We’re ready to meet and greet the LSAW Surveyors next week!

We have recently updated our Webinar Series and Virtual Classroom schedules with dates in February and March!

If you’ve recently purchased software, you are eligible to attend any and all sessions of our Webinar Series. Just go to the Webinar Series tab in the upper-right corner of your That CAD Girl Customer portal to find the links to each session.

Click here if you have no recent purchases but would like to attend as a guest.

Although we’ve already completed 2 of our 6-days of workshops, we’ve continued to get calls and requests to register for the remaining days. 

It’s true that “the best is yet to come” but, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, Black Friday and end-of-year specials, we’ve decided to reduce the cost of the registration to $99 for the remaining sessions.

Coming up Tuesday Nov 29th, we are putting the sales, support and development teams from Carlson Software in the hot seat to answer your questions! You won’t want to miss this!

Currently scheduled: Bruce Carlson, Leonid Entov, Scott Griffin, Butch Herter, Mark Long, Doug Aaberg, Sara Winter, Shan Lu, Lon Watson, John Gerber and more!

I’m just finishing up the agenda for the first day of our 2022 Virtual Workshops – and I couldn’t wait to share! On Tuesday 11/15 we’ll have 6 hours together for an Introduction to CAD. I guess I’m well on my way to developing a “series” of these Fast Track to… sessions.

Whether you’re using AutoCAD or IntelliCAD, I think this is going to be a very helpful training session because it’s scheduled with plenty of time to dig into some of the necessities for beginners. And, although this is a lead-in to Introduction to Carlson Software next week, this is SIMPLY CAD STUFF and will be perfect for beginners!

Here’s a bullet list:

• Drawing Environment and Settings
• Basic Draw Commands
• Basic Edit Commands
• Layers, linetypes and lineweights
• Linetype Scales
• Blocks and External References
• Model and Paper Space
• Drawing Templates
• National CAD Standards

If you think this lesson plan would help you or co-workers out, there’s still time to register… only $199 for 6 days of training, and you can pick and choose which session(s) you’d like to attend!

It was a really fun time at the Carlson User Conference last week in Maysville and it’s always great to see everyone. The folks running the show did a superb job with scheduling and Maysville rolled out the red carpet. I got excellent feedback from attendees about all the classes and extra-curricular activities!

See below for pictures of events and some of our favorite people in support who are often heard – but rarely seen!

I’m very excited to announce the official lineup for our end of year workshops!

We’ll be in the same locations this year and will generally follow the same format with a couple of exceptions. Based on your feedback we will have half-day sessions with Dean Goodman covering SurvNet Least Squares in both Statesville & Raleigh. And, by popular demand, we’re giving Mark Long his own room this year and he will be covering some pretty advanced material for roadway design and grading and also advanced hydrology.

Registration is now open!

Please note that the Hendersonville event has very limited seating and, once we hit our capacity, we’ll have to shuffle others off to Statesville. So, if Hendersonville is your first choice, make sure to register early.

All events are $99 for 8 hours and NC licensed engineers & surveyors will receive 8 PDH credits. Early registration discounts are available for Statesville & Raleigh only.

Also included at each event? Lunch! Snacks! Day-of-show pricing on software, hardware and maintenance renewals! Software giveaways!

2016 Hendersonville Workshop for Surveyors & Engineers on Tuesday, Nov 15^th

Topics: CAD & Carlson Tips & Tricks, Traverse Adjustment in Carlson Survey, Basics of Surfaces, Grading & Road Design

See More Details or Register Here

2016 Statesville Workshop for Surveyors on Wednesday, Nov 16^th

Topics: Dean Goodman with ½ day SurvNet Least Squares, CAD & Carlson Tips & Tricks, Beginning Surface Modeling, Centerlines & Profiles, Annotaton & Labeling Secrets of Carlson, Field to Finish from Start to Finish and Beyond Field to Finish – Using SurvCE, SurvPC & Carlson Survey to be More Productive

See More Details or Register Here

2016 Statesville Workshop for Engineers & Designers on Thursday, Nov 17^th

Topics: Mark Long with ½ day Advanced Roadway Grading and ½ day Advanced Hydrology, Drawing Cleanup & SiteNet for takeoffs and model building, Site Grading project from start to finish, Design Tools of Carlson Software and Profile & Cross Section Sheet Production

