The new Softdesk 8 Civil/Survey modules are built on Autodesk's new ObjectARX development technology, and incorporate new productivity-enhancing object-oriented features. The Civil/Survey product is available in two CD suites, Civil/Survey Special Edition Suite, and Survey Professional Suite.

IntelliCAD, Carlson iCAD, Dynamic CAD and Dual.DWG and.DGN CAD There is a lot happening at Carlson Software on the CAD front. Virtually all of our office software, including the flagship Carlson Survey, Carlson Civil, Takeoff and the Carlson Mining modules, work on both AutoCAD® and IntelliCAD. These are similar platforms. The beauty of IntelliCAD is that it is developed by a consortium of companies and internal IntelliCAD staff who can all contribute to its source code. Carlson Software is a leading “external” contributor to IntelliCAD. If we need the CAD to do something, we can write the commands directly.

In effect, we have our own internal CAD platform. The history of IntelliCAD deserves mention.

Arnold was the founder of DCA, a civil engineering software company that developed on top of AutoCAD. DCA was based in Henniker, NH. In the 1990’s, DCA changed its name to Softdesk and went public on the Nasdaq. Arnold noticed that in any sales transaction, often the majority of the sales revenue was going to Autodesk for the CAD portion, even though it was his application software that “made” the sale. He was determined to develop his own CAD solution and capture more of the total revenue.

So Softdesk had a skunkworks CAD project underway that was “discovered” when Autodesk purchased Softdesk in 1996. The Federal Trade Commission recognized that this would monopolize too much of the CAD technology in one company, namely Autodesk, and they removed this CAD from the acquisition. The programmers and managers who had developed it eventually created the where it found a new home.

IntelliCAD is now a worthy competitor to AutoCAD. Anyone who can run AutoCAD can run IntelliCAD. Members of the ITC can package up application software that works on top of IntelliCAD. So when you purchase Carlson Survey or the Carlson Civil Suite on IntelliCAD, you get the CAD at no cost to you as a user. That provides incredible value.

IntelliCAD has virtually all the commands of AutoCAD, except some of the very advanced features like editing “Dynamic Blocks”. One by one, those rare features still not in IntelliCAD are being systematically added with each new release. The current IntelliCAD base platform is Release 9.