Update 9/12/2009: Much appreciation to James Wedding at www.civil3d.com for extending the Carlson VS Civil 3D discussion to his website. A lot of commentary and good discussion has taken place on both sites. I’ve just posted my response to the comments. Also, as noted at the end of my reply, I am working on setting up a very thorough Shootout between Carlson and Civil 3D. Invitations have been sent, so keep looking for updates.
www.civil3d.com Carlson VS Civil 3D Post
Latest Autodesk Discussion Group Post
Update 9/1/2009: Folks at www.civil3d.com have started a post comparing Carlson to Civil 3D. Link is here. James has a minor detail wrong about my background. As a sole-proprietor, I was never an Autodesk reseller, but I did work for a couple of them before going out on my own. I’ve posted that as a comment and thanked James for starting the thread but, as of a couple hours later, it is still telling me that “Your comment is awaiting moderation”.
Update: Not that the edits, so far, have changed the original Posts too much, but wanted to make everyone aware that the Moderator is revising some of the posts. Mostly, it makes me look like I don’t know grammar and don’t proofread very well.
An interesting discussion has been started on the Autodesk Discussion Group here:
http://discussion.autodesk.com/forums/message.jspa?messageID=6243535#6243535
Harry Ward discusses the shootout between Carlson, Civil 3d and Bentley and several others discuss their experiences and compare their use of the products.