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Civil 3D vs 12D

12 REPLIES 12
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Message 1 of 13
liviac
21274 Views, 12 Replies

Civil 3D vs 12D

Hi mates, I need to have a report about comparison of this both software advantages and disadvantages. Please advise if anyone of you know 12D programme too.

Thanks
12 REPLIES 12
Message 2 of 13
AussieHans
in reply to: liviac

I'm referring to 12d v7.x

There is no real comparison. 12d does a few things better that are survey related (I trust it more with geodetic calcs than Civil3D), and allows you to open up any number of windows with just the layers switched on that one needs which is nice, but as far as dynamic objects such as surfaces or parcels are concerned it is a whole generation behind Civil3D. We have also had endless problems making the exported DWG look anything like the original 12d drawing. CAD functionality doesn't rally compare, every action taken is 3 to 6 keystrokes more than Civil3D. To select a line in Civil3D is one click, in 12d its click, right click, click “accept” from the menu. You need a good mouse.

The biggest drawback we found though was that the drawing settings are stored outside the drawing, this means that when your client receives your drawing, he has the choice of using your settings to display the data, or his settings which he needs for his work, and your data looks like crap. Even Things like symbols and linetypes are not stored in the data like it is stored in the DWG by AutoCAD. All settings are stored in User system folders, and one needs to submit a heap of settings files with the project to enable the client to view data as it presents on your own computer. It’s almost a must to prepare PDFs or DWGs to submit with the data to illustrate how it should present.

Screen redraws for equivalent dataset sizes are about one fifth the speed of AutoCAD.

There is no coordinate database like civil3D has. Points are more like drawing objects, and point numbers can be endlessly duplicated. No Point Groups. Labeling options are restricted. Labels are not dynamic. Dimensions are not dynamic.

The software is as prone to crashes as is Civil3D, which is saying something.

Menus are not set up logically at all, a lot are in alphabetical order rather than ordered by functionality, to the novice it's hard to find stuff.

12d has its own macro language I found hard to learn. No VBA or Lisp. We also found we ended up exporting everything to AutoCAD to finish for presentation, in other words we needed AutoCAD anyway to arrive at the end product. There are no layouts. The 12d format is not an industry standard. There is no XREF equivalent.

The Department of Main Roads in Queensland has adopted it as a standard package (as it was the best option at the time), but proceeded to created their own survey programs. We didn't have the resources for that.

Software support is not better or worse than our Civil3D reseller, but not nearly as good (professional) as the AutoCAD subscription.

12d has a line strings which are sort of the equivalent of feature strings. The functionality and reliability of 12d strings is better than Civil3D, as feature lines have the extremely nasty habit of going AWOL. It is also quick to generate designs, but I’m talking basic designs. The grading works. (grading works in a number of packages, Civil3D is the odd man out here. GRRR.) This aspect of 12d is often praised by the users. But again with objects like alignments and the ability to create set out data fast, it doesn't touch Civil3D. It is a real ball-ache to create chainage points on an alignment. There is no Mtext equivalent.

We have had errors on volumes, one of the order of 7000 cubic metres on 150000 total cubic meters for a power station coal stockpile.

Just some items that come to mind why we moved to Civil3D.
Message 3 of 13
Brock 381
in reply to: liviac

.

Hans refers to 12d Model V7.

Version 8 was released midway through 2007. Lots of improvements.

Most of Hans comments relate to presentation. The 12d guys would probably argue with many of them.
- We find that export to AutoCAD works just fine, provided you use a dwt
- We find that labelling chainages is easy.

The thing to focus on is that 12d Model is a design tool (with some drafting capability).
I believe that AutoCAD is a fine drafting tool. C3D gives it (some?) design capability.
The amount of design capability you want is the question.

Hans 'GRRR' comment might be relevant here.
Message 4 of 13
Floydman
in reply to: liviac

Brock 381.
Here is my design history.
CivilCAD (industry standard at the time)
12D
LDD (hated it but had to use it)
Civil 3D 2005 (hated it and went back to LDD)
Civil 3D 2006 (hated it and went back to LDD)
Civil 3D 2007 Loved it. Kicks 12d.
Civil 3D 2008 Love it more. Kicks 12d severely.

I use both 12D V8 and Civil 3D 2008 based on client requirements. There is nothing in 12D that can't be done quicker and/or better in Civil 3D.

My problem is that most 12D users are very tribal about 12D and won't consider that there may be an alternative. The fact is that even if you want to design in 12D, AutoCAD Civil 3D is the tool to use for drafting instead of normal AutoCAD. If you can remove the blinkers you find that Civil 3D is far more advanced than 12D AND easier to use. Add Advanced Road Design if you are doing urban development and you get the single most useful design tool around.

Another thing is that there are no modules for different design aspects. Buy a license of C3D and you pay less that a fully loaded copy of 12D. Add ARD and you still pay less than a fully loaded copy of 12D. For a corporate client, around 10K Au will get you a fully loaded design and drafting package. Why would you spend in excess of 12K Au on 12D unless you were doing work for QDMR?

My last piece of friendly advce is to find a competent user to show you the hows and whys and give it a go without being biased. You'll probably like it.

Floydman
Message 5 of 13
Pamfi
in reply to: liviac

Hi,
Have a look at Advanced Road Design (ARD) distributed in Australia by CadApps Australia (www.cadapps.com.au)
Verry profficient and fast - works excellent on top of Civil 3D

Regards

Florin Balcu
General Manager
MaxCAD International
CadApps Australia European Distributor
Message 6 of 13
stookie
in reply to: liviac

I guess at the end of the day it's "poo" in "poo" out ...if you're a designer with good design skills you will be the judge at the end of the day about the end result.