See More Details or Register Here

2016 Raleigh Workshop for Surveyors on Tuesday, Dec 6^th

Topics: Dean Goodman with ½ day SurvNet Least Squares, CAD & Carlson Tips & Tricks, Beginning Surface Modeling, Centerlines & Profiles, Annotaton & Labeling Secrets of Carlson, Field to Finish from Start to Finish and Beyond Field to Finish – Using SurvCE, SurvPC & Carlson Survey to be More Productive

See More Details or Register Here

2016 Raleigh Workshop for Engineers & Designers on Wednesday, Dec 7^th

Topics: Mark Long with ½ day Advanced Roadway Grading and ½ day Advanced Hydrology, Drawing Cleanup & SiteNet for takeoffs and model building, Site Grading project from start to finish, Design Tools of Carlson Software and Profile & Cross Section Sheet Production

See More Details or Register Here

What could be more exciting? Nevermind, no need to respond.

Anyhoo… If you are interested in learning more about the National CAD Standard (NCS) and how it might help streamline your projects, take an hour and attend this live presentation to get your questions answered!

Did you think the NCS is only for architects? Is it just for CAD? Or BIM? Wondering if it’s as scary as you’ve always imagined? Need a quick overview to see what’s in there?

Aside from default settings in the programs (hello CONT-MNR and CONT-MJR!), there have never really been CAD standards in the land surveying & civil engineering world but the National CAD Standard is a good option for those who want a quick-start. Carlson Software and Civil 3d both include NCS-based templates on installation and it’s easier than ever to implement.

Also, attend this webinar to learn more about what the Survey/Civil Task Team has already accomplished in making the NCS more applicable to those of us in the land development industries.

Here’s that link to REGISTER again

Many of you have been to our end-of-year workshops where we have a full day of presentations, software specials and giveaways but, because of holidays and travel etc, attending has not been an option for a lot of others who would like to attend.

So this is something new we’re trying in May – humor us as we’re going to try to replicate the workshops online! We won’t be able to serve our excellent Carolina BBQ but, other than that, we’re going to try to do everything else. Somehow.

Day One will be focused on Carlson Survey & GIS and Day Two on Civil & Hydrology – the details of each day’s classes are below.

Each day’s presentation will include 5 sessions and you will be able to attend any or all of them. Each session will vary in length and you will have an opportunity to ask questions and have them answered during the presentation.

Afterward we will be sending out email “confirmations of attendance” for each session that lists the name, date and time of the session, the presenter and how long you were logged into the session according to the Go To Webinar report. There is no guarantee you will be able to get PDH or CEU credit for the training but, depending on your state’s licensing board, the report we provide should be sufficient documentation.

Also, note that you must have registered and logged in under your personal name to get “credit” for attending each session. I will send reports of attendance based strictly on the details of the Go To Webinar report.

In addition to offering “day of show” software specials, we will also be doing software giveaways each day. It’ll be tricky but we’ll figure out a way!

The cost is $199 for each day of training but, if you are already eligible for my webinars (i.e. you’ve purchased software from me in the last 12 months) you can register for each day for $99. Also, we are offering $20 off for early registration.

There are limited “seats” available and the early registration deadline is May 6 – so sign up today!

See below for details and registration links

Survey & GIS Virtual Workshop  
Tuesday 5/17/2016 (registration deadline is Friday 5/13)

Register Here

All times Eastern

8:30 – 9:30 Jennifer DiBona – Tips & Tricks in CAD & Carlson Software

10:00 – 11:30 Jeremy Taylor PLS – Traverse Adjustment in Carlson Software

1:00 – 2:00 Jeremy Taylor PLS – Tips & Tricks in SurvCE/SurvPC & the Carlson Cloud

2:30 – 4:00 Scott Griffin, Director of Sales for Carlson Software – Field to Finish in Carlson Software (including tree surveys)

4:30 – 6:00 – Jennifer DiBona – Making Models from a Mess: Carlson Tools to Elevate 2D Drawings to 3D for Staking & Surface Models

