The 2010 edition of Carlson Software is a few weeks away from general release and is slated to have approximately 400 new features and enhancements. Suffice it to say, there should be something for just about everyone with this release. While by no means exhaustive, here are just a few of the new features that will be found in Carlson 2010 (a few of which were mentioned in the Coming in Carlson 2010 post):

1. Support for IntelliCAD 6.6 and the AutoCAD 2010 product line – Carlson 2010 will continue to ship with a complimentary copy of IntelliCAD now based on the 6.6 code stream from the IntelliCAD Technology Consortium. Work continues on the migration to the IntelliCAD 7 release which is expected later this year or early in 2010. Carlson 2010 will also support the AutoCAD 2010 family of products including AutoCAD, AutoCAD Map, et. al. Since Land Desktop was officially retired in summer, 2008, now is a great time for organizations to look at Carlson as an alternative to the Land Desktop upgrade path.

   Side note observation… For those Carlson IntelliCAD users out there, don’t forget to inquire about your complimentary Carlson-IntelliCAD GIS Starter Kit from ESRI!

2. Settings Explorer for CAD Managers – Carlson 2010 introduces an efficient Settings Explorer that allows CAD Managers and users alike to examine, set and migrate settings from machine to machine within an organization.

   

3. Layout Manager and Field Text for CAD Drafters – Geared for deliverable output, the Layout Manager and Field Text routines helps automate the creation of plot-ready maps.

   

4. Smart Annotation for CAD Drafters and Surveyors – Carlson 2010 helps simplify the annotation typically applied to subdivisions.

   

5. Merging of C&G into Carlson Survey for Surveyors – The long-awaited integration of Carlson’s C&G product line with the more traditional Carlson Survey routines provides land surveyors with arguably the most comprehensive collection of survey routines available today.

   

6. Drawing Inspector Multi-select for everyone – The highly useful Carlson Drawing Inspector is becoming even more useful with the ability to now display multiple information categories at once.

   

   

   Multi-option Drawing Inspector

7. Template Grade Table for Engineers – In an effort to augment the highly flexible and powerful Template Transition, Template Point Centerline and Template Point Profile routines found in Carlson Civil, a new Template Grade Table provides robust functionality that can be used to design a variety of roadway scenarios. Additionally, the information found in the Template Grade Table can also be utilized in Carlson SurvCE beginning with the 2.5 version of the product.

   

8. Edge of Pavement Profiles for Engineers – The ability to produce the graphical results of edge of pavement profiles is now much simpler with Carlson 2010 by giving engineers the ability to extract profile information from the imperical design values that contribute to the vertical aspect of the roadway design.

   

9. HydroCAD Linkage for Hydrologists – As originally announced at the 1^st annual Carlson User Conference, the data collaboration between Carlson Hydrology and HydroCAD will help users “save time on repetitious data entry, increasing their accuracy, and giving them access to HydroCAD’s extensive rainfall libraries and stormwater chamber specifications.”

   

10. Improved Watershed Delineation for Hydrologists – Watersheds in Carlson 2010 can be delineated by three levels: drainage, land use and soil type.

    

For Carlson Mining clients that might also happen to come across this post, Carlson 2010 offers new functionality for you, too! Check with your Carlson Mining specialist for additional details.

To summarize, Carlson Software is continuing to offer responsive solutions to client-requested technology needs and is standing ready to assist you! Check out our wide-array of technolgy solutions by visiting us on-line at http://www.carlsonsw.com!

I was reading a recent AP article that was similar to the article entitled Meet Microsoft’s antidote to Vista and saw the following:

You probably don’t know her name, but if you’re using Office 2007, the sleeper hit of the Vista era, you’re already familiar with Larson-Green’s work.

She was the one who banished the familiar system of menus on Word, Excel and other programs in favour of a new “ribbon” that shows different options at different times, depending on what a user is working on.

Hmmm… I’m wondering if she’d be willing to re-think that decision?

 I’m not sure what it is about the ribbon interface but I cannot seem to get used to it. I’ve tried… I mean I’ve really tried to be productive with the Office 2007 ribbon but continually find myself wasting lots of time searching for a particular command whose location I could find instantly in the traditional pull-down menu system used in Windows and Office applications for the past +15 years. The article also said:

“We want to reduce the amount of thinking about the software that they have to do, so that they can concentrate all their thinking on the task they’re trying to get done,” Larson-Green said in an interview.

