I HAVE known Jim Loy formany years and hold him in thehighest regard both as a survey-or and a businessman, so whenI found out that Loy Surveyswere promoting a softwarepackage I thought that I reallymust have a look at it. The soft-ware concerned is CarlsonSurvey XML and it incorporatesa full range of survey com-mands and functions into theAutoCAD 2002 engine. It is notan “add-on” but a fully inte-grated package that gives youthe benefit of most of the 2002features plus very sophisticatedsurveying, DTM, COGO anddesign functions integrated intothe AutoCAD layout. On top ofthat it is being offered at theunbeatable price of £990, whichis a lot less than you would payfor just AutoCAD on its own.There is a limitation in that youcannot use other AutoCAD“add-ons”, particularly as someof the AutoCAD commandshave been replaced with moreappropriate Carlson com-mands, but if that is importantto you then you can get all thesurvey functions etc. throughSurvCADD which is Carlson’s“add-on” package. The CarlsonSurvey screen is shown below.

Into the softwareAfter installation the firstthing you need to do is set upa template to meet your ownrequirements and the easiestway to do this is to amend theprovided survey template.This is American software so

the defaults are for theAmerican user and you needto alter units and other func-tions to set things for the UK.This is done mainly throughthe “Settings” menu but thereare also Point and Areadefaults that need altering. Inaddition you can load up thetoolboxes you require and theexample screen shows all thetoolboxes loaded. One thingyou may search for but youwill not find is a global config-uration option to prompt anddisplay co-ordinates inEastings before Northings for-mat. Input/output can be inEastings before Northings, theco-ordinate file listing can bein Eastings before Northingsand the labelling of points canbe Eastings before Northings,but the general promptscreens and the Inquiry dis-play will be in Northingsbefore Eastings. OK for mostof the world but a little bit of ahandicap for us and mostCommonwealth countries.However, I am assured thatthis option is on the cards andwill be included in CarlsonSurvey XML2 whose release isimminent. It appears that ourAustralian cousins have beenpressing for such an optionand Carlson are happy tooblige. If you have not usedAmerican software beforethere is one other thing youhave to know and that is theAmericans’ Bearing is aQuadrantal Bearing to us, souse the Azimuth if you wantyour Bearings displayed asWhole Circle Bearings.

A minor point if youalready have AutoCAD draw-ings on your computer, orindeed AutoCAD, is thatCarlson Survey will take overthese drawings. The notice-able effect of this is that theDWG icon will change colourfrom red to blue and what thatmeans is that if you double-click the icon in “My comp-uter” or “Explorer” the draw-ing will go into CarlsonSurvey. There is no differenceif you call up the drawing inAutoCAD, it will load up as

normal so there is completecompatibility between CarsonSurvey and AutoCAD. I haveAutoCAD LT 2000 and 97 onmy review computer and Iexperienced no problems inusing them.

Data in and processingAt its simplest you can use theCAD to draw your designs,insert whatever points youwant and convert entities topoints if you are building upsomething for setting out. Thesoftware will read any DWGfile or DXF file and you havecomplete control of the pointsyou wish to establish throughthe entities-to-points conver-sion. The drawing in the exam-ple screen was an existingDWG and points were extr-acted as mentioned so that aground model could be set upand the contours checkedagainst the original. There wasan almost perfect overlap.

ASCII import is the nextsimplest and you can set theimport file to read Point num-ber, Eastings, Northings,Height and Description (Code)or any similar format. Thepoints are imported straightaway and you are prompted fora Co-ordinate (CRD) file to putthem in. The CRD file is effec-tively the database file to storeall the points. These points willnot be shown on the screenuntil you enter the Draw/LocatePoints command and define thepoint symbol plus other optionsand initiate that. An importantoption here is to “tick” theLayer by Description box so thatyou will set up separate layersfor all your codes.

