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.

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.

Carlson released a new build of their desktop software earlier this week. This includes updates to the IntelliCAD/for AutoCAD versions of Survey, Civil, Hydrology, GIS, Basic Mining, Geology, Underground Mining, Surface Mining, Natural Regrade, Field, Takeoff, Construction and Point Clouds.

To confirm your current build number, go to Help > About Carlson. You’ll see the build number on the top line of the text box.

You can download the latest full version or updates to your current installation here.

If you would like to try out any of the Carlson Software products for 30-days, email me here.

For those anxious to try out the very latest and greatest updates in the testing versions of IntelliCAD 7.1, you can also send me an email to gain access to a new blog, “The Little CAD Engine That Could”, administered by Leonid Entov of Carlson Software.

Participation in the testing and access to the blog is by invitation only, so email me and I’ll pass along your request.

You can download the most recent updates to Carlson’s 2012 desktop software HERE

Carlson Software released the 2012 version of their desktop software products today. A complete list of Improvements in 2012 can be found here. The newest version can be downloaded here. Current customers who are eligible for automatic upgrade to 2012 can automatically generate your new 2012 serial number by following this link and providing your current 2011 serial number.

Products released today include Civil Suite, Survey, Civil, Hydrology, GIS, Point Cloud, Construction and Takeoff among others. Only the products for installation with IntelliCAD or on top of your AutoCAD have been released at this time. The versions of Survey and Takeoff with embedded AutoCAD will be released in the next several weeks.

After so many years keeping their prices the same, you will notice that Carlson has slightly increased the prices of Civil Suite, Survey, Civil, Hydrology & GIS. In my opinion and even with the price increase, Carlson continues to offer the most bang for the buck when compared to other civil/survey/construction packages on the market today.

To find out about purchasing or upgrading, you can visit our new Online Store or our Carlson Pricing & Upgrades page. Or, feel free to call 919.417.8351 or Email Us with questions.

This is a good article about Bruce Carlson and where Carlson Software is planning to go in the future…

Independence All the Way

Looking for Carlson Software manuals? Prior to the 2010 release, Carlson included printed manuals with your purchase and, in addition, the manuals have always been available to print for yourself from the Help files.

With the 2010 release, Carlson “opened” a storefront on the self-publishing site called Lulu.com. You can order 2009 and 2010 Carlson Software manuals here http://stores.lulu.com/carlsonsw.

I’ve recently started using a very cool feature in Carlson Software. The bad thing… it was in the 2009 version and I didn’t even realize it!

I had no idea exporting our DWG files from IntelliCAD or AutoCAD out to Google Earth was so easy.

1. Download and install Google Earth. You can download it here: http://earth.google.com/
2. Open any one of your project DWG files that has been positioned at its correct state plane coordinate system.
3. In Carlson, go to Settings –> Drawing Setup and then select the correct Projection and correct Zone for the project site. If you’re not sure of the Projection, try using “State Plane 83”. This will work for most systems.
4. Next, go to File –> Polyline File –> Write Polyline File. When prompted for “Polyline File Format”, type “G” for Google. You will be prompted to specify a new filename and save location for a “Google Earth File to Write (.kml)”.
5. You will then be prompted to select the entities that are to be exported out to the .kml file and viewed in Google Earth. After selecting the entities, press Enter. For this exercise, we only want to see the drawing entities in 2D, so press “N” for “No” when prompted to “Use elevation from drawing in Google Earth [Yes/<No>]?”
6. Finally, you are then prompted “Would you like to display the file in Google Earth now [<Yes>/No]?”. Press “Y” for “Yes”. Google Earth should automatically launch and zoom into the project location.

In the example shown below and pointed out with arrows, notice how closely the new roads and designed turn lanes match up to the existing roadway. Also, you can see the designed graded slopes perfectly avoiding the tank that is to be preserved during construction.
Not too shabby…

This feature is available in all of the Carlson Desktop products: Carlson Civil, Survey, Hydrology, Construction and TakeOff.

Look for a future post on bringing Google Earth surface data into Carlson Software. Hint: It’s easy too!

The new CAD Standards feature included in Carlson is one of the most time-saving features to come along in a long time. This feature is a collection of commands allowing you to create, manage and draw standardized Symbols, Linework and Annotation entities that are stored in a Standards Database file.

Carlson includes two Standards Database files (.sdb) with the installation: the Carlson_NCS_SurveyCivil.sdb which is a fully populated database based on the US National CAD Standard and empty.sdb which is a functional, but empty, database with which to start a new Standard Database.

Updates and additions to the .sdb files provided by Carlson Software will be posted to this website: www.carlsonsw.com/cadstandards.html.

You can click this link to view a webinar introducing the new feature.

The CAD Standards interface (loaded with the Carlson_NCS_SurveyCivil database) is shown here:

IMAGE!