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posted 10/04/06 by Anthony Governanti Naming Conventions or Confusions?

Ok, so there have been numerous posts on the Civil 3D Discussion Groups about the naming conventions used for the Civil product line from Autodesk, and as of this posting, I'm not sure the confusion that surrounds these names have been cleared up. So I'd like to get it straight for those of you that may be confused (don't worry, you're not alone), and try to put this thing to bed for those of you that can't seem to let it go (cough, cough, you know who you are).

So the short answer here is to simply see the different names of the products and the uses for those products from a Civil 3D perspective.

Autodesk Civil 3D - pretty simple, this is Civil 3D in all its glory :-).

Autodesk Civil 3D - Land Desktop Companion - this is a "special" version of LDT that is included in the box with Civil 3D, and will use the Civil 3D serial number and license for authorization.

Autodesk Civil 3D - Civil Design Companion - this is a "special" version of Civil Design that will install and run on the Land Desktop Companion that ships with Civil 3D.

Autodesk Land Desktop - regular old LDT that uses an LDT serial number and license for authorization.

Autodesk Civil Design - gone! It is no more, well, it is, but now its called Autodesk Civil 3D - Civil Design Companion.

So that's the short answer, for a more in-depth explanation see below if you need some good bed-time reading :-).

OK, here is the deal; with the release of Civil 3D 2005, we had a weird predicament. We wanted to package Land Desktop with Civil 3D to make the transition for customers easier, allowing them to make the switch at their own pace, without having to manage LDT licenses and Civil 3D licenses separately. Sounds reasonable right?

So in order to get the LDT that ships with Civil 3D to license properly, it had to be a separate build, which translates to English as a different version of LDT that looked for the Civil 3D license (or activation). The technology wasn't available at the time to do this automatically with special license or activation code, so it meant that for all intents and purposes, it had to be a different product (to Autodesk anyway). In order to differentiate the two different "versions" of LDT, we needed to name the one that ships in the box with Civil 3D something different.

After a lot of ideas and deliberation, Companion was the name that was selected, for better or worse. I think the real confusion though is that we had to add Civil 3D to the name because it ships in the box - thus giving us "Autodesk Civil 3D - Land Desktop Companion."

Now that we've established that, let's throw Civil Design into the mix. At the time, we also introduced a bundle of software called Civil 3D Professional; this added Autodesk Civil Design to Civil 3D and Land Desktop, and allowed a customer who used both LDT and CD to again make the transition to Civil 3D at their own pace, without having to carry a bunch of liceneses or activations. Again we had a "version" problem, in that the Civil Design needed to run on the Land Desktop "Companion" that shipped with Civil 3D. So another name change and we have "Autodesk Civil 3D - Civil Design Companion". The big problem here is that Civil Design can't be installed on Civil 3D, even though Civil 3D is in its name. It still has to be installed on Land Desktop, in this case the Companion. This is where a lot of questions come up, and people who are just being introduced to the products get confused. So here it is in black and white, and I hope it clears it up - Autodesk Civil 3D - Civil Design Companion doesn't get installed on Civil 3D, it gets installed on Land Desktop Companion.

Anyway, that's the scoop on naming conventions, and hopefully they aren't confusions anymore.

Till next time,
Cheers,
AG

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