Carlson Survey IntelliCAD 2026

Carlson Survey IntelliCAD 2026 – Powerful CAD design for Land Surveyors

Carlson Survey is a complete, affordable land surveying CAD software tailored specifically for land surveyors who demand precision, flexibility, and ease of use. Built on the trusted IntelliCAD engine, it delivers high performance survey grade deliverables compared to alternate CAD platforms

Carlson Survey with IntelliCAD provides all the tools you need for efficient field to finish workflows, including advanced coordinate geometry (COGO), lot layout, surface modeling, field data import, profiles, annotations, and more. Whether you’re creating plats, processing field data, or generating topographic surveys, Carlson Survey with IntelliCAD streamlines your field to finish workflows while ensuring high accuracy and industry-standard compliance

• Full CAD Functionality - Powered by IntelliCAD 13.1, offering a familiar CAD environment at a fraction of the cost

• Field to Finish Software - Easily import field data and automatically generate points, linework, and symbols

• Advanced COGO Tools & Legal Description writer - Perform lot closures, traverse adjustments, and automated curve solutions with ease

• Surface Modeling & Volumes - Generate contours, TINs, and compute cut