When I first launched Carlson 2024 with IntelliCAD, my first reaction was, “What’s that cube-thingy doing in my drawing screen?? And how do I turn it off?”. The formal name for the “cube-thingy” is a VIEW CUBE and, as I learned, turning it off wasn’t as easy as I thought.

Here is what Carlson’s IntelliCAD manual explains about the VIEW CUBE:

The view cube is a navigation tool that indicates the current viewing direction and allows you to switch between preset views and custom viewing directions. You can also use the view cube to change the coordinate system and switch between ortho­graphic and perspective projections.

The view cube displays in the current viewport when working in 2D model space or a 3D visual style. It becomes active when you move the mouse over it, and it can dis­play with transparency or not at all when inactive.

I decided to upload a very short video that shows you how to turn it off – in case, like me, that’s your preference!

We’re very excited – and appreciative! – to the Land Surveyors of Washington (LSAW) and to the Western Federation of Professional Surveyors for inviting us to present sessions at their 2024 conferences!

We will have some fun and exciting events at our booth that you won’t want to miss, so make sure to come by while you’re there!

In Tulalip at the 2024 LSAW Conference, That CAD Girl will be presenting Survey Project from Field to Plotted Sheet with Carlson Software – tentatively scheduled on Wednesday, Feb 28^th.

At the Western Regional Survey Conference in Las Vegas, we will also have fun ‘n’ games at our booth and will be presenting Survey Project from Field to Plotted Sheet with Carlson Software.

And you won’t want to miss our other session! In Dueling Piano… err, Dueling CAD Stations: Civil 3D vs Carlson Software with John Dingwall of CAD Masters, we will go head-to-head to demonstrate how each program handles your day-to-day Survey work.

Early registration is still open for both Conference, so register today!

You won’t want to miss this year’s NCSS Conference coming up February 8-10 at the Sheraton Imperial Conference Center in Durham! As always, there will be a full agenda of great educational sessions and a chance to catch up, visit and share all the best surveyors stories of the past year!

That CAD Girl will be there and we’d love to have you stop by our booth to say “Hi!” since it’s been awhile since we’ve been able to attend.

Don’t miss our upcoming Virtual Classroom training from That CAD Girl!

Our goal for 2024 is to double our offerings of long-form Virtual Classroom sessions and that starts in January with our Fast Track to Carlson Takeoff. This will be 2+ days of demonstration and presentation where users will learn to:

• Start your project from 2D images or paper
• Use Takeoff’s layer-basaed systsem to track features and report quantities
• Easily account for subgrades and topsoil in cut/fill calcs
• Import CAD files and data from other programs
• Build complex surface models with multi-floor buildings and retaining walls
• Generate reports and cut/fill color maps
• Export files for machine control

Click here to read the full announcement

You Could Attend for FREE!

Purchase a new license of Carlson Takeoff Suite or Takeoff OEM and receive 1 FREE registration to this training

Carlson Software released the 2024 version of their desktop products on October 16, 2023.

With the 2024 release, Carlson has upgraded the IntelliCAD “experience” and now defaults to IntelliCAD 11 which is a major upgrade! Click here to review all the updates in the new 2024 software.

Carlson 2024 products can be installed with (included) IntelliCAD 10.1a or 11.1 or on top of your separately purchased license of AutoCAD 2018-2024.

Carlson Survey and Takeoff 2024 with embedded AutoCAD (OEM) are expected to be released within the next few weeks.

Any user who has purchases a new Survey or Takeoff with embedded AutoCAD (OEM) within 30 days of the new release will receive an automatic upgrade. If this applies to you, please Email us and we’ll make sure you get your free upgrade.

If you are currently running Carlson and have an active maintenance contract, you are eligible for a free upgrade to Carlson Software 2024. You will need your 2023 serial number and can use this Lookup screen to find your 2024 serial number.

If you’re a past customer of That CAD Girl, you may be able to find your Carlson Customer ID, serial numbers and maintenance reports on your That CAD Girl Customer Portal.

FAQ: What are the improvements to Carlson over previous versions? (a running thread)

FAQ: What you should know about purchasing Carlson Software

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!

On November 1, 2022 Carlson Software released the 2023 version of their desktop products. With the 2023 release, Carlson is focusing more on performance and stability and a little less on new bells and whistles… I’m guessing the next version will be heavy in the other direction!

Carlson 2023 products will ship with both a preview release of IntelliCAD 11.0 and 10.1 and can also run on top of your separately purchased license of AutoCAD 2018-2023.

Carlson Survey 2023 with embedded AutoCAD (OEM) is expected to be released within the next few weeks but it’s unclear at this time whether there will be a 2023 release of Takeoff OEM.

Any user who has purchased Survey OEM 2022 after 10/1/2022 will receive a free upgrade to Survey OEM 2023. If this applies to you, please Email us and we’ll make sure you get your free upgrade.

If you are currently running Carlson and have an active maintenance contract, you are eligible for a free upgrade to Carlson Software 2023. You will need your 2022 serial number and can use this Lookup screen to find your 2023 serial number.

If you’re a past customer of That CAD Girl, you may be able to find your Carlson Customer ID, serial numbers and maintenance reports on our new customer portal. You can access your portal by clicking here and entering your email address. If you haven’t been granted Admin privileges by your company’s primary point of contact, you may have limited access.

You can read more about the new features and find more information here on Carlson Software’s 2023 product page.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can find our Picks and Clicks videos plus several “Product Overview” recordings that demonstrate features in different programs.

FAQ: What are the improvements to Carlson over previous versions? (a running thread)

And, don’t forget…

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

I got a nice surprise a few weeks ago – a call from Donny Sosa, a Survey Industry Specialist with ESRI. Donny was nice enough to come to North Carolina and present a session at my end-of-year workshops a few years ago.

Even though he gets it, I’m sure Donny groans when he hears the joke that “GIS means Get It Surveyed”… because he & I originally met after he and Brent Jones made their Why GIS Needs Surveyors presentation at a Carlson User Conference in 2009. Since then I’ve understood that he is committed to getting surveyors to provide survey-quality data to public and private GIS-systems so that the quality of the data we all rely on continues to improve.

Donny called because he remembered that a lot of my customers were excited about, and took advantage of, the free GIS Starter Kit that ESRI offered to Carlson’s IntelliCAD users after that presentation and wanted to let me know that the program is back in place.

Here are the details – effective… NOW!

Those currently using Carlson with IntelliCAD are eligible for a FREE “GIS Starter Kit” from ESRI.

The Kit includes 3 books:

• ArcGIS for Desktop Basic
• A to Z GIS: An Illustrated Dictionary of Geographic Information Systems
• Getting to Know ArcGIS for Desktop, Third Edition

 

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

You can learn more about ESRI’s commitment to survey and engineering by attending the Esri AEC Summit or by visiting www.esri.com.