Last week Carlson announced their end-of-year specials for 2012. This year’s offerings include steep discounts on Carlson Civil Suite, Survey with embedded AutoCAD, Takeoff and Survey.

All discounts will end at noon on 12/31/2012.

As with all of my pricing, I’m prohibited from advertising my actual lowest prices so call or email for Coupon Codes for further discounts.

$2,795 for Carlson Civil Suite (includes one year of maintenance) – Retail price is $3,954.50

$2,295 for Carlson Survey 2013 with embedded AutoCAD – Retail price is $2,995

$5,000 for Carlson Takeoff 2013 with IntelliCAD – Retail price is $9,000

$6,500 for Carlson Takeoff T6 (2013) with embedded AutoCAD – Retail price is $9,000

$875 for Carlson Survey 2013 with IntelliCAD and one-year Maintenance for anyone who already owns SurvCE, Fast Survey or Triton. A valid serial number is required prior to purchase. Retail price is $1,754.50.

It’s that time of year again… Early registration for our end of year workshops in North Carolina.

This year we will have day-long events in Statesville and Asheville in November and then in  Raleigh and Wilmington in December. We have several new classes that have been developed in response to requests we received last year. Seats are limited and early registration discounts are available now.

In addition, we are also holding two Technology Days in Charleston and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. These October events are 1/2 day sessions that will cover Carlson Software and data collection offerings.

And, for those in Wilmington NC on October 10^th – join us for a Free Technology Breakfast at the Cracker Barrel just off S College Road. The event is FREE but registration is required.

You can register or find out more about all of these events here.

Carlson released the 2013 version of their desktop products today. This includes: Civil Suite, Civil, Survey, Hydrology, GIS, Takeoff, Construction, Point Cloud, Geology, Surface/Underground Mining and Natural Regrade.

The 2013 embedded-AutoCAD versions of Takeoff and Survey have not yet been released.

Unlike previous versions of Carlson that support running on top of IntelliCAD or AutoCAD products 2000-2012, Carlson 2013 can only be run on IntelliCAD or AutoCAD products 2004-2013. This includes AutoCAD, Map, Land Desktop and Civil 3d. Also, anyone using the FREE IntelliCAD that comes with Carlson is eligible for a FREE GIS Starter Kit from Esri which includes ArcMap.

You can download Carlson 2013 here.

If you are using 2012 and are current on your annual maintenance contract, you can click here to look up your new 2013 serial number online. You will need to enter your contact information and your 2012 serial number in order to generate the 2013 serial number. You can find your serial number by opening Carlson Software and going to Help > About Carlson Software > Change Registration.

If you have trouble finding your serial number or would like to know the cost to upgrade to 2013, please email me with your request.

Click here for the full list of improvements to Carlson 2013

Click here for improvements to the General commands in 2013

Click here for the additional data file & conversion support in Carlson 2013

Click here for improvements to Survey commands in 2013

Click here for improvements to Civil commands in 2013

Click here for improvements to Hydrology commands in 2013

Click here for improvements to GIS commands in 2013

Click here for improvements to Takeoff commands in 2013

Click here for improvements to Point Cloud commands in 2013

Click here for improvements to Geology commands in 2013

Click here for improvements to Surface/Underground Mining commands in 2013

Click here for improvements to Natural Regrade commands in 2013

On May 24, 2012 Carlson posted a new build on their downloads page. This brings the Carlson Civil Suite products, (Survey, Civil, Hydrology, GIS), Takeoff, Construction, Point Clouds and Mining, etc. up to build 120524 and IntelliCAD 7.x up to 7.1.1644.53233.P. There are a lot of big updates to stability and productivity in this release.

And, just as a reminder to anyone wanting access to more regular updates to IntelliCAD 7.x, send me an email and I’ll help you get access to a separate, private blog being maintained for users interested in trying out test versions of the software before they’re provided to the general public.

[This offer ended on 12/31/2013]

Since there’s a renewed interest in IntelliCAD with the improvements to 7.0, I’ll re-post this…

Those currently using Carlson with IntelliCAD are eligible for a FREE “GIS Starter Kit” from ESRI. The 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
• A 10% discount for the ESRI Survey & Engineering GIS Summit ($325 – standard registration price)

To take advantage of the offer, call 1-800-GIS-XPRT (1-800-447-9778) and request the Carlson-IntelliCAD GIS Starter Kit and please have your Carlson Serial Number available.

You can read more about ESRI’s commitment to survey and engineering services by visiting http://www.ESRI.com/engineering.

The May 2012 issue of Professional Surveyor magazine has been published. This month they are featuring a software review I submitted: AutoCAD and IntelliCAD.

You can order your FREE subscription to the print version of Professional Surveyor here.

You can click here to learn more about Carlson Software‘s offerings that include IntelliCAD.

In case you missed it, here is our April 2012 Newsletter…

I’d like to thank Art Thomas and the Richmond Virginia AutoCAD User Group for inviting Jeremy and me to demonstrate Carlson Software and data collection last night. Our hour-and-a-half long presentation covered the basic tools and Survey, Civil and GIS specific features of the Carlson products.

The RAM User Group has been active for 20+ years and has a lot to offer CAD users in the central Virginia area. Their meetings are usually on the 3rd Wednesday of each month and start after work at 5:30. If you’re based in the Richmond area, I’d highly recommend that you join up with them.

Did you know that, when you’re in AutoCAD or IntelliCAD, you have a couple of different options when it comes to displaying the coordinate position of your crosshairs?

For instance, when you’re NOT in a command, you have two options for displaying the coordinate position of your crosshairs as it moves across your screen: On or Off. If the coordinate display is toggled ON, then the X, Y and Z position (rectangular coordinates) of your crosshairs are displayed and if it’s OFF, then the X, Y and Z display is frozen and doesn’t update as your mouse moves.

However, if you are currently in a command that requires two points be picked to specify an angle and distance (commands such as Line or Move, etc), you have a 3rd coordinate display available to you: polar coordinates. Unlike rectangular coordinates that display X, Y and Z position, polar coordinates report a distance and angle from the original point. For instance, when you start the Line command you can toggle the coordinate display so that rectangular coordinates are ON or OFF. But, after picking the first point of the line, you can toggle the coordinate display so that rectangular coordinates are ON, rectangular coordinates are OFF or that polar coordinates are ON.

The image below on the left shows the polar coordinate display in AutoCAD and the IntelliCAD version is shown below on the right:

To toggle the coordinate display in newer versions of AutoCAD (since 2009?) double-click on the coordinate display. In older versions of AutoCAD and in IntelliCAD, the F6 button toggles the display.

Since the focus of my class and of the NC Surveyors Show as a whole is GIS, I thought it made sense to bump the information about the free copy of Esri software to the top…

Those currently using Carlson with IntelliCAD are eligible for a new “GIS Starter Kit” from ESRI. The 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
• A 10% discount for the ESRI Survey & Engineering GIS Summit ($325 – standard registration price)

To take advantage of the offer, call 1-800-GIS-XPRT (1-800-447-9778) and request the Carlson-IntelliCAD GIS Starter Kit and please have your Carlson Serial Number available.

You can read more about ESRI’s commitment to survey and engineering services by visiting http://www.ESRI.com/engineering.