However, Carlson Survey isgeared up to importing pointsdirect from data loggers andinstruments. They have a goodrange of these – Leica, Sokkia,Nikon, Topcon, Trimble etc –and data is downloaded into aRAW file for processing. I didnot have a convenient instru-ment at hand but I had someraw SDR data and this workedperfectly. The Raw data is dis-played in a spreadsheet whichyou can edit and amend asnecessary before convertingthe data into points throughthe processing commands.This works very well and is apowerful feature of the soft-ware.

The spreadsheet will alsotake Traverse data and adjustthis using the Compass(Bowditch), Transit or Crandall

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AutoCAD plus surveyA fully functional survey and ground modelling package sub £1000sounds bargain enough but this one throws in AutoCAD too! Is ittoo good to be true? Mike Fort takes the lid off a popular US pack-age now available in the UK.

Below: the Carlson inter-face with the full tool setshowing. Right: points canbe imported from a goodrange of dataloggers andinstruments.

Carlson SoftwareFounded in 1983, Carlson isa leading American softwaredeveloper. Recent mergerswith C&G software andSimplicity software havegiven it a user base of over12,000 and complementedits range of software whichextends from surveying andconstruction to field sys-tems, GPS and plant control.They have specialised inworking within theAutoCAD environment andare committed to becomingthe premiere independentsoftware developer withinthat environment. In addi-tion, they are expanding intothe international market.

A feature which theystress is support; and thishas been excellent whilstI’ve been investigating thesoftware. First phase sup-port is of course given byLoy Surveys and I havefound their software guy,Alasdair Bain, extremelyhelpful. But second phasesupport is direct fromAmerica and I have hadphone calls from Kentuckyplus emails by return inanswer to my queries. Thebest part of all this is that,despite the software beingsuch a bargain, support isfree and unlimited. Nowonder Jim was impressed!

Fort Carlson review.qxd 25/09/2003 17:43 Page 2

rules or by Least Squares. Thelatter is purely a TraverseAdjustment routine but betterby far than all the others and iswell worth using. I stressTraverse adjustment as thereappears to be no way you canenter network observations, sodon’t throw away yourStar*Net – it is still the bestLeast Squares program around.However, having said that,Carlson will be releasing theirown Network Least Squaresprogram, SurvNet, to theinternational market by theend of the year.

You can enter Traverse andSideshot data manuallythrough the spreadsheet, whichmakes it a valuable teachingtool as you can quickly see theeffects of bad data. But bewareif you intend to enter the dataas horizontal distance and dif-ference in height, as there is abug in the system that causesthe program to crash. No suchproblems if you enter thedefault Slope distance andZenith angle and the crash canbe easily avoided by turning offthe Graphic screen below thespreadsheet. This screen dis-plays the points as they areestablished which is useful asyou have a visual display ofyour input, bearing in mindthat the points are not shownon the main screen until theyare Drawn and Located. So,with horizontal distance/differ-ence in height input, turn offthe graphic screen whilst youinput the data and then turn itback on when you finish andyou will get a display of yourinput. That seems to work.

It is worth mentioning thatyou can enter traverse datathrough the Traverse com-mand in the COGO menu.This does let you enter hori-zontal distance and differencein height but will not performan adjustment. To do this yougo into the Raw data spread-sheet and just enter the stationnumbers and the type ofobservation (Fixed Point,Azimuth or Angle Right, etc).Click the command to extractthe data from the main screenand, hey presto, all your obser-vations are extracted and youcan then adjust them.

Field to Finish andContouringYou can, of course, justdraw/locate the points andcomplete your survey by join-ing the points and adding

symbols which can includethose drawn by yourself. Youhave all the AutoCAD andCarlson commands to makethings easier for you.However, the drawing can befully automated by linkingyour coding to the Carlson“Field to Finish” library orindeed by designing your owncoding library. The Carlsonsystem is pretty comprehen-sive giving you a wealth ofcodes to draw lines, curves andinsert symbols etc but the wayin which the system works isopen and you have all thefacilities to design your ownlibrary. I did this in a small wayand it worked very well.

