ever. Maybe you got a bad copy? Contact your vendor and see if he can give you a fix or maybe another copy to see if that fixes your problem.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE LDD, I just am not enamored with Civil3D.

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Why LDT?

Your right, I replied too quickly. Civil 3D would probably be my choice of software. The only thing I would want to confirm is the ability to lock points in Civil 3D. With Carlson it is too easy for your drawing value to differ from the external file value (usually a CRD file).

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  • 3 weeks later...

Why? You can do anything with points in Carlson that you can do in AutoCad. May have to learn "The Carlsobn Way", but that is true with any software. to date I have not found anything that I can do in LDD that I cannot do in Carlson.

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Points cannot be locked with Carlson.

 

It is far too easy for a point to differ between a drawing file and the external file. As a surveyor, I am heavily dependent on points and sometimes have to perform computation from said points. A difference as small as 0.08' can cost me money. At least until I learn how to stretch a steel beam one inch.

 

FYI: Lock layers wouldn't work for me.

 

I also would like to add that Civil 3D provides a VBA interface to ALL of their objects. Whereas Carlson provides LISP (ugh) to some of their objects.

 

No software will ever do everything you want it to perform. With VBA I can bang out a routine and produce a high profit while supporting specific demands. With LISP, far more beta testing would be required. Mostly due to my limitation of such an ugly language as LISP.

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I also would like to add that Civil 3D provides a VBA interface to ALL of their objects. Whereas Carlson provides LISP (ugh) to some of their objects.

I suppose you could still access some objects with VBA, but VBA has been dead now for a while. Did you really mean VB code inside of .NET?

 

Mostly due to my limitation of such an ugly language as LISP.

Autolisp may be ugly, but don't condemn it universally. For Civil 3D, yes, the API is just not there, but for many other applications, it's vastly superior.

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Points cannot be locked with Carlson.

 

It is far too easy for a point to differ between a drawing file and the external file. As a surveyor, I am heavily dependent on points and sometimes have to perform computation from said points. A difference as small as 0.08' can cost me money. At least until I learn how to stretch a steel beam one inch.

 

FYI: Lock layers wouldn't work for me.

 

I also would like to add that Civil 3D provides a VBA interface to ALL of their objects. Whereas Carlson provides LISP (ugh) to some of their objects.

 

No software will ever do everything you want it to perform. With VBA I can bang out a routine and produce a high profit while supporting specific demands. With LISP, far more beta testing would be required. Mostly due to my limitation of such an ugly language as LISP.

 

 

I too work in surveying and face the same problems. Do you have the "point links" turned on ? (General Settings Tab----Configure). If you turn off the Point Links, any changes can be made without affecting the crd file.

If you have moved some points in the drawing, then you need to use the "Update crd from dwg" option to keep your crd file current. Same way in LDD when you rotate points, etc. and dol not save the new coordinate file to the project folder.

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In Civil 3d you don't need to worry about such a thing as the points are actually stored in the .dwg file itself as opposed to an external file. You can import and export points from/to an external point file, but once they are in the .dwg they are their own monster.

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The points are stored in the drawing and in the project folder, are they not? Until you export the points into the project file everything that you have done in the drawing is in the drawing only. You need to do a coordinate update and an export to save the changes. If you arte going to send the client the TXT coordinate file, it needs to reflect any changes, doesn't it?

If you rotate your points 15 degrees in the drawing and do not save that change, that happens in the drawing only. If you do a point erase in the drawing and then import your points from your coordinate text file, you will end up with the original points, not the new rotated points.

With Carlsons Point Linking turned on, any changes made in the drawing automatically change the Coordinate file. The problem, in both sets of software, arrises when you have rotated the points to fit the deed and then the client wants it rotated to another base and then they change their mind.

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VBA is still emulated in 64bit from what I heard. And Civil 3D 2008 has a VBA to ALL of their objects. Since there is a VBA download for AutoCAD 2010 (right?), I assume it would exist for Civil 3D 2010 as well. Also, I didn't mean to condemn LISP, I actually used it to boot my VBA macros. But you can't argue the fact that a userform is 1,000 times easier to work with than a DCL file.

 

As far as points are concern, when I moved a point in LDD or a demo of Civil 3D an arrow pointed to the x,y AND THE NORTHING AND EASTING REMAIN THE SAME.

 

Again, it is far to easy for Carlson points within a drawing to differ from the external file. As far as settings for reactors (point links), I can't speak for everyone in my office. Compnay standards? Yes and lol.

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