For those who have been waiting, patiently or not, for a Carlson update that will allow you to create a Geoid 2012 file for your Carlson SurvCE collector – here is the update from Carlson.

Anyone who has used AutoCAD or IntelliCAD for any period of time will be familiar with a few of the selection methods available to you during editing commands… although you may not know the “official” name of the method.

When your Command: line prompted reads “Select Entities:”, you can use the following methods to add entities to the selection set:

A Single selection is when you use a “Pickbox” to select one entity at a time.

An Implied Window selection is when you drag a rectangular area, from left to right, around the entities to be selected. This method will select any entities that are fully enclosed within the area. To force a Window selection, you can also type “W” at the Command: line when prompted to “Select Entities:”. Window selections are indicated by the solid outline of the rectangle and a color shading within the rectangular area.

An Implied Crossing selection is when you drag a rectangular area, from right to left, around or across the entities to be selected. This method will select any entities that are fully enclosed or touch (cross…) the outline of the rectangle. To force a Crossing selection, you can also type “C” at the Command: line when prompted to “Select Entities:”. Crossing selections are indicated by the dotted or dashed outline of the rectangle and a color shading within the rectangular area.

So, these are the ones you probably know about. But, what about these?

Again, when prompted to “Select Entities:”, you can do any of the following:

Hold the SHIFT-key down while selecting objects using Single, Implied Window or Implied Crossing selection methods will un-select any objects previously selected.

Type “P” at the Command: line to use the Previous selection method. This method will automatically select the same objects that had been selected for the most recent editing command. This obviously doesn’t work if the Previous selection set has been ERASEd from the drawing.

Type “L” at the Command: line to use the Last selection method. This method will automatically select the entity most recently added to the drawing. The entity must also be visible on the drawing screen in order to be selected.

Type “ALL” at the Command: line to use the All selection method. This method will automatically select all entities visible in the current space.

Type “F” at the Command: line to use the Fence selection method. This method allows you to drag a line (by picking points) across the entities to be selected. When picking the points for the Fence, the sketched line is dashed or dotted. This method is similar to a Crossing selection as it will select anything that touches the Fence.

Type “WP” at the Command: line to use the Window Polygon selection method. This method allows you to sketch an irregularly shaped area (by picking points) around the entities you wish to select.  Any entities that are completely inside of the non-rectangular area will be selected. This is simply a non-rectangular version of the Window selection method. Window Polygon selection areas are indicated by the solid outline  and color shading of the irregularly shaped area.

Type “CP” at the Command: line to use the Crossing Polygon selection method. This method allows you to sketch an irregularly shaped area (by picking points) around or across the entities you wish to select. Any entities that are completely inside of the non-rectangular area or touching its outline will be selected. This is simply a non-rectangular version of the Crossing selection method. Crossing Polygon selection areas are indicated by the dashed or dotted outline  and color shading of the irregularly shaped area.

If you have a complex selection set and need to un-select several entities, you may find it impractical (and frustrating) trying to un-select everything by using SHIFT+<select> to do so.

Another way to un-select a bunch of entities is to use the Remove selection mode. When prompted to “Select Entities:” at your Command: line, type “R” to change your Command: line prompt to “Remove Entities:”. Now, any entities you select, using any method, will be Removed from the selection set. You do not have to hold SHIFT and you can use Fence, Last, Window Polygon, etc. to remove those items.

After Removing entities from the selection set, type “A” at the Command: line to return to the Add selection mode. This changes the Command: line prompt back to “Select Entities:” and you will once again be able to Add objects to the selection set.

With the 2013 release of Carlson Hydrology, Carlson is shipping complete rainfall libraries for the following cities in North Carolina:

• Asheville
• Cary
• Chapel Hill
• Charlotte
• Concord
• Durham
• Fayetteville
• Gastonia
• Greensboro
• Greenville
• High Point
• Jacksonville
• Raleigh
• Rocky Mount
• Wilmington

The rainfall information has been compiled from the precipitation intensity charts available from The National Weather Service.

To load and access these files:

• Switch to your Carlson Hydrology menu
• Go to Network > Sewer Network Libraries > Rainfall Library
• Pick the Load button
• Browse to C:Carlson ProjectsSettingsNorth Carolina

Some of us are old enough to remember life without the CHSPACE command… and what a great addition it was when the command was finally introduced to AutoCAD several years ago. And, with the release of IntelliCAD 7, it’s now in that program as well.

CHSPACE is a command that allows you to move one or more entities from Model Space to Paper Space (or vice versa) very easily. In AutoCAD, the operative word there is “MOVE”. You have to be a little careful because the command does exactly that: It MOVES it from paper to model or from model to paper. In IntelliCAD, you are given the option of COPYing the selected entities from one space to the other.

The command actually does more than just move or copy selected entities, it also scales the entities by the viewport scale so they’re correct size-wise. For instance, let’s say that you have a drawing in model space that’s been rotated so that it more easily fits on a sheet of paper. Also in model space, you’ve inserted a North arrow. And, in paper space/layout view, you have inserted a title block at a scale of 1:1 (18″ x 24″, etc.). Inside of the title block, you’ve created a viewport you’ve scaled to 1″=40′.

For drafting purposes, it’s desirable to have the North arrow in paper space to that it can be moved around and positioned outside the viewport. If you’re in AutoCAD, the first step is to make a copy of the North arrow. If you’re using IntelliCAD, this step isn’t necessary. Then, while in paper space/layout view, double-click inside the viewport to make it active. Type CHSPACE at the Command: line. Follow the various prompts within the command and Voila! Your North arrow is now in paper space and it’s been scaled down by 40 times so that it fits properly on your title block.

Our June newsletter has been posted… Read it here: June 2012 Newsletter

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

Several years ago when I started my business, my first contract was as an outside CAD manager for a civil & land planning firm. In trying to document their pen weights, screening, etc. I found a utility available on Autodesk’s website that allowed me to export all the values in a CTB file to a .csv file that could be opened (and printed) with Excel.

Here is the old Autodesk Knowledge Base article – it still works for anyone using AutoCAD-based programs version 2007-2008.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a more current version of this utility until recently. Govert’s Tools has a program called PlotStyleViewer. You can download it here.

In his words,

This inspired me to create a CTB/STB view/print application that works completely independent of AutoCAD and Autodesk tools! The program consists of just one executable file, there are no other exe’s or dll’s needed. It should work with CTB’s/STB’s from AutoCAD 2000 upto the latest version. The purpose of this tool is that you can view CTB’s, print them and save as text file that you can open in Excel etc.

It’s a handy little utility and doesn’t seem to be limited to a particular version. Hope you get as much use out of it as I do.

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.

As most everyone knows, every 3 years Autodesk ruins a perfectly good DWG format by introducing a new one…

With the 2013 version of the Autodesk products now released, anyone using a version of AutoCAD older than 2013 can expect to start receiving 2013 .dwg files that they can’t access because its an incompatible version. This is where the DWG Convert function inside of DWG TrueView can be a lifesaver.

DWG TrueView is FREE utility available from Autodesk. They release a new version of this program every year, just like their other products.

With the True Convert utility you can convert any newer version DWG or DXF to any earlier version. I’d recommend you enable the option that creates a .bak file with the original just in case you need it later.

Inside the True Convert utility you can also enable several other options that will run routines such as Audit, Purge, XREF Binding, etc. during the convert process.

You can download DWG True View 2013 here.