AutoCAD Civil 3D Review

What is AutoCAD Civil 3D?

AutoCAD Civil 3D software is a Building Information Modeling (BIM) solution for civil engineering design and documentation. Civil 3D was designed to be used by civil engineers, drafters, designers, and technicians who are working on transportation design, land development, and water projects.

First of all, we should cover the credibility that I have to actually speak on this topic.  I have used Civil 3D now for almost a year, primarily for the projects in my Transportation Engineering class. I have used normal AutoCAD, which I will be talking about shortly, for a little over three years. In the past, I have taken two

separate classes specifically tailored to teach you how to use the program – one in high school, and one here at NDSU.  Therefore, I would consider myself pretty well experienced with the functions of the AutoCAD program.  As far as Civil 3D goes, I am not nearly as experienced as with AutoCAD, but I do have decent knowledge about the basic functions and capabilities of the program.

What are the Strengths and Flaws of the Program?

Some of the recent improvements to the 2012 version of Civil 3D include an improved alignment layout, along with tools that enable easier sharing of drafting and design standards from one company or organization to another. Autodesk has also made corridor enhancements streamline corridor editing, and data import improvements help to simplify the creation of intelligent objects. On top of the new improvements, the program already had pretty amazing capabilities. Without getting too technical, I’ll just say that the program can essentially design an entire city on one document.  The design isn’t solely limited to the roads either, but you can also plan drainage corridors, balance the earthwork that is required for a project, simulate driving down the actual road you created, and much more.

Overall, the 2012 Civil 3D version is a very impressive program that has truly remarkable capabilities, for example designing an entire city while you’re sitting in front of your computer.  Like I said previously though, I haven’t used the program for too long yet so take my word for what it’s worth.  As far as the flaws of the program go, I really just haven’t had enough time to play around with the program. The only major one that I can think of is the difficulty of learning the program to begin with. For my first project in Transportation Engineering, I put in eight hours entirely devoted to learning how to use the most basic functions of the Civil 3D program.  With that being said, it’s understandable for a program to be difficult to learn when it has that many capabilities.   

How Does Civil 3D Compare to AutoCAD?

AutoCAD is a software program that was created for computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting in 2D and 3D.  The main difference between this program and Civil 3D is that it’s simply not as powerful of a program. What I mean by this is that Civil 3D can do all the same functions of AutoCAD plus more. It’s basically just the program that’s a step up on both the price and the capability chart. The only thing that I like about the AutoCAD program more than Civil 3D is that it is far more user friendly. Though this is probably due to the fact that one program has far more capabilities than the other.

Keeping this fact in mind, my advice to any AutoCAD user is to use the program that only has the functions you need for the project you’re working on – that is, unless you’ve taken an instructive course on how to use Civil 3D. If you do that, you should face far less complications with the program you’re using and will probably finish it a lot faster. On top of that, you will be much happier when you finish too.