I've been thinking about my opinion of this software, which is the opinion of a beginner both in the software and in the field (I've been here just over a year and a half). Geopak has amazing capabilities, but isn't anywhere near being user-friendly. There are so many hidden settings that I run into problems all the time - I think I'm on the right track, all of my pop-up menus have been populated with the proper data (if you thought MicroStation was bad with pop-ups, you ain't seen nothin' yet - it overpopulates BOTH my screens!), but then when I go to run cross-sections/profiles/whatever, it either doesn't work at all or gives me some very unpredictable results.
There are a lot of support files necessary to run Geopak. Thankfully, IDOT sends us these files for their standards, so that I can use them as a template to create files that follow company standards. No one in our office has had any formal Geopak training - I completed an online Bentley tutorial, and that's about it. It was somewhat helpful, but the majority of my Geopak training comes the hard way - screwing something up, then having to go back and search for my mistake.
I definitely have an 'iceberg' grasp of the program. I have about a 5-10% knowledge of Geopak Road. There's also Landscape, Site, Drainage, Water Sewer and Survey, and I've never used any of them! I'd like to poke around and see if they could do us any good, but I don't seem to have the time.
Like I said, I am just a beginner in this journey, but I'd be pretty interested in starting a compare/contrast dialogue concerning these programs. What kind of work to you use C3D for? Do you find it easy to use, or is it a pain in the butt? What would you do to make it easier to understand and more user-friendly? What's the learning curve? How much training do you have? How much more would you like?
Not that I'd be able to make the switch - like I said, we MUST use Geopak. I'd just like to have a basis of comparison.