Professional Land Surveyor Survey-Does AutoCAD Civil 3D Require Too Much Setup?

PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYOR SURVEY
PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYOR SURVEY

In this week’s Professional Land Surveyor Survey, I’m asking the question:

Does AutoCAD Civil 3D Require Too Much Setup?

I’ve been working on updating my existing AutoCAD Civil 3D templates and creating a few new ones, which got me to thinking about whether or not setting up AutoCAD Civil 3D for land surveying requires just too much setup.

Then, I was talking with a few other AutoCAD Civil 3D users about this topic that happened to be working on their templates and they had definitive answers to this question, to say the least.

Maybe this is just coming from the land surveying perspective, although much of AutoCAD Civil 3D functionality requires the setup of numerous settings, it just seems to me that the surveying side of the software and technology requires more. Maybe even too much!

What do you think?

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This Professional Land Surveyor Survey has been brought to you by EricColburn.com, The Professional Land Surveyor Source.

Comments

4 responses to “Professional Land Surveyor Survey-Does AutoCAD Civil 3D Require Too Much Setup?”

  1. […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Eric D. Colburn, PLS, Kung Fu Drafter. Kung Fu Drafter said: RT @EricColburn: New Blog Post- Professional Land Surveyor Survey-Does AutoCAD Civil 3D Require Too Much Setup? – https://ericcolburn.com/5u […]

  2. Bryan Tanner Avatar

    Eric, although I do agree with you that the feature and command settings for Civil 3D seem very daunting at first, I tend to think at this point that it isn’t all that different than what CAD personnel thought they were confronted with when creating and developing standards during the changeover to CAD systems several years ago. Now that CAD standards are commonplace, it doesn’t seem like much of a task anymore to manage them. With Civil 3D styles and settings being a new challenge, I think it just seems like a big challenge (especially since it is a new way of thinking and not widely known until adopted by more companies).

  3. Richard Henline, PS Avatar

    Eric, I think AutoCAD Civil 3D was developed by software engineers thinking they know what a surveyor needs with more focus on Engineering than surveying. I feel that some of the software companies like Carlson Software and C&G Software provide better products at a lot less cost with more of a focus on what surveyor need. I would rather support surveyors developing software for surveyors than a large company developing what they think we need and trying to force it on every one.

  4. Bryan Tanner Avatar

    Richard, I’m going to have to agree with you that Civil 3D wasn’t designed with a focus on Surveyors. However, I think that was the point of the software design. It is a single program that brings all phases of discovery, conceptualizing, design, production, and delivery together in a very dynamic way. I personally feel that once the software settings, styles, and preferences are developed, that it does a very good job of accomplishing everything a Surveyor would want it to. It also does a pretty good job of protecting the work that a Surveyor did so that it isn’t modified or manipulated during any of the later design processes. Is it an easy program to pick up and run with? No. Is it a single comprehensive solution for all Civil/Survey/Mapping fields? I think so and I think that the settings and styles process are reasonable efforts considering the output and ROI. Maybe I’ve had a few too many cups of “Big ‘A’ Kool-aid”, but that’s okay with me and it isn’t going to be applicable to everyone. I hope this didn’t come off as being a rant, but I wanted to clarify that I think you’re right, but just because you’re right doesn’t necessarily mean Autodesk did a poor job of deciding how to develop the program.