AutoCAD Civil 3D

[#1]

Project Basejump is a free technology preview on Autodesk Labs:

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/basejump/

You can try inserting from Bing as a base layer in your AutoCAD Civil 3D drawings. Please try it and reply to this thread.

[#2]

This looks awesome - much slicker than Google Earth. I hope the same fate does not befall this Labs preview (and that it extends longer than June)

[#3]

Very cool! It's pretty slick and pretty quick. Here's an image of my house for those of you wondering about resolution. It's probably better in the major cities: http://screencast.com/t/Qou2BBZau2

Yup, it's better in the major cities (here's the middle of Denver): http://screencast.com/t/K85ndAvSw 

[#4]

Whilst I'm very quick to criticise Autodesk for the many shortcomings in Civil 3D, I'll also be quick to say that this preview is very impressive and a much better user experience than the Google Earth method.

The aerial photos are very quick to load and refresh when panning and zooming presumably due to the use of Map data connections.

I'd guess when the lab period is over it'll (eventually) be issued as a Subscription Pack and will be in the 2014 product....although given that Google Earth was built in and has been removed leaving many users "stranded", will Autodesk do the decent thing and make the final product of this preview available to all users as a Service Pack addition??

[#5]

Can we access only imagery or are there also elevation data ?

[#6]

With the way the tool currently exists we can only access imagery. Even if it could access the elevation data, it's connecting via FDO and Civil 3D can't use FDO data in a surface, at least currently.

[#7]

A couple of questions regarding this new tool:

BING LICENCING

The Microsoft terms of use (http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9710837) state that "Bing Maps and MapPoint Web Service is for your individual use, solely for internal use by you for your business".  

A Google Earth Pro licence appeared to give us the right to use the google aerials in our plans distributed to clients, but the Bing one is a bit more restrictive.  So, you could use Bing Maps during design, but not in the final plans?

TRANSPARENCY

The other thing I'm a bit nervous about is that transparency controls on FDO connections aren't as simple as those for images inserted via Mapiinsert, and I think they don't apply when you print (refer here: http://map3d.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/transparency-of-images/).

Any pointers on these issues would be great.

Michael

[#8]

I agree...  Microsoft's terms of usage are troublesome.

But then again, I NEVER trust this sort of data for any real usage, and would ONLY ever use it for preliminary "guestimates".  Once a project is really going forward, I would expect a real Design Survey to be done.  So it may work out...  You can use this plugin for some preliminary "guestimates", then "get real" at some point.

I'm kind of amazed, though, that Microsoft is the one allowing this, when Google was the one who was supposed to "do no evil"...  And of course, both sources are mearly repackaging free sources of data (available from places like http://seamless.usgs.gov/) while claiming proprietary rights, which is the other troubling aspect.

[#9]

---

Sinc wrote:

I agree...  Microsoft's terms of usage are troublesome.

But then again, I NEVER trust this sort of data for any real usage, and would ONLY ever use it for preliminary "guestimates".  Once a project is really going forward, I would expect a real Design Survey to be done.  So it may work out...  You can use this plugin for some preliminary "guestimates", then "get real" at some point.

I'm kind of amazed, though, that Microsoft is the one allowing this, when Google was the one who was supposed to "do no evil"...  And of course, both sources are mearly repackaging free sources of data (available from places like http://seamless.usgs.gov/) while claiming proprietary rights, which is the other troubling aspect.

---

Totally endorse this - these data sets should never be used as a substitute for a "real" survey.

[#10]

Morning all.

What's the likelihood of this working in 2012?

Kevin