Contouring was verystraightforward and verygood. You enter the parame-ters into the “Triangulationand Contouring” box and setup a file for your TIN. Everyline is considered to be abreakline so you do not haveto worry about these andwhen you initiate the con-touring you are prompted forinclusion and exclusion poly-lines before you select thepoints and entities to contour.The contouring is then carriedout with labelling at the inter-vals you specified and indexcontours drawn to your speci-fied width. Colours can bealtered from the defaultthrough the normal layercommands and you canexperiment with the smooth-ing settings ( Bezier orPolynomial) quickly and easilywith the switch setting toerase previous contouring forthe area so you don’t compli-cate the drawing when yourepeat the contouring.

All in all, Carlson Surveyworks very well in preparing

fully contoured survey plansand, with the benefit ofAutoCAD commands andBlocks to set up your plan lay-outs, you will be producingprofessional survey drawingsin record time.

Areas, Volumes andProfilesAreas are a case where theAutoCAD commands havebeen replaced by Carlsoncommands and these havesimplified the process. Youcan set up the units in whichyou are working and whichyou would have displayed –Sq.m, Hectares etc. There area number of options to calcu-late the area and I limitedmyself to just a couple andthey worked fine.

Volumes is again a fairlystraightforward operation giv-ing you options of workingwith a triangulation modelderived from contouring (rec-ommended) or grid modelsset up from layers or entityselection. The volume rou-tines are between two sur-faces or one surface, to adefined elevation and bothworked equally well. I havenever been a fan of grid vol-umes as they cannot be con-trolled by breaklines but I gota fairly good answer on mytest volume with agreement to7cu.m on a volume of 2,235cu.m so perhaps Carlson haveworked that in somehow.Still, with the triangulationoption using the TIN modeland prisms there is no need togo into the grid options.

Something I could not findthough was a way of calculatingthe slope area, which can bequite useful in earthworks. Iwas rather surprised at this as a

3D faces file can be set up whendoing the triangulation so theinformation is there to performthe calculation. Mind you, yourequire this file when you wantto generate a 3D picture.

Profiles were also a bit of adisappointment. Although youhave a number of options thereis no interactive screen whereyou can see the profile generat-ed and work on it and there isno option for cross sections(profiles). In addition, drawingthe profile was quite involvedrequiring a bit of experimenta-tion with the scaling and thelayout to get something pre-sentable. One thing I did notewas that the edit screen for theprofiles was very comprehen-sive with options for generic,road and rail profiles with ver-tical curve entry and K-Valuesso you can enter a comprehen-sive vertical alignment if youwish. Not a lot of use thoughunless you can tag a cross-section template onto it, and Irather suspect that thisinput/edit screen is shared withCarson Roads which mostprobably has the information Iwas looking for. Nevertheless,you can get profiles generatedalong any line you choose andit is easy to generate a roadpolyline for this purpose.

Design and datamanipulationI only went into the roadsoptions and the pad layoutand these worked very wellwith the latter calculating anexcavation volume usingdesign slopes. With the roadsyou draw a polyline using lineand curve commands andthen convert it to a roadlinecreating a road file with thehorizontal alignment infor-mation generated. There areother options but creating apolyline appeared to me to bethe easiest way of doing this.

There are options for Lotdesign that appear to automatethe procedure as far as possible,and standard features such ascul-de-sacs can be inserted asrequired. Other features such aslegal deed layout etc are specificto the American market but gen-erally the COGO options andcalculation functions are verygood enabling you to produce afairly comprehensive design.

Data manipulation throughthe Points menu is very com-prehensive with the ability towork direct on files or withgroups of points. The geo-

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Drawing pro-files is quiteinvolved butthere is a verycomprehensiveedit screenwith optionsfor genericroad and railprofiles.

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graphical conversions are setup primarily for the Americanmarket but there is a UTM con-version that looks as if it can bemodified to our National Grid.

An area that I did not inves-tigate was the GIS menu. I findit amazing that such inexpen-sive software has this optionand can link-up to MicrosoftAccess for the database.