The task I’m trying to get done?? I’m trying to figure out where all my favorite old commands went for getting my work done. I’m finding that I’m spending more time thinking and searching for commands and having less time for the task(s) I’m trying to get done. Don’t even get me started on the new default file formats for Office files (*.docx, *.xlsx, *.accdb, etc) and having to Save As for those who haven’t adopted Office 2007 and later.

Side note observation… I wonder how soon it will be until Autodesk decides to release a *.dwgx file format? Perhaps the Open Design Alliance should beat them to the punch.

According to the frequently changing Wikipedia write-up on ribbons:

Microsoft has started the process of acquiring a patent on the ribbon user interface concept^[2] and licenses the ribbon design to third-party developers royalty-free, as long as the user interface conforms to the Microsoft’s design guidelines and they can get an approval from Microsoft. The ribbon design guidelines are confidential and an evaluation copy is only available when a non-disclosure agreement has been signed.

The Ribbon has been licensed by Autodesk for AutoCAD 2009…

My fear is that when I eventually have to migrate out of AutoCAD 2008 (I’m running the ribbon-less AutoCAD 2008 and IntelliCAD and haven’t even looked at AutoCAD 2009/2010), I’ll be too far behind the 8-ball. Maybe I’m too grounded and comfortable with pull-down menus. I still prefer Windows XP over Vista and suspect I’d prefer pull-down menus in my CAD product like many of comments left at AutoCAD 2009 – How do you use the Ribbon? blog. Perhaps it is time to accept the fact that ribbons are likely here to stay. However, if my CAD productivity takes a hit due to the migration to ribbons like my Office productivity took a hit, I suspect I’m “going to have some ‘splainin’ to do.” Personally, I’d love to have a one-to-one chat with Julie Larson-Green (a.k.a. “Microsoft’s antidote to Vista“) to learn why throwing away +15 years of interface familiarity is/was a good idea.

What do you think?

[polldaddy poll=1552888]

Combining all the GIS and land development technologies that exist today is what Brent Jones suggested surveyors do in his keynote address to the attendees at the 2nd annual Carlson User Conference. Jones, PE, PLS, is the Survey, Cadastre, and Engineering Industry Manager for ESRI, which designs and develops the world’s leading geographic information system (GIS) technology.

To help surveyors accomplish this, Jones announced an upcoming grant program to be offered by ESRI for every Carlson IntelliCAD user. “ESRI is very supportive of Carlson’s development on IntelliCAD and we want to support your users,” said Jones of this specialized grant program being developed exclusively for Carlson IntelliCAD users. “We want to help surveyors leverage their existing resources to help in the GIS market.”  With this offer Carlson IntelliCAD users will be able to access GIS technology and jump-start a GIS practice. Read More

Starting his presentation at the Carlson User Conference by saying “Carlson works for us,” Dave Palumbo, PE, Technology Manager for Infrastructure Services at Dewberry, noted that Dewberry, an ENR top 50 design firm was an early adopter of technology as a differentiator. The evaluation and implementation of three competing solutions took Dewberry more than two years. “Patience was of the essense,“ Palumbo said.

Read the entire post

I wanted to share my opinion related to the BIM this, BIM that… What is BIM? article to essentially equate (or draw parallels between):

If one turns the acronyms around,

• BIM is another way of saying Owners/Architects who utilize Model Information for Buildings, and,
• GIS is another way of saying Officials/Civil Engineers who use a System of Information for Geographical projects/studies.

If the message(s) from the Autodesk marketing department

http://usa.autodesk.com/company/building-information-modeling and
http://www.cenews.com/article.asp?id=3137

is/are to believed, Autodesk is expecting the market to swallow the hype that the Civil 3D (C3D) product can function within the confines of a building or as a BIM solution.

I don’t buy this (and in my opinion, neither should the public). By the looks of the responses to a discussion on the C3D newsgroup this past September, 2008:

http://discussion.autodesk.com/forums/message.jspa?messageID=6033685

it looks as if C3D users aren’t necessarily swallowing the attempted message either. As the thread eloquently points out, it largely depends if you take the context of “building” to be a noun or a verb:

1. Noun http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/building
   – “1 a usually roofed and walled structure built for permanent use (as for a dwelling)”
2. Verb http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/build[1]
   – “1 to form by ordering and uniting materials by gradual means into a composite whole”

Side note observation… Since GIS is/has been a well established market for other products on the market and is also one that Autodesk does not control, could it be that Autodesk is trying to capitalize on the relative newness of BIM by generalizing the Noun form of BIM into that of a Verb so they can use it to further confuse the market?

