What's missing from Civil design?

[stephen.cowling]

According to this:
http://south-apac.autodesk.com/adsk/...326&id=3947353

"Autodesk Civil 3D 2005 is not a complete replacement for Autodesk Land Desktop and Autodesk Civil Design.... there are some functionality gaps between Autodesk Civil 3D and the Autodesk Land Desktop/Autodesk Civil Design ... For example, use Autodesk Civil Design for projects that require sewer and storm drain design or drafting. "

Are there plans to remedy this at some stage? I was hoping to be able to remove Land Desktop, partly to force myself to learn Civil 3D.

Also, anyone know what else is missing? It would be frustrating to spend ages searching for the new term for an old command and then find it's not there...

Other than that, it looks pretty slick. There are a few clunky pull down menus etc in the settings, but I guess that's just more incentive to set it up properly in the first place!

[mjfarrell]

Pretty much all things hydrology seems to be gone
other than the terrain model's watershed awareness.

The old MAP COGO commands are not part of 3D
and are removed from MAP menu.

I'm not sure if I like the manner that the grading object
has been subverted by this new multi-stlyeable grading
device.


It looks like they kept all of the obtuseness in the help file as
was practicable.

For the most part one well versed with Land will find some welcome
changes. I'm very concerned about how well it seems to crash
it could be me not having a service pack yet installed, or just banging
the new toys against the floor to see if they break.

[stephen.cowling]

Ha! Me too.
Seems like there's a tendency to exit without error when you least expect it, which takes me back to the days when 'end' was an AutoCAD command as well as a snap type. Long story.

I've been given a dwg with styles set up already, and I'm trying to copy and paste alignments etc across. I don't recommend that as a tactic, as 1gig of ram doesn't seem to be enough.

[mjfarrell]

Stephen you would be better served to use XML to trade
the data back and forth. Best I can tell that warning in
regards to no using much or little as possible on the
Import AutoCAD dialog made me run away faster that a
pack of hornets.

[shannon.summers]

Got to agree with MJ on this. XML is definitely the way to get the surfaces and alignments in there. I still find myself getting tripped up between the 2D and 3D view choices. Just what I wanted to do, learn another monster package. I'm still trying to get comfy with 2004!!

[mjfarrell]

Stability status report.

Some of this may be my fault as I am running it on
*gasp* an unsupported version of XP

Although today I am being a little more careful about
how and what I am doing and it has not yet rolled over
on me today.

Saving often, and incrementally seems to be a decent
strategy for now.