Carlson posted the 2015 versions of their for CAD (IntelliCAD or AutoCAD 2004-2015) on Tuesday afternoon… you can Download Carlson 2015 products with IntelliCAD here. The 2015 versions of embedded AutoCAD products (Survey and Takeoff OEM) will be released later this summer.

If your maintenance contract is current or you have purchased 2014 products within the past 90 days, you’re automatically eligible for an upgrade to 2015. Click here to look up your 2015 serial number using your 2014 serial number.

Click here to review the list of all improvements

Click here to read about updates in Carlson Survey 2015

Click here to read about updates in Carlson Civil and Carlson Hydrology 2015

Click here to read about updates in Carlson Takeoff Suite 2015 – including Construction, CADNet, Trench and GeoTech

There are price increases with 2015 products. Click one of these links if you would like to Request a Demonstration or Request a Custom Proposal to upgrade to 2015 or purchase new software.

Please follow this link to see if you’re eligible for our monthly webinars including CAD and Carlson Tips & Tricks, Intro to Survey and GIS and What’s New in Carlson 2015.

Carlson Software posted a new build with updates to Survey 2014 with embedded AutoCAD on 7/14/2014. The latest build can be downloaded here: Carlson Software Downloads Page.

To find your current “build”, open your Carlson desktop software and go to the Help menu and click About Carlson. The current build is listed on the top line in the text window and corresponds to the date it was posted. For instance, the build shown below – 140211 – was released on Feb 11, 2014.

If you’re one of the many folks out there who don’t believe that the developers of your CAD software are listening to you… you’re not alone and you should take the time to read Robert Green’s “An Open Letter to CAD Software Companies” in Cadalyst. And, as to the part about feeling like you’re all alone, here is Robert’s follow up describing the overwhelming response to his open letter.

I receive email versions of Robert’s bi-weekly CAD Manager newsletters but had fallen behind and didn’t see the original post until yesterday. If I’d read it when it was first released, my response would have been, “Amen brother!”.

Just yesterday morning I had a conversation with a colleague whose company does Landscape Architecture, Civil Design and Land Planning. They are fully invested in Civil 3d (including much blood, sweat and tears in addition to money, money, money) but they’re as productive as any company I know of with the program. Their main complaint? They feel like Autodesk is pushing them toward Revit and they have no need for the software.

In my own experience, I see the push toward NavisWorks and 3ds Max. I had two seats of Civil 3d until I downgraded one of them to Map last year – only to be “rewarded” with an upgrade to Infrastructure Design Suite (and more money for Subscription) this year. This was supposedly something that owners of a Civil 3d and a Map license were able to opt-in to. I didn’t opt-in. So, it took me several days to get them to un-opt-me-in and revert my licenses back to what I’d purchased. Is it any wonder I’m suspicious of any “bonuses” that come my way because of this?

I don’t know how much Robert intended to point the finger at Autodesk in the original column but, with my experiences described above, the references to BIM (which we’ve long argued was a way for Autodesk to avoid talking about Esri and GIS) and Cloud and other buzzwords, that’s certainly the connection I made in my mind.

Because the Carlson Software I sell now includes IntelliCAD, an alternative to AutoCAD, I passed links to the open letter and the responses to a few folks to get their reaction. Dave Lorenzo, the Development Director for the ITC (IntelliCAD Technology Consortium) took the feedback to heart and, considering the interest in the future of IntelliCAD the past few years, I asked his permission to post his response. I very much appreciate his willingness to let me do so…

I agree that the features mentioned are focused on AutoCAD, but the article is not so much about features as it’s really about the user’s perception if someone is listening. While Autodesk is moving too fast providing features that users don’t want or need, we are not moving fast enough to provide the basic productivity features users are requesting, so it appears we both are not listening to our users. That is the perception we need to fix too.

Our next release has several user requested productivity features and I hope our users will see we are listening. Actually we have always been listening but our rewrite of IntelliCAD 7 took so many resources that there was little time for new features – that situation is finally changing. I believe that there are a lot of unhappy AutoCAD users who want IntelliCAD to be successful, we just need to listen and add those remaining productivity features that are keeping them from making the switch.

