Caltrans Switches to Civil 3D

[Lee Hixson]

Looks like Caltrans--statewide--will be using Autodesk Civil 3D for at least the next 5 years. Interesting.

http://news.autodesk.com/news/autodesk/ ... ad-Highway

[pls7809]

Wow. We don't even have a solvent state budget, yet how much money will this switch cost?

[Steve Martin]

I think the question is "How much is CALTRANS going to save by the proposed workflow improvements?"

[pls7809]

That could be true as well. It will be interesting, nonetheless.

[land butcher]

I don't know what they have been using, but the training time shouldn't take more than a year or two.

[JLG3RD]

Tom CT is working hard to create new standards that will exceed any expectations. People shouldn't forget that CT is a special funded agency and not part of the general fund, which the budget issues lie. Funny how people like to talk smack about CT, yet it's the leading Engineering / Surveying firm globally! How's your paycheck been lately?

[JLG3RD]

Good stuff Tom keep up the good work.

[pls7809]

This is more affecting the design engineers, not Right-of-Way. It is a switch from CaiCE to Civil 3D. Survey DTM's were delivered in CaiCE on projects that I worked on for a couple of districts.

[land butcher]

What doesn't make sense is that Caltrans is keeping the .dgn as the deliverable. Only civil design will be done in Acad (and dtm creation). All CADD work will continue in Microstation. The design will be transferred to MS and all drafting will be done in MS. Hopefully this way of thinking will eventually change and Acad will be eventually used for CADD also.

Figures, mix and match and wonder why it doesn't always work right.
The same mentality that requires Ground Water wells locations to be reported in decimal of degrees instead of DMS.

My revenues keep diminishing, but my CT bridge engr neighbor keeps getting his pay working a average of 2 days a week for the last year.

[RasterMaster]

I agree with Steve. In the long run the State will save money on CCO's, revisions and public communication. My understanding is that CT is slowly migrating to VDC/BIM “ Very Smart” and release 12 will fit in nicely to that technology, not to mention Revit/3D studio Max and NavisWorks as well.

AutoCad has been a grass roots platform from the beginning. It does not take much effort to find work flows and training for free, so I think the learning curve for them will be quick.

RM

[CMGSurv]

Greetings,

Maybe somebody can point this URL in the right direction. It is from Bentley's website (Microstation) regarding CT's transition to AutoCAD. Here are a couple quotes:

"...its protest of the California Department of General Services’ (DGS) procurement process for roadway design software (RDS) has been denied."

"...two of the three software companies submitting an RFP response had been disqualified, leaving only Autodesk..."

"...disqualification was based on disagreements over the adequacy of a few textual descriptions in our response, not the competitive evaluation of technical substance..."

"...Bentley had the highest technical score based on the written proposals, yet it was denied the opportunity to participate in the technical benchmark demonstration. Bentley’s cost bid, which was thus never opened, was substantially lower than Autodesk’s cost bid."

http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Corporate/ ... rotest.htm

Trying to get the word out,

Clayton