Civil 3D vs. Carlson

Moderator: Carlson Support

Postby neilw » Tue Jan 05, 2010 6:28 pm

[/quote].. Money is tight and the added cost isn't an option for us at this time although Carlson Civil Suite with AutoCAD 2009 is still half the price of C3d.[/quote]

The cost of software is certainly a factor. From what I recall, Autocad costs about $4000. If so, and with Carlson Civil being another $3500, then we are looking at a comparable cost to Civil 3D, and with C3D we'd have Map to boot.

I understand the implications of switching to Microstation, but the way I see it, the users are going to need training to learn Autocad as well since we haven't updated since 2004. When you throw in all the changes since then they will be lost when they sit in front of ACAD 2010. Yes they will still be able to do things the old way once they figure out where their tools are, but if we would be more productive in the long term with Microstation it would be worthwhile to invest a little more in training.

The main reason most private companies use Autocad is not because it is better software, but rather because it is familiar to the user base. I'm not convinced that argument should be the deciding factor, but we are not even close to the point where we will have to make that decision yet.
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Postby monksjm » Tue Jan 05, 2010 6:33 pm

I would, if you get the chance, contact Gary Rosen. He can explain, in detail, the ease of the transition. You could run carlson civil 2010 right now on that 2004 platform. Just to get the feet wet. Acad has not changed that drastically that you're looking at a big jump up on that platform. Run it on 2k4 for a year. Upgrade Acad one or two seats at a time. Carlson gives you that luxury of not needing to renew with Acad every release.
Shaun Morrison
Civil Designer/Drafter
Sevee & Maher Engineers, Inc.
Cumberland, Maine
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Postby ColC » Wed Jan 06, 2010 2:49 am

V2010 Carlson Civil on Intellicad allows layer state saving .
Unfortunately this does not save current viewpoint on/off layers. This deficiency, and the inability to select multiple layers to turn on/Off under Current Viewpoint in Layer Manager, I find the major difference in the use of Intellicad vs Autocad. There are other significant differences but these functions I use 10-20 times a day.
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Postby emorse4487 » Wed Jan 06, 2010 3:57 pm

neilw wrote:The cost of software is certainly a factor. From what I recall, Autocad costs about $4000. If so, and with Carlson Civil being another $3500, then we are looking at a comparable cost to Civil 3D, and with C3D we'd have Map to boot.

I understand the implications of switching to Microstation, but the way I see it, the users are going to need training to learn Autocad as well since we haven't updated since 2004. When you throw in all the changes since then they will be lost when they sit in front of ACAD 2010. Yes they will still be able to do things the old way once they figure out where their tools are, but if we would be more productive in the long term with Microstation it would be worthwhile to invest a little more in training.

The main reason most private companies use Autocad is not because it is better software, but rather because it is familiar to the user base. I'm not convinced that argument should be the deciding factor, but we are not even close to the point where we will have to make that decision yet.


I have some issues with your logic but to each their own. If you're running LDT on 2004 you will need very little training to switch over to Carlson. Our office switched without training anyone. After about a year we looked into Carlson College and got some insight from Gary Rosen and Dave Carlson on the more advanced features for road design, pipe networks, hydrology, etc.

GIS is Carlson's answer to Autodesk Map. I haven't found anything I can't do with carlsno that I could with Map, although I don't use it very much. If you do a lot of GIS work you should have ArcMap anyway.

Autodesk C3d is significantly more expensive to implement and maintain than Carlson. You will need 10x more training to get your technicians to where they would have been the day you switched to Carlson. When my previous company migrated to C3d we experienced reduced productivity for months. You should call about pricing and ask about network licensing. It allowed us to buy fewer licenses while giving more users the option to use the software when they needed it.

We started making money the day we switched to Carlson.
Eric J. Morse, P.E.
MEC Industries, LLC
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Postby monksjm » Fri May 20, 2011 12:42 pm

So what did you decide in the end?
Shaun Morrison
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Sevee & Maher Engineers, Inc.
Cumberland, Maine
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Postby neilw » Fri May 20, 2011 4:47 pm

We haven't made any decision yet due to the economy. We are favoring C3D at this point. I haven't looked at Carlson since my first evaluation.

One thing that concerns me is there is no way to maintain relationships between breaklines in Carlson that I am aware of, aside from applying templates to grading pads and alignments. When I evaluated the product it did not support templates for grading pads so I don't know how well that work for us. For site grading I don't like to use alignments and profiles since they are cumbersome to work with when you need to apply grade relationships between alignments such as across driving lanes. Also I've had problems with modeling mitered curbs using alignments and assemblies. Civil 3D's gradings won't do mitered curbs either.

I'd like to have another look at the product in it's current state if possible.
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Postby Dent Cermak » Fri May 20, 2011 5:13 pm

Carlson will send you a 30 day demo version upon request I believe.
Here is one thought I have had on reading all of these posts, I had been using AutoCad since 1988, and at first look, I really did not like Carlson. Then I got with someone who knew the software inside and out and they showed me how to do things that I was positve that Carlson could not do. While the software is very intuitive, there's a lot of "hidden" stuff.
I would get with someone that REALLY knows the software, that lets out 95% of the VARs and other "software sellers". Look on this site for the list of CARLSON COLLEGE members and find the one nearest to you and give them a call. Address your issues with them and see if they can give you the answers you need. I think that you will find that you CAN do all of the things that you know to be impossible in Carlson.
There may indeed be limitations imposed by Intellicad, but they are working on fixing those issues. Each new release shows rather large improvements.
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