About LandXMLCarlson Survey can importand export LandXML fileswhich is the reason for XMLbeing in the title. This isimportant because LandXMLis set to become the universaldata exchange standard for alltypes of surveying and designdata; and such exchange for-mats as DXF, Genio, ASCIIand indeed DWG will becomeobsolete. Essentially, if yoursoftware can read a LandXMLfile then all the informationfor the survey and the designis converted into the formatused by your software so thereis no need to re-process theinformation in any way.

Autodesk initiated LandXMLin December 1999, not as a

propriety system but as anindependent industry-drivensystem, and it has gone fromstrength to strength since. Itssupporters include Bentley,Infrasoft, Trimble, Leica and ahost of other well known com-panies so it is well establishedand is set to become the dataexchange format that theindustry has been asking forover many years.

ConclusionsIf you buy this software pure-ly for the AutoCAD elementthen you may be a little bitdisappointed as a lot of thecommonly used AutoCADcommands have been super-seded by Carlson commands,so you cannot really use it toteach AutoCAD. That makessense because a companysuch as Autodesk is not goingto stand idly by and see itssoftware undercut by over athird by an OEM developer.Nevertheless, in my opinionthe Carlson commands are animprovement on theAutoCAD ones they super-sede making it easier to useand you still have the bulk of

the AutoCAD commands atyour disposal. You can cer-tainly use the software forsophisticated CAD designseven if you do not intend touse the surveying element.That, however, would defeatthe purpose as Carlson Surveyis an extremely competentand comprehensive DGMpackage which is easy to useand easy to learn particularlyif you know your way aroundAutoCAD.

Where it would fit in theUK market is questionable asmost companies in the UKhave established softwarepolicies and programs such asLSS, nForce, MX and most ofthe others are superior to it intheir particular specialisms,e.g. LSS for volumes and vir-tual reality. But these pro-grams are a lot more expen-sive and have their own limi-tations but I could see usersgetting Carlson Survey as asecond or a third system, par-ticularly to deal with clientsrequiring AutoCAD drawings.Small survey companies andconsultants who may baulk atthe cost of full AutoCAD and

have a limited requirement forground modelling, could findthis the software that couldmeet all their requirements ata budget cost.

One area I am sure will beattracted to Carlson SurveyXML is education. Approvededucational establishmentscan get a site licence perdepartment for £938 that per-mits an unlimited number ofinstallations within the train-ing room and includes off sitecopies for development pro-viding the software is used atthe education establishment.At that price it is worth fore-going a few AutoCAD specificcommands and using Carlsonas the general CAD teachingtool with the added bonus ofall the Carlson Survey func-tions. Ideal for colleges teach-ing civil engineering and con-struction. Mind you, it may beworth waiting for the upcom-ing Carlson Survey 2004 ifthat is going to resolve theEastings before Northingsproblem.

• Contact Loy Surveys on 0800 833312 for a 30-day evaluation CD.

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“Carlson Survey is a great product from a great company. The XML feature makes file transfer with other products foolproof. Creating a DTM and contour map has never been easier.”— Bob Pasley, Automated

Engineering & Surveying Systems, Glenwood, MD

Carlson Survey 2004 is the classic “win-win” situation for the small survey and engineering firm. Carlson Survey 2004 incorporates core AutoCAD® 2004 and SurvCADD® features for an affordable price.

Carlson Survey 2004 is the classic “win-win” situation for the small survey and engineering firm. Carlson Survey 2004 incorporates core AutoCAD® 2004 and SurvCADD® features for an affordable price.

AutoCAD® 2004Compatible!

New Carlson Survey 2004 — Call for a free demo disk and see why we have the most loyal customers in the industry.

New Carlson Survey 2004 — Call for a free demo disk and see why we have the most loyal customers in the industry.

Visit www.carlsonsw.co.uk for a complete listing of features and improvements.www.carlsonsw.co.uk

®

0800 833 312carlsonsw@loy.co.uk

Call for a FREE demo disk:

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