Autodesk Civil 3d 2009 vs Carlson Civil Suite 2009

[rkmcswain]

your are trying to confuse the others.......plain and simple. No way no how does Civil 3D even come close to Carlson when it comes to intersections and what not

Please show me where I said that C3D is better than Carlson at "intersections and what not"? I have never said this. In fact, I have said the opposite three times now. I said that C3D is way ahead when it comes to P&P production - which is still the name of the game around here. Contractors around here do not care about a 3D model - they need construction plans to build.

 

Face it ........if you used Civil 3D 2009 verse Carlson Civil 2009 (alone) there would be no comparison. I simply say that given the same subdivision design that I could complete the final design hours ahead of you using Civil 3D......no problem.

 

We have used them both.

 

Give me a break.......are you trying to tell people that Civil 3D is cheaper than Carlson Civil Suite?........you must be kidding. You get three programs, civil, survey, hydrology, and gis with Carlson.......and you are wrong when you said that Civil 3D offers hydrology.....it does not.

 

What part of that math are you not understanding?

Civil 3D retail = $7495

Carlson suite (3500) + AutoCAD (4000) = $7500

They both cost about $7500, period.

 

Regarding the hydrology in C3D, see the table in section 1.2 in this PDF:

http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/autodesk_civil_eng_solution_qa_customer.pdf

 

Fool all that you want to......all they have to do is look at the webinars provided by Carlson to see what they offer......oh......too bad civil 3D doesn't offer the same!

Autodesk has been presenting live webinars on C3D since long before Carlson even thought about it. I have many of them archived on DVD from 2005 and earlier.

 

 

...if you think I'm wrong, please, take the time to compare the two, you will be surprised!.

 

As mentioned, we have used both. Carlson does not currently work for us, period. If it works better for your company, that is great. But statements like "Civil 3D sucks and is a huge waste of money." and "Save time and waste by using Carlson Civil" are purely opinions. Let's stick to the facts.

[rustysilo]

Gravytrain, are you a Carlson reseller? Cuz it sounds like it.

 

What about commercial site development? Would you say Carlson is better than C3D at that too?

 

I've seen the Carlson video's showing how quick it is to do intersections. I agree, it looks like it is much less complex and quicker, however someone who refines their process in Civil 3D can do them fairly quickly too. Maybe not quite as fast as Carlson, but by the time the user finishes their intersection modeling and has it cut their plan/pro sheets for them where are you at with Carlson? Still cutting sheets or complete?

 

There's nothing wrong with liking Carlson more, but sheesh man, calm down a bit. Both programs have pros and cons and each office will produce different results and have different levels of efficiency based on their use of the program(s).

[BOB'27T]

Civil 3D 2009 also has a complete hydrology program.

[rkmcswain]

Civil 3D 2009 also has a complete hydrology program.

 

I was not sure about the level of hydrology content. Thanks for the clarification.

[rustysilo]

Autodesk actually bought out another company to give Civil 3D that functionality. It comes in the form of C3D extensions. Here's the link:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=11351378

[tzframpton]

Autodesk actually bought out another company to give Civil 3D that functionality. It comes in the form of C3D extensions. Here's the link:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=11351378

Ahhhh, free market capitalism at its best. How I love America....

[stein1977]

Ahhhh, free market capitalism at its best. How I love America....

 

 

Civil 3D 2010 now has interstion design module so it is now on the right track. C3D is the way to go, dynamic design, P&P sheets, etc.

[sinc]

Some thoughts...

 

1) If you have a lot of users who have been using LDT for many years, then migrating them to C3D is going to be easier than to Carlson.

2) If you have many seats of LDT, you probably upgraded to C3D a long time ago (when it was free-to-cheap) - even if you kept using LDT. This is a big investment to just throw away.

3) Last I checked, it cost $$ per-seat to downgrade C3D (or LDT) to Map or ACAD. I know Carlson runs on C3D or LDT, but if the goal is to drop those packages, why would you want all that overhead loaded?

4) Carlson's sheet creation is light-years behind C3D. Many clients still have a deliverable requirement of plan and profile sheets. You can do all the design you want, but you don't get paid until sheets are delivered.

 

1) I'm not so sure about that. C3D is very different from LDD, and it's a lot of relearning to switch to either product. In our experience, though, it is much easier to figure out how to use Carlson than to figure out how to use C3D. C3D has even more complexity than Carlson, but it also has more power and flexibility.

 

2) The LDT subscription simply became C3D subscriptions. We had no option or say in the matter.

 

3) If you use C3D as the base for running Autocad, it creates a Carlson profile, and does not load the extra C3D stuff. So if you are a shop that wants to use both products, you can use C3D as your base for Carlson, and you do not need a seat of Autocad.

 

4) Surveyors don't do P&P. That may be why so many Survey firms are going the Carlson route.

[sinc]

A common myth.

Civil 3D retail = $7495

Carlson suite (3500) + AutoCAD (4000) = $7500

 

This is somewhat misleading. We have to consider total cost of ownership. Civil 3D requires higher-end machines to run satisfactorily. It takes a lot more training. We still lose a lot of time to C3D's bugs (although that problem has gotten a LOT better over the years).

 

But it's true, switching to Carlson right now doesn't necessarily save much money, if you need to keep running it on Autocad. The thing that people are really looking at is the version that runs on Intellicad. This version still isn't good enough for most people, but it's improving dramatically every year.

 

I think there are a lot of firms right now that simply cannot afford to pay anything. So many of them may simply decide to stay on whatever they are using right now, and wait to see how things develop over the next couple of years. That gives a bit more time to see how Carlson and C3D are developing.

