Good morning to everyone in the AutoCAD universe! Wow this has been an overwhelming exciting week for Autodesk. There has been several webcast this week with the introduction of all the new 2013 Autodesk products. The tweeter world, blogger websites, Facebook, Google+ ,and LinkedIn has been blowing up. So, not only were new features added the 2013 software, the design suite packages received a upgrade . For example, the Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite 2013 added a few new goodies to the packages. (See image below) The highlighted items are additional software that has been included. I totally love that the Infrastructure Modeler (AIM) 2013 has been added to the Premium package. On top of that, the addition of Revit 2013 and Utility Design 2013 to the Ultimate package makes it a very enticing package to get.
![2012-03-28_1508_002[3]](http://lh3.ggpht.com/-EP5ECMPC63M/T3VHp67WaQI/AAAAAAAAAyc/9enOrUdTP04/s1600-h/2012-03-28_1508_002%25255B3%25255D%25255B5%25255D.png "2012-03-28_1508_002[3]")
Anyways, I hope everyone enjoyed the screencast shots that I posted Wednesday from the Blogger Day event. As we all know by now, the three main new features that was added to C3D 2013 was the creation of pressure part network, new survey contextual tab with survey features, and transportation with the incorporation of subassembly composer and Railway Design. Of course there are other hidden gyms that was added but that’s to come later in part 3 and 4. Did everyone notice the new logo? Yes the desktop shortcut icon and application menu icon have changed. (See images below).
I have placed the C3D 2013 shortcut icons on top and the C3D 2012 icons at the bottom. So what do you think about the new logo?
(Application icon for 2012 and 2013
Anyways, today I will skim over the new survey features that was added to C3D 2013. The first thing you will notice and slap you in the face when you open C3D is the new look for the command line. It no longer stretches across the bottom of the screen but has a smaller more slick look. The autocomplete is still present and active. I also want to add the volume dashboard feature can be found in the Analyze contextual tab.
So here is a list of new survey features that you will see on the survey contextual tab/ Survey Modify panel. There are other features that you will also recognize from C3D 2012.
- Survey Toolspace: Used to open and close the survey tool palette on the C3D toolspace. This tool palette acts as your primary interface when working with survey data
- Network Properties: Used to change and edit your network name, description and style. Also contains the Edit Network Styles feature.
- Figure Properties: Used to display survey figures. Also contains the Edit Figure Style to create and edit styles.
- Survey Query: Used to display the survey query tab. When clicked, the ribbon changes to display the survey query features. (See image below)
- Survey Figure Properties : Used to make edits to survey figures
- Survey Points Properties: Used to make edits to survey points
- Browse to Survey Data: Used to browse to network, figure and observation.
- Edit Geometry, Edit Elevation (Used to edit featurelines data and geometry) and ,Update Figure, Update survey data from drawing, and Update Figure from survey data.
- Mapcheck, Geodetic Calculator, Coordinate Geometry Editor: Also seen in the Analyze contextual tab.
- Quick Profile, Create Surface and Grading Creation tool: Also seen from the 2012 version.
I think Autodesk is starting to move in the right direction now in improving their survey features and functionality. If Autodesk continues to make improvement on the survey side I can see a larger demand for C3D in the near feature. There is much more in survey improvements but I will get more in depth in part 4. Monday I will do my best to release part 3. Part 3 I will skim over the transportation improvements. I really think some of you will love this topic. Anyways thanks for stopping by and feel free to post comments. Have a great weekend. 