With the new year upon us I’m announcing some exciting new changes to my training policy and offerings…

First, the bad news: My hourly rates for custom online training will be going up on January 1. If you’ve already scheduled training at the old rate, this doesn’t apply to you. Email me to request new rates.

Second, the good news: Anyone who purchases software from me will receive discounted training rates. Like I said, email me to request the new rates.

Third, the great news: Starting January 15^th I will be conducting a series of monthly webinars that you’ll be eligible to attend if you purchased software from me in the preceding 12 months. These 1-2 hour sessions are something new I’m trying for 2014 as a way to provide my customers between 18 and 24 hours of training over 12 months.

In January, March and other odd-numbered months, we will spend approximately 2-hours introducing you to Carlson Software. These will be repeat sessions meant to accommodate new users coming on through the year. These sessions will cover settings & setup (using the IntelliCAD/for AutoCAD version), importing points, overview of Field to Finish, surface creation, deed entry and annotation, centerline definition and stationing and creating profiles. There will be time for questions at the end.

In February, April and other even-numbered months, we will hold 1-2 hour training sessions on other, specific features in Carlson Software. Some topics we have planned are for survey traverse adjustment, surface modeling and drafting of pipes and structures in hydrology. These sessions will also be interactive and you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions.

The fine print: There will be a limited number of “seats” available for the sessions (limits of the technology). If we start bumping up against the limit of attendees, only one person per company will be able to attend each session. If we have plenty of seats available, that won’t be an issue.

You can pre-register for the January, February and March 2014 events here

The topics, date and time for future sessions will be posted later. After pre-registering, we will confirm your recent purchase and, if you are eligible to attend, I will send you the meeting login information.

Carlson Software gives you the ability to export drawing entities directly to the Google Earth application or, alternatively, to a .kml or .kmz file that can be opened in Google Earth. At this time Carlson supports the export of points, polylines, text, solids, images, lines and arcs to Google Earth or .kml/.kmz files.

In Carlson 2014 they have also included the option of sending the Google Earth file directly to a Dropbox account for sharing with clients or other project team members.

The Export to Google Earth command is found in the File menu in all Carlson desktop programs.

After several years of the same format for our end of year workshops, we’ve changed it up a bit this year.

For the first time, we will have one full day in both Statesville and Raleigh NC dedicated to Surveying and GIS topics and an additional day focusing on Civil and Hydrology topics. Each day will also include a unique presentation of the popular CAD Tips & Tricks session that, hopefully, sends everyone home with something they can use the next day.

In addition, we’re conducting 1/2-day events in Wilmington and Hendersonville (Asheville area) covering a variety of topics.

Each full-day class will give NC licensed surveyors and engineers 8 PDH credits and the 1/2 day events are eligible for 4 PDH credits. All events include lunch, software pricing specials and giveaways.

November 11th, Hendersonville NC – $49 for 4 PDH credits
Download Hendersonville (Asheville) Announcement Here
Register for Hendersonville (Asheville) Workshop Here

November 12th, Survey & GIS Workshop, Statesville NC – $99 for 8 PDH credits
Download Statesville Survey/GIS Announcement Here
Register for Statesville Survey/GIS Workshop Here

November 13th, Civil & Hydrology Workshop, Statesville NC – $99 for 8 PDH credits
Download Statesville Civil/Hydro Announcement Here
Register for Statesville Civil/Hydro Workshop Here

December 9th, Wilmington NC – $49 for 4 PDH credits
Download Wilmington Announcement Here
Register for Wilmington Workshop Here

December 11th, Survey & GIS Workshop, Raleigh NC – $99 for 8 PDH credits
($89 registration thru 10/31/2013)
Download Raleigh Survey/GIS Announcement Here
Register for Raleigh Survey/GIS Workshop Here

December 12th, Civil & Hydrology Workshop, Raleigh NC – $99 for 8 PDH credits
($89 registration thru 10/31/2013)
Download Raleigh Civil/Hydro Announcement Here
Register for Raleigh Civil/Hydro Workshop Here

Greater Raleigh AE firm looking for CAD talent. C3D 2012 Drafter for machine modeling, site survey, construction and engineering projects.