Whatever the context, I also feel C3D falls short for BIM in one key aspect; all of the C3D seems to get locked up into the ARX/proxy objects within a given drawing. To my knowledge, C3D doesn’t allow the “Information” aspect of the design to be externalized outside of the drawing. As Civil Engineers and Land Planners look down the road for the next 10 or 15 years (or more), I tend to question how they’ll be able to manage/maintain/extract the data locked away in C3D drawings that are being produced today. As I heard one DOT employee say, their projects typically span years in the design/life cycle. If I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t be looking forward to having to carry around all the LDT/C3D object enablers that will likely come out with each annual release of each C3D product for the next decade or two.

My ¢2.

Ladd Nelson
Sales Director – Midwest Region
Carlson Software

MAYSVILLE, Ky., U.S.A. (March 24, 2009) ― At the Carlson “Break New Ground” User Conference in Lexington, Ky., April 5 through 7, David Palumbo of Dewberry will be presenting a case study on how the  2000-person professional services firm with more than 40 locations in 18 states recently chose the Carlson Civil Suite for its site-civil engineering needs.

“In April 2007, Dewberry’s site-civil market segment group embarked on a strategic initiative to unify and modernize site-civil work flow across two dozen offices that service this segment,” said Palumbo, PE, Technology Manager for Infrastructure Services at Dewberry. “Carlson Civil Suite was selected over two competing solutions as best aligning with Dewberry’s desired work flow and site-civil technical specifications.”

The Carlson Civil Suite includes Carlson Civil, Carlson Survey, Carlson Hydrology, and Carlson GIS. Together, these four products are a comprehensive set of design/drafting tools that automate all facets of the civil engineering project.

Palumbo, whose duties include facilitating technology solution acquisition and implementation for all of Dewberry’s infrastructure services, including site-civil, transportation, and telecommunications, will explain the intensive process Dewberry performed to choose Carlson. Then he will show how Dewberry, an Engineering News-Record “Top 50” design firm, set about to most effectively implement Carlson throughout their extensive company.

“We will have approximately 250 to 300 users of the product when we’re done,” he said, noting that the project started by first defining a comprehensive work flow and site-civil task specification independent of software and automation tools. It was these specifications that became the basis of evaluating vendor solutions.

Palumbo will be joining Robert H. (Rob) Campbell, president and CEO of Juniper Systems, Inc., and Brent Jones, PE, PLS, of ESRI, as a speaker at Carlson’s 2nd annual conference designed specifically for surveyors, civil engineers, mining engineers, construction engineers, partner manufacturers, and dealers. Palumbo will be speaking during the Monday evening banquet.

“Working with Dewberry has been a rewarding experience,” said Bruce Carlson, president and founder of Carlson Software. “With so many offices, Dewberry had special demands for data sharing and project tracking and also wide-ranging needs for data interoperability across platforms such as AutoCAD, Microstation and ESRI, including compatibility with field data collection and instrumentation,” he added. “Our product offerings are focusing on these capabilities. We enjoyed being a part of their competitive product review – that’s our preferred business environment!”

The goal of Carlson’s user conference is to help users “break new ground” and learn how to optimize the power of Carlson’s versatile software. Learning tracks at this two-and-a-half-day event will cover the same land development aspects as Carlson Software products: data collection, land surveying, civil engineering, mining and construction and machine control.

Carlson is keeping the cost of the two-day event at $695 right up to registration to help more people harness the power of Carlson Software and get project ready. Sign up now at www.carlsonsw.com/conference. Group discounts are available.
About Carlson Software. Carlson Software, an independent company founded in 1983, develops software solutions to bring the land development professional from concept to completion. The 25-year-old company is well known for its comprehensive civil, surveying, machine control and positioning, plus mining software solutions. Its free technical support and dedication to customer service is unique in the industry. Carlson Software is headquartered in Maysville, Ky., with branch offices in Boston, Atlanta, and Queensland, Australia.
About Dewberry
Dewberry is a 2,000-person professional services firm, specializing in engineering and architectural design; program management; planning; GIS; surveying; and environmental services. Established in 1956, the firm has more than 40 locations nationwide, with headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia, near Washington, DC. For more information, visit www.dewberry.com.

Carlson Software would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the Carlson Connection forum.  Thanks to the invaluable input made by Jennifer and Felicia, they are able to offer an all-access pass to the world of Carlson Software users. 

Here you will find Carlson users, consultants and Carlson team members available to answer your questions and help you find solutions to your software needs.

Please visit the site often and let us know what you’d like to hear from us.

Scott Griffin

National Sales Director

904-292-1607 Office