AutoCAD Civil 3D 2014 vs. 2015

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Hi Folks -

A really simple question here, from a beginner's perspective, is there a big difference between 2014 and 2015 AutoCAD Civil 3D? The specific areas of interest would be usability (menu locations and commands) and features, in general? Basically, if I'm working with AutoCAD Civil 3D 2015, would watching learning videos related to 2014 be ok?

Alex 

[Jeff_M]

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@pthread_join wrote:

... if I'm working with AutoCAD Civil 3D 2015, would watching learning videos related to 2014 be ok?

Alex 

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Yes. Even those relating to 2011-2013 will, for the most part, be just fine.

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Thank you Jeff for the reply. To add to my comment (and sorry for my lack of googling), I found this comparison chart from Autodesk's website:

http://www.autodesk.com/products/autodesk-autocad/compare/compare-releases

To me, some of the items listed in the comparison might as be latin because I haven't a clue what it means, yet.

Thank you!

Alex

[tcorey]

Those comparisons are for AutoCAD, not for AutoCAD Civil 3D.

Like Jeff said, if you're comfortable with 2010, you will be comfortable with any version up to 2015.

I recommend you run 2015 if you have it available, but be warned, it's early in the release cycle and there are likely to be some defects.

Actually, that can be said of any version, even those six years old. Not all bugs get eliminated, even given several years. It's the nature of the beast...

Tim

[kamike]

Well, one very annoying bug is that there is no horizontal scroll bar in 2015....  now, how did that happen?

[Jeff_M]

I have never used the scroll bars in Autocad. Wheel zoom and/or pan works fine for me. However, this does appear to be a bug.

[sboon]

I would guess that there are several hundred beta-testers for AutoCAD and the vertical products.  And nobody caught this one!  WTH!

Steve
Please use the Accept as Solution or Kudo buttons when appropriate

[neilyj666]

As you can gather from other responses, the main differences are the introduction of all the new and interesting bugs each release....

[Cadguru42]

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@sboon wrote:

I would guess that there are several hundred beta-testers for AutoCAD and the vertical products.  And nobody caught this one!  WTH!

Steve
Please use the Accept as Solution or Kudo buttons when appropriate

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I don't think there are truly that many beta users that really use the software. If there were, basic issues such as using the panorama to delete a survey figure wouldn't crash the program, or in the previous version not being able to edit a survey figure wouldn't show up on release. I blame the yearly release cycle that pushes the development team too much. There's a reason most other companies don't release yearly updates to major programs. 

[neilyj666]

I don't have time to be a proper beta tester although until the release of SP1 all the early adopters (and I'd consider myself one) could be regarded as being testers

[jmayo-EE]

"I don't think there are truly that many beta users that really use the software."

I'm would bet that none of the beta testers use scroll bars. As Jeff alluded too they have been obsolete for years due to the mouse zoom/pan functions.

[tcorey]

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@sboon wrote:

I would guess that there are several hundred beta-testers for AutoCAD and the vertical products.  And nobody caught this one!  WTH!

Steve
Please use the Accept as Solution or Kudo buttons when appropriate

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That fact that no one "caught this one" tells you that the scroll bars are used by a very tiny minority of users and were therefore eliminated by Autodesk (the horizonal scroll bar, at least.)

My guess is that more users will appreciate the added screen space than will miss the scroll bae. I doubt this is a bug, but that is was a decision by the development team.

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Hi Folks -

Thank you for the responses, my first question is, is 2015 in beta? When I had downloaded the Civil 3D 2015, there wasn't anything indicating that it was beta; I had thought it was GA, is that correct?

I'm learning and following a video that uses the 2014 Edition and, in the video, it has the moderator switching the workspace from annotations to "Civil 3D". I noticed in 2015 that this workspace doesn't exist and it seems to be the case for other editions. I figure this "Civil 3D" workspace was something legacy that is generally used today? I found some resources on how to re-create this workspace using the CUI but I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing 🙂

The other thing I can't seem to do in 2015 that seems very obvious in 2014, is launching the ToolSpace menu. For the life of me I can't get it to appear and I can't seem to follow along in my 2014 training video. I've searched around and can't find an answer to this simple problem.

I guess I'm a bit stuck between the workspace and the toolspace menu being "not too obvious" for me. I appreciate everyone's feedback and thank y you!

Alex

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Figured out the toolspace/workspace issue and it was a user-issue, of course 🙂 I wasn't aware there was a mode to start AutoCAD Civil in AutoCAD mode; I merely just switched to "AutoCAD Civil 3D" - duh 🙂

Alex

[dgorsman]

Most software that I'm using and others that I'm aware of are *all* on yearly releases.  Even the ones that aren't are releasing major versions at an almost as frequent, if irregular, rate.

[Cadguru42]

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@dgorsman wrote:

Most software that I'm using and others that I'm aware of are *all* on yearly releases.  Even the ones that aren't are releasing major versions at an almost as frequent, if irregular, rate.

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Well, MS Office is about every 3 years and Windows is about every three years. Adobe has been on a 18-24 month cycle for their software, though they claim the CC will be more often. ESRI seems to be on about a 24-36 month cycle, also. Not many others are on a year or less unless they are more internet based, such as browsers. 

[rkmcswain]

jmayo wrote:

I'm would bet that none of the beta testers use scroll bars. As Jeff alluded too they have been obsolete for years due to the mouse zoom/pan functions.

Exactly.

I cannot possibly see how use of the scroll bar could even be close to as efficient as using the mouse zoom/pan functions.

[Cadguru42]

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@rkmcswain wrote:

@jmayo wrote:

I'm would bet that none of the beta testers use scroll bars. As Jeff alluded too they have been obsolete for years due to the mouse zoom/pan functions.

Exactly.

I cannot possibly see how use of the scroll bar could even be close to as efficient as using the mouse zoom/pan functions.

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There's a guy I work with that can't use the middle/wheel to pan and zoom. He always uses the actual commands, which to me would be extremely annoying, but at least he hates scroll bars. 🙂

[kamike]

hmmm.  well then maybe I'm missing something, but when I'm in the middle of a command, and I need to pick a point that's out of the current display, it can be extremely aggregating to try to find that pick point just using the mouse.  Can one temporarily stop the command, pan to the pick point (which is another command), then resume to the original command, and carry on?.  Have I been missing something here?

Most of my work is on really big landscapes with small details here and there.

Having a scroll bar has been efficient and, well, I guess I'm just used to doing it this way.

[rkmcswain]

kamike wrote:

hmmm.  well then maybe I'm missing something, but when I'm in the middle of a command, and I need to pick a point that's out of the current display, it can be extremely aggregating to try to find that pick point just using the mouse.  Can one temporarily stop the command, pan to the pick point (which is another command), then resume to the original command, and carry on?.  Have I been missing something here?

The middle mouse button, when pressed should allow you to transparent pan.
The PAN button on the View tab also performs a transparent pan.
The 'Pan command is a transparent command also.