As you may have experienced (floydman) we here in Oz had a huge shift away from CivilCad and other suite of software's (MX, Inroads, GeoPak, Smigs, Keays) and it seems 12d has been marketed very well and have convinced many people in consulting and government organisations, but have done so by positive results.

I work for an Australian global mining consultant and we have acquired a few companies (Canada (Sandwell) and Vector and PSI (USA) ) and they use Civil3d...so the dilemma is should we switch over to Civil3d? I think they both have great things to offer from what I have seen, although being a 12d user, unless the company makes a commitment to change over, I'm happy with 12d.

At the moment, (well for now), there is more demand for 12d users then Civil3d, a lot of organisations have invested in 12d when they left CivilCad behind. Nothing like a bit of healthy competition though 🙂 http://www.12d.com/

I've got to admit though, Civil3d is being spoken about more and more and users are growing..but how many of us designers have stayed up in the wee hours of the mornings to tweek that lisp routine or write a macro or do some Visual basic coding to make our design tools easier?....the employer doesn't pay you for that R and D stuff and most times they don't have a clue or appreciate it...until you leave and they realise the smart things you did....I'm glad there's Civil3d and 12d in this world to choose from, it keeps the software developers on their toes to come up with smarter ways of doing things

If at the end of the day you can produce designs that meet the client needs on time and within budget and is able to be constructed, produced by a team that understands his/her design software confidently...it doesn't matter what you use.
Message 7 of 13
Ajilal.Vijayan
in reply to: AussieHans

AussieHans,

Excellent explanation.

 

I also felt the same things as I worked with 12d before and now moved to C3D.

Message 8 of 13

I must digress with the general trend of this thread.

 

I've used Civil 3d, 12d & Civilcad over the past 5 years.

 

12d v7 & 8 were no where nearly as good as v10 is at present. While I have more experience in Civil 3d I (and so do most employers now) choose to use 12d as it is the superior package now. 12d is much more powerful for design. CIvil 3d wins hands down for drafting though. This works well for us thoguh as we now use 12d for design and AutoCad for drafting (where previously we used Civil 3d for design and then the drafters done the drafting in AutoCad).

 

In Australia the war between CIvil 3D and 12d was close 5 years ago. It is over now and 12d has clearly won.

Message 9 of 13
jsearle
in reply to: earthworks12

Interesting post and replies. I've recently been looking into this whole 12d vs Civil3d as well. My background is with 12d but the new company I have recently started working for is currently running both as a trial.

 

Now that both platforms have had further updates in the past few years, do any users have any recent and unbiased feedback they could add?

Message 10 of 13
dean.witherden
in reply to: jsearle

I'll try not to be biased but have just finished going through Civil 3d as i'm looking to move away from 12d to something more modern.

 

In my opinion, 12d is far more powerful and flexible than Civil 3d BUT the comments from everyone on the crappy look, feel and usability of 12d are very true. And to clarify, i've been using 12d for 10+ years... The interface, help menus (12d refers to them as reference manuals, they don't help too much!) and file structure are old as the hills and very inefficient. Further to this, to get the full advantage of 12d you have to spend lots of time learning how to customise toolbars and write screen layouts and macros.

 

As far as sharing data between projects, it's a mess! Where CAD has xref's that share everything within each dwg, 12d has model sharing and there is no way to share all models (comparable to layers) without a lot of screwing around. 

 

I am a surveyor who also builds models from scratch for our GPS machine control as most stuff coming from engineering firms isn't good enough for us to use. In saying this 12d lacks the tools to easily generate extra data from existing data but we've worked around this over the years as 12d has far superior survey capabilities.

 

I've just finished evaluating Bentley Open Roads which i've found to be superior to both Civil 3d and 12d. It has both survey and design capabilities, along with a modern interface and Bentley's own cloud service makes it all so easy. 

 

Civil 3d lacks ALL of the functions required for engineering survey in Australia as it seems the rest of the world aren't required to do any sort of QA on construction for tolerance. C3D also makes it very hard to enter alignment data from plans as it seems to require a surface to create a vertical alignment. I found 3rd party tools to do things like this but i struggle to buy a product and then have to buy more to get functionality that we need to do our job.

 

I love CAD for drafting and 12d for modelling and survey but will be moving to Bentley very shortly!

 

Message 11 of 13

Since it's been a few years Dean, how have you found your migration?

Message 12 of 13

Hi Vaughan,

 

Unfortunately we didn't end up moving ahead with it, it doesn't have the survey functionality that we need. There are some add ons that we could get to do most things but not everything.

 

Interestingly, I learnt that survey in Australia is a lot more onerous than other countries, this is probably why it didn't have everything we needed.

 

 

Message 13 of 13
Ramil.Sadykhov
in reply to: liviac

12D is an obsolete crap. Too slow to use, lack of logic in menu bars. Data structure has not been updated since 90th. Export between other software programs is limited. For each type of export format, you need to pay separately. There is no analogy of free lisps database in web.

 

All civil designs created in 12D I had to use, looked unprofessional and had many issues. Had to deal with a few clients who’s designers used 12D for structural drawings of earthwork section. To say it was a nightmare, say nothing at all. Shifted grids, lines mismatch between drawings. Overlaps between different section of models. So on, so on and so on

 

Without government support, when to get a government contract you need to get 12d, this software will get out of marcket quickly. 

 

 

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