Civil & Hydrology Virtual Workshop
Tuesday 5/24/2016 (registration deadline is Friday 5/20)

Register Here

All times Eastern

8:30 – 9:30 Jennifer DiBona – Tips & Tricks in CAD & Carlson Software (different material than 5/17)

10:00 – 11:30 Jennifer DiBona – Overview of Surfaces & Grading

1:00 – 2:30 Scott Griffin – Subdivision Layout & Design

3:00 – 4:30 Mark Long, Civil & Hydrology Support & Training for Carlson Software – Road Design, Site Design, Pond Design & Hydrology, Part 1

5:00 – 6:30 Mark Long – Road Design, Site Design, Pond Design & Hydrology, Part 2

This is a badly needed webinar… I don’t think I’ve done one specifically on this topic before and, for the life of me, I don’t know why. For years I’ve been speaking to large groups at conferences and trade shows and it never ceases to amaze me how few people know the benefit of using LandXML files!

This will be a little different from my regularly scheduled webinars because it’s FREE to everyone, there is no purchase required and the material presented will apply to everyone regardless of the civil/survey/construction software you use. Whether you know it or not, you’ve probably got everything you need already in your current software – you just need to put it to use.

So, what prompted me to finally schedule it? These poor people still using Land Desktop or Eagle Point calling me in a panic because their hard drives have finally crashed and they can’t get the old software installed on newer Windows machines. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t fault anyone for hanging on to something that works but the ones who call me never realized they had the tools to protect themselves and salvage years of project data all along.

You can register here (no strings attached – promise!) or keep reading for the full announcement…

Please join me in this free webinar while I explain the benefits of, and how to use, LandXML-formatted files to share and archive project-related data files regardless of the manufacturer or version of software you and other team members use.

Although many people do not realize it, LandXML is a tool that’s most likely in your hands now and won’t require any additional purchase.

This webinar is a MUST SEE for anyone still using Land Desktop, Eagle Point or other program that has been retired because it is increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to install these programs on newer computers.

The information provided in this webinar will apply equally to users of Carlson Software, Land Desktop, Civil 3d, TerraModel, Eagle Point and practically any other software for surveyors, engineers or contractors (including machine control systems).
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This webinar will last approximately 1 hour and there will be time for questions at the end.

Click here to register for the webinar now

About a year ago I announced that, to ease the amount of time I was spending with each of my customers in online training, I would start presenting live, interactive webinars each month and include those with each new purchase of Carlson Software. It took me awhile to play with the topics and length of time for each webinar but think I’ve finally settled on a good combination and a formula I can live with down the road.

I thought it would be too much work to provide documentation of attendance but I was able to find a fairly easy way to do so and have been sending emails stating the topics and time each person was logged in and active in the webinar. This is no guarantee of getting PDH credit for the sessions, but it probably does allow some of you to rack up the hours through the year.

My biggest problem has been trying to cram way too much information into each session. So I’ve started breaking up the material and am trying to keep each webinar to around an hour. You can see the list of upcoming webinars here and will notice I’ve got 3-4 webinars planned per month. Some months there may be more than that but I doubt there will be fewer than 3 unless something unforeseen comes up and I have to reschedule a session one month. It’s also likely I’ll add some last minute sessions. I’ve had a tentative list of webinars posted for February 2015 for awhile but just confirmed that I’ll have Dean Goodman (of C & G and Carlson Software) presenting a SurvNet Least Squares webinar on February 19th.

Another good/bad problem I hadn’t anticipated was that there would be some folks who stumbled along my website and training after they’d purchased the software but who wanted to be able to attend the webinars. Now that I’ve got a year of them under my belt and I know what I’m able to offer, I have decided to make the webinars available for purchase to those who don’t need to buy the software.

Through 12/31 you can purchase 12 months (including any partial month) of access to the webinars for $995. After 12/31 the price will be $1,295. You can purchase and read more details here in the online store. This will give you approximately 36 hours of training through the year.

Also, if you purchase a new license of Carlson Software directly from me within 6 months of purchasing access to the webinars, I will apply 30% of price you paid for the webinars toward your new software purchase.

Sorry for all the fine print but I’m trying to make it fair to you and me both!