As technology moves up the ladder, AutoCAD Land Development Desktop 2009 is going to be the last release of the versatile Civil Engineering Design and Documentation software. AutoCAD is offering AutoCAD Civil 3D as the next step for moving forward for all those civil engineering and surveying professionals using Land Development Desktop. Now the question worth answering is: would this move prove to be a good one?
Since the late 1990s, Land Development Desktop has been the leading software solution for over 100,000 civil engineering and surveying companies across the globe. And the latest release, Land Development Desktop 2009 is quite the handy tool for all of us in the civil engineering design industry. LDDT is compatible with the Windows Vista 32 bit platform with a number of industry specific engineering drawing standards built right into it to make our lives easier. Some other features that are worth mentioning here include Point Management and Reporting, Plan Alignments, Terrain Model Creation, and Contour Creation.
But the marked growth in technological innovation has given rise to the new and improved software that is just right for civil engineering design. And it is called Civil 3D.
So, what more does Civil 3D have to offer? For starters, Civil 3D will work with your LDDT data – so you can migrate your data quite easily into the new software. So, that should ease many of your worries. But thats not it. Civil 3D comes packed with a whole lot of features and goodies – guaranteed to make your design experience richer, and more fruitful than ever before.
With Civil 3D, you can now integrate Geospatial Analysis right into your conceptual design. You can even integrate it with terrain models from several mapping services like Google Earth. Civil 3D also gives you surveying and co-ordinating functionality, and you can directly import your raw survey data and co-ordinate system settings among others, into your drawings. Your design elements can now update automatically.
Civil 3D comes equipped with a variety of terrain shaping tools that maintain a dynamic relationship to your source data. You can very easily and quickly create intelligent models of roads, and transportation systems and even create intelligent pipes layouts for sewer, drainage and sanitary systems.
You can easily perform dynamic quantity takeoff and earthwork calculations with Civil 3D. And as designs get changed, Civil 3D can generate mass haul diagrams and the amount and direction of material to be moved. You can also access the extensive library of country-specific CAD styles and control each and every aspect of your design and drawing display.
Civil 3D also comes packed with a number of visualization tools. And, you can easily synchronize design changes with your team.
With all these features and more, you would only benefit from transitioning to Civil 3D from Land Development Desktop. Not only would your design experience be enhanced, but you would also be in a position to provide a higher level and quality of services to your clients.
So, if you want to make sure you are creating and delivering the best in civil engineering design and surveying, you would certainly migrate to Civil 3D from LDDT.