[sinc]

In the end......Civil 3D sucks and is a huge waste of money. Save time and waste by using Carlson Civil.......if you think I'm wrong, please, take the time to compare the two, you will be surprised!.

 

I have to disagree with most of your statements (although I only quoted the last one).

 

I don't agree that Civil 3D "sucks"... It's got a lot of problems, but it's also incredibly powerful. It actually CAN do most of what you say, it just takes a fair bit of time and effort to learn how to make C3D sing.

 

If you compare individual features, there are some where Carlson wins. There are also some where C3D wins. Overall, I think C3D has more power and flexibility than Carlson. But if Carlson does everything you want and need, Carlson may be a better choice.

 

I really do not think one program is inherently better than the other. But depending on what you do and how you do it, you may find one program is significantly better for your needs than the other.

 

Now sorting out which product is the best choice for YOU... That's a tough one, and it's something I've been trying to figure out for a couple of years now. At Edward-James Surveying, I think we've decided we'd like to stay with C3D, but we're not sure we can afford it. With market conditions the way they are, we're thinking we can't afford ANY software purchases right now, and we're looking at possibly being stuck on C3D 2009 for a number of years. Then maybe four or five years from now, we'll check out the state of things, and make a decision at that point.

[sinc]

Contractors around here do not care about a 3D model - they need construction plans to build.

 

Actually, we would prefer the model. We still have to have plans, because those are legally binding. But having the model, too, saves time and reduces potential for introducing new errors. We actually now require electronic files in all our contracts, although usually we get old-style DWG files generated from older software, and rarely get a model. Or we get stuff done in Microstation, and can only convert raw linework, and lose the model (except for the pieces we can get via LandXML). But when we get a C3D model, it's kind of nice. It can be painful grabbing just the data we want out of such a drawing, and getting it into one of our in-house templates with all our familiar styles, but overall, it's nice to have.

 

The big thing we have to worry about when we get a C3D model is that sometimes the person who created the model didn't know how to use C3D very well. And sometimes the model is such a mess that we really have to ignore it. But a well-built model is the best deliverable we can get.

 

Unfortunately, we may hit the point where we can't get models anymore. We're stuck on C3D 2009 for the indefinite future, so we can't even open drawings created in later versions of C3D. If we get any new projects done in C3D 2010, we'll have to have them exported to LandXML and Autocad 2007 format (ugh!).

[rkmcswain]

2) The LDT subscription simply became C3D subscriptions. We had no option or say in the matter.

When did this happen? Last time I checked, if you were on subscription for LDT, you had to *upgrade* (at a cost) to being on subscription for C3D. Autodesk just didn't roll it over at N/C. The end user does have a say so.

 

4) Surveyors don't do P&P. That may be why so many Survey firms are going the Carlson route.

 

Absolutely. C3D is overkill for your average simple surveyor.

[rkmcswain]

Contractors around here do not care about a 3D model - they need construction plans to build.

Actually, we would prefer the model.

I'm not saying that having a model is bad, but it's certainly not required or even wanted at this time, around here.

[sinc]

When did this happen? Last time I checked, if you were on subscription for LDT, you had to *upgrade* (at a cost) to being on subscription for C3D. Autodesk just didn't roll it over at N/C. The end user does have a say so.

 

All I know is we had Land Desktop, and started getting C3D in addition to Land Desktop. Maybe it was it because we started buying our subscription seats shortly before 2007 was released, and Autodesk gave us C3D seats even though we were asking for Land Desktop? We never asked for C3D; we just got it.

[dent]

That's the way ours worked too. Starting with LDD2005, we got a civil disk, then with 2008 and 2010 it all went to C3D with a LDD companion or built in. We were not asked, it just came that way.

[rkmcswain]

All I know is we had Land Desktop, and started getting C3D in addition to Land Desktop. Maybe it was it because we started buying our subscription seats shortly before 2007 was released, and Autodesk gave us C3D seats even though we were asking for Land Desktop? We never asked for C3D; we just got it.

 

That's the way ours worked too. Starting with LDD2005, we got a civil disk, then with 2008 and 2010 it all went to C3D with a LDD companion or built in. We were not asked, it just came that way.

 

I don't think so. Talk to your subscription manager. LDT subscriptions just didn't "turn into" C3D subscriptions. Even if there wasn't a cost involved (way early on, like 2004, Adsk were virtually giving away the upgrades), somebody had to approve the differences in the contract, because it's always been possible to stay on LDT and never upgrade to C3D.

[sinc]

We did not have an LDT subscription. We had a single standalone seat of 2004, and bought three subscriptions (upgrading the standalone and getting two new seats) when the 2006 line of products was current. We did not ask for Civil 3D - we asked for Land Desktop with the Civil and Survey modules - but we got Civil 3D with Land Desktop Companion.

[rkmcswain]

We did not have an LDT subscription. We had a single standalone seat of 2004, and bought three subscriptions (upgrading the standalone and getting two new seats) when the 2006 line of products was current. We did not ask for Civil 3D - we asked for Land Desktop with the Civil and Survey modules - but we got Civil 3D with Land Desktop Companion.

 

Then your reseller upgraded you to C3D. LDC was delivered at part of the deal.

[sinc]

That's what I said. We asked for Land Desktop, and we got C3D.

[rkmcswain]

That's what I said. We asked for Land Desktop, and we got C3D.

 

And that is what I said, your reseller (whether you knew it at the time or not), made the choice to upgrade you to C3D. That was the right thing to do, if your future plans at the time included eventually moving to C3D, because the LDT->C3D upgrade price has increased ever since, and you could keep on using LDT (LDC) under the license terms of C3D...