Carlson Survey 2013

[mark baker]

I presently use Carlson Survey 2007 Stand Alone with the Autocad Engine built in. I want to update to 2013 but I am not sure if it has the Autocad Engine built in or whether I will have to learn Intellicad. Please Help.

Also, will Carlson 2013 run on a Mac laptop seamlessly?

Thanks.

[tstrickland]

You can get it either way. I think that the stand alone with the embedded autocad costs around 3k, while the Survey for autocad comes with intellicad for less than 2k.
As far as learning Intellicad, if you know Autocad, there is nothing new to learn really. The Cad version with Intellicad will have more commands available than the embedded version, but it isn't exactly perfect.
They are working on it, though, and a lot of people use it daily, while others have opted for Autocad or the embedded version.
I am using the 2009 embedded version, but will probably switch over completely to Carlson 2014 with Intellicad when it is released.

[Dent Cermak]

I am on Carlson Survey 2010 w/embedded AutoCAD. The Intellicad version still has a few bugs that tend to slow it down and the occasional crash at the wrong time. They are working on these issues real hard and I really believe that in 2 or 3 years it will be the best choice. Just not quite yet.
I keep hearing about the things that Intellicad will do that the embedded version will not do. The only thing along those lines that I have found is that the embedded version will not do AutoLisp. I am not a big Lisp programmer, so this a non-issue for me. I had several lisp routines that I used in LDD. When I switched to Carlson, I lost only one of those routines. The others were on the Carlson pull downs already.
Bottom line, for now, the embedded costs more, but is worth every penny. One crash at the wrong time or a lock-up just when you don't want it, can cost you more than the price difference. Right now, the embedded version is more reliable and a tad more bullet proof.