Civil 3D all the time, or still use regular AutoCAD sometimes?

[HEHurst]

I have licenses of both Autodesk Civil 3D and regular AutoCAD (both 2009). I'm pretty experienced in AutoCAD, and getting up to speed in Civil 3D.
For those of you that use Civil 3D, do you still also use regular AutoCAD sometimes?
I've now figured out how to get my Civil3D workspace/appearance to look like the classic AutoCAD interface I'm used to, when I'm not using the Civil3D commands and menus. It appears there are no menus, commands, options etc. that are available in AutoCAD but not Civil3D. As I understand it, Civil 3D is built on top of AutoCAD so nothing is lost from AutoCAD to Civil3D. Am I correct in this?
Assuming you only gain but don't lose capabilities going to Civil 3D, have you found other reasons to work in straight AutoCAD sometimes, even when Civil 3D is available? For example, it seems to me that Civil 3D is slower to open and sometimes slower to work with, even when working with the same small file in both - I haven't run any formal diagnostics on this though. So if I start a drawing that I don't anticipate any Civil 3D work on, maybe I'm best to start it in regular AutoCAD if my file runs faster.
Also, by working in straight AutoCAD, I could avoid accidentally creating Civil3D-specific objects, so when someone with just AutoCAD opens the file, they won't get the dreaded proxy object instance. (Of course I'd go to Civil3D when needed).
Thoughts?
Thanks.

 

[francesca]

Civil 3D is actually built on top of AutoCAD Map 3D, so you have all of AutoCAD and all of Map behind it. 2009 is okay, but not lightning fast. You can get a tremendous amount of improvement in performance by tweaking a few AutoCAD settings, though. The only time I go back to plain AutoCAD is if I have a huge file. Civil 3D, having Map and C3D functionality on top, is more RAM hungry. 2009 has bad memory management, especially on WinXP, and if you have large objects, etc. it can crash a lot. If I want to do something plain AutoCAD but a massive (e.g. 300 acre) surface is slowing me down, I'll open the file in plain AutoCAD.

 

[brandonbw]

It seemed to me that once you start in Civil 3D you should end the project in Civil 3D. Civil 3D is meant to replace pure Autocad and you probably should get used to the new menu system.

I am curious what type of work you are doing?

A few years ago when I was working somewhere doing a pilot project, I couldn't really find anyone else who could do complicated single family home hillside grading. I assume things have changed since then, but maybe you don't need Civil 3D if you can do your work in CAD.

B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil and Structural Engineering

http://bwengr.com

 

[xxENZOxx]

HEHurst - I use Civil 3D 2011 almost exclusively (2009 with a few older projects). I forced myself to get used to the ribbon interface a couple years ago, so it wasn't bad when everything was moved there. The newer versions do seem a little slower with all of the features enabled, but you can disable the ones you don't need (selection highlighting, tool-tips, etc). 2011 does handle larger files better than 2009.

brandonbw - Mass grading or fine grading, there are plenty of tools to accomplish either.

 

[floaremail]

Use Civil from start to end even it is slower than Autocad.

http://www.rorise.com/software/science/engineering/civil-engineering/

 

[brandonbw]

xxENZOxx: But if Autodesk is moving away from vanilla CAD for Civil work, I would expect that Civil 3D will be the main product to do grading. And LDD is basically gone. Yes I know there are some other amazing products out there for certain parts of grading, Carlson comes to mind, but I guess it depends on what the end user is looking for. It's been a while since I looked, but I hadn't seen very many Civils doing complicated hillside grading using Civil 3D a few years ago.

B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil and Structural Engineering

http://bwengr.com