Carlson experience is a plus and Microstation/Geopak a double plus. Our ideal candidate will be able to learn new software quickly, have a good understanding of survey mapping and site civil design. For consideration, Drafter must be willing to take the lead, work on computer all day, have a stellar attitude, able to pass drug screening and have a good driving record.

Please forward resume to [email protected] or fax to 919-297-0090

File this under “Myths”…

I hope this isn’t widespread, but I received the following email yesterday and think it’s important to respond publicly. The email is posted in its entirety except for the name and contact info of the author.

Hello Jen & Jeremy,

I became acquainted with your site (and I believe Jen was on a “webcast” or video I had watched) when my former employer made the switch from Civil 3D to Carlson Civil several years back. I am an engineer and have been put into the role of upgrading AutoCAD and Carlson or making sure that my current company can continue to do what is necessary, which involves using CAD much less that in my consulting life.

A local Autodesk reseller paid us a visit and indicated that Carlson and Autodesk as companies have not reached an agreement to continue further compatibility. Sounds like a licensing ($$) agreement issue, to me, that may or may not be temporary. This salesperson also indicated that the new version of Carlson would not work with anything beyond AutoCAD 2010 which we are currently running with Carlson 2011. As a note, My former company did not update AutoCAD every year depending upon what features were actually new so I am very OK with not upgrading if not entirely necessary.

I would greatly appreciate any information or insight you could give on the subject. You can reach me via this e-mail or the phone number in the signature.

Kind regards,

I contacted Carlson and requested a direct reply:

Hi Jennifer,

Carlson Software is a current member of the Audodesk Developer Network (ADN) which gives access to the current Autodesk products. We expect to release Carlson’s 2014 products, including those running on top of IntelliCAD, AutoCAD 2014 and AutoCAD OEM, in the Summer of 2013.

Dave Carlson

Also, for the record, I currently run Carlson 2013 on top of IntelliCAD and on top of Civil 3d 2012.

Now that many (most? all?) new computers are shipping with Windows 8, Carlson Software users are curious whether or not their software will run on the new operating system.

I recently asked Carlson’s tech support team about the compatibility of Carlson with Windows 8 and received the following response:

At this time, Carlson 2013 is not officially supported on Windows 8. However, testing we have done on Windows 8 has been largely successful with the following observations:

• If Carlson installs cleanly without error, it should run correctly.
• In some cases, you may encounter install errors. We are currently addressing these issues for Carlson 2013 products – these updates will be available in the next builds that we post.
• Older Carlson products will remain AS IS – we will not be updating the installs. But again, but if a given product installs without error, it should run fine.
• As a general rule, products supported on Windows 7 should run on Windows 8.
• It has been our experience that using the “compatibility mode” option is not recommended.

I’m re-posting this once more because of the continued interest.

For several years Esri has been offering a FREE “GIS Starter Kit” for anyone who uses Carlson with IntelliCAD. This program will not go on forever but, to my knowledge, is still active. [This offer ended on 12/31/2013]

There are a couple of limitations that I’m aware of: existing Esri customers are not eligible and you can only take advantage of the offer one time… Not once for every seat of Carlson with IntelliCAD that you purchase or own.

The GIS Starter Kit includes:

• ArcGIS ArcView desktop software
• A copy of the book A to Z GIS: An Illustrated Dictionary of Geographic Information Systems
• A copy of GIS Tutorial: Workbook for ArcView 9, Third Edition

If you are a current user of Carlson with IntelliCAD and meet the requirements above, you can call 1-800-GIS-XPRT (1-800-447-9778) and request the Carlson-IntelliCAD GIS Starter Kit – You will want to have your Carlson serial number handy.