grading software

[dschneider]

We would like to get software that makes grading easier (especially if someone makes a change to the overall site layout and we need to then recalculate the stormwater flow. We were thinking either Inroads for AutoCAD or Civil 3D.
Any thoughts to the capabilities, advantages and disadvantages to each?
We do small site designs of parking lots and transit facilities.

Perhaps something to keep in mind, along with grading we do the stormwater calcs...I know Civil 3D has stormwater software now too but what about Inroads?
Thanks

 

[francesca]

I have enjoyed Civil3D, but it is not something you can pick up in an instant. There is a bit of a learning curve and all the styles will frustrate you, but the Yahoo group Cadapult has some great whitepapers and the Zimmerman book is excellent. You will need a super-fast computer as the 2006 version at least was a little memory leaky and with a 300 Acre DTM liked to lock up a lot but ran fine on our dual core Athlon 64 at home. The dynamic updating was wonderful.

 

[murdock]

I've done a bit of work with C3D, and found that in order to get it setup right, you need to put in some significant up-front time to get your drafting styles set. Not to mention the long learning curve (especially when dealing with intersections).

As for stormwater, I haven't found the C3D stuff all that more efficient to do watershed delineation (all the menus got confusing quickly). Also didn't find anything that would do a pervious/impervious (or soil type area breakdown) calculation. But I never really got into it, some others may have found a time-efficient way to get all the needed info.

If you're going to do it, make sure you have a 3 GHz processor with at least 2 gigs of RAM.

 

[4qualityce]

has anyone used Carlson Civil or Eaglepoint software?