Topic: Land Desktop vs Civil 3d.

[therock003]

As of late i keep wondering what's the difference between the two.I mostly use c3d but have at some time checked briefly ldd.I keep hearing about c3d being better and ldd only existing cause it came out first and it has loyal fans that dont dare make the switch.Is that true?

I think that c3d came out with the 2005 release so i guess 2009 should be the fifth release so far.When did ldd came out?

And beyond that is there anything that ldd does and c3d does not?

And last but not least c3d handles objects as models,like surface alignments and such exist as unique entities which are being handled whole and not individually.

How does ldd react with stuff such as surfaces and alignments?Does it handle each line seperately?How does it recognize the relation it holds with other entities?

That's it for now,lets converse with that.

[dfarris75]

I like C3D much better personally. The first version of LDD I believe was with R14 which would have been what? 1996?

C3D is a dynamic environment which in my mind makes it better hands down. It has most of the functionality that Land/Civil has now so as it is further developed there's little reason to continue using Land/Civil except maybe for budgetary reasons.

[therock003]

What was it called ldd r14?Budgetary reasons?Is it significantly cheaper?

I will have a look at it once again and see if it has something that c3d is missing.

By the way can you add the ldd functionality to the c3d?

[dgreble]

I would suggest Civil 3D!!
know it
learn it
love it
you just can't beat adjusting structures and having pipe slope and depth labels automatically adjust

[dfarris75]

Version 1 of Land Development Desktop (later renamed to Land Desktop) was built on AutoCAD Release 14.

Budgetary reasons meaning some companies don't want to spend the money on Civil 3D as well as the training for it.

I never mastered Land so I'm not fully sure of what is left to be included in C3D. I know C3D has most of the capabilities and more. I think mostly what is left is the hydrology stuff. There is an add-on for C3D though that incorporates that sort of thing.

[mjfarrell]

C3D started life as a product by a company called CAiCE, autodesk bought them up, and a pre-release beta was floating around between 2004/2005.

Land Desktop is the great grand child of a product that started as DCA.

Currently users that were 'on subscription' or somehow entitled were shipped C3D and LandDesktop together in the beginning, because honestly C3D was very immature and incomplete.
The Land Desktop Companion product is STILL being shipped to some users that need or want the legacy functionality. Due to project lifecycles or reluctance to get trained and switch to C3D, or all of the above.

The gap between missing and available functions in the two applications is terribly small at this point.

[Mark]

C3D started life as a product by a company called CAiCE, autodesk bought them up, and a pre-release beta was floating around between 2004/2005.

If I remember correctly C3D was being developed before they bought CAiCE. Plus I don't see a real resemblance to caice in C3D.

[mjfarrell]

The beautiful fog of time...... copyrights on the pdfs say 2003, my understanding is C3D, (or the underlying technology) is why they bought CAiCE.  As this article confirms : http://www.caddigest.com/subjects/autocad/select/schutzberg_caice.htm

[therock003]

Arent they smart?They buy promising products and market them bigger than ever,i'm referring to the maya and mudbox products,and as you mentioned ldd and c3d had the same luck.Maybe all the vertical prorgrams where once owned by a 3rd party!

As for the hydrology addon.the link doesnt work.Are you refering to the integration with intellisove?

http://www.civil3d.com/2007/10/tap-the-brakes/

[Mark]

The beautiful fog of time...... copyrights on the pdfs say 2003, my understanding is C3D, (or the underlying technology) is why they bought CAiCE.  As this article confirms : http://www.caddigest.com/subjects/autocad/select/schutzberg_caice.htm

What does the article confirm?

I'm still doubtful. They may have taken some of the ideas from caice but I'd be willing to bet there isn't any code in C3D from caice. I believe the reason they bought caice was to try and persuade the DOT's to switch to an autodesk product. You don't see any development on caice do you?

[mjfarrell]

Because THEY bought and destroyed CAiCE the remains are C3D, that's it period. Everything else CAiCE was thrown away as trash.  See any more development on Land Desktop? That doesn't mean that Autodesk doesn't exist any more; however search for CAiCE lands you back at an Autodesk Webpage. Yes the goal was to acquire their CAiCEs' Customers, be they DOT's or consultants working for DOT's without using Bentley products. And you may be right; 6 years Later I doubt there is little more than 2 bits of the original kernel left inside of C3D that was in the original CAiCE products.

[sinc]

When we I started using Land Desktop, it was called Softdesk 8, and used R14 as its base.

What was Softdesk?  Was that simply the product name we used at the time, and Softdesk=DCA, or did someone buy DCA and turn it into Softdesk, which was then bought by Autodesk and turned into Land Desktop?

[mjfarrell]

DCA was a third party app, Autodesk consumed them and packaged as Softdesk. Later re branded as LDDT, then shortended to LDT. The heir apparent C3D arrives and it is demoted to Land Desktop Companion. I'd rather they call it Shoe Shine Boy. 

[rkmcswain]

DCA was a third party app, Autodesk consumed them and packaged as Softdesk. Later re branded as LDDT, then shortended to LDT. The heir apparent C3D arrives and it is demoted to Land Desktop Companion. I'd rather they call it Shoe Shine Boy. 

Almost....

Softdesk was a DCA product.
When Autodesk bought softdesk, it was then re-branded as Land Development Desktop.
Autodesk added a few things like point objects, grading wizard, and contour objects.
At some point, (maybe around the 2004 release?) it was re-branded as Land Desktop (LDT)

More details:
http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=423912

[dfarris75]

Arent they smart?They buy promising products and market them bigger than ever,i'm referring to the maya and mudbox products,and as you mentioned ldd and c3d had the same luck.Maybe all the vertical prorgrams where once owned by a 3rd party!

As for the hydrology addon.the link doesnt work.Are you refering to the integration with intellisove?

http://www.civil3d.com/2007/10/tap-the-brakes/

I have fixed the link. And yes, they bought another company for the hydrology add-on as well.