Eric Colburn, PLS

Land Surveying 911

In this Land Surveying 911 series article, some names have been changed to protect the inquisitive. Submit your Land Surveying 911 request using the form at the end of this article.

Steven, who owns a professional land surveying company struggling with switching over to AutoCAD Civil 3D from AutoCAD Land Desktop, submitted the following Land Surveying 911 question.

Land Surveying 911: Should I Pay For AutoCAD Civil 3D Training Or Try To Learn It On My Own?

Steven says: I own a land surveying company and we are switching from Land Desktop to AutoCAD Civil 3D. We purchased a couple of AutoCAD Civil 3D licenses early last year, and I figured we could migrate to and learn Civil 3D while still using Land Desktop for ongoing work production.

Buying Civil 3D was a hit for my company at the time, but I figured we’d see at least some productivity improvements and by this year, we’d be using Civil 3D fully. I’m embarrassed to say that we are not at all near to meeting our goals. We’ve spent countless hours trying to set up Civil 3D and understand how to work with it on our projects. We’re clearly doing something wrong because we’ve yet to efficiently finish a job from beginning to end.

At every turn, it’s one roadblock or another and we are all very frustrated. Trying to learn how to set up and use Civil 3D on our own has us seriously questioning whether we are doing everything wrong or whether there’s a serious issue with Civil 3D when used by land surveyors?

But then I read about other land surveyors, like yourself, using Civil 3D successfully which makes me question everything we are doing. Eric, what do you recommend; should I pay for AutoCAD Civil 3D training or should I continue to try to learn it on my own?

Land Surveying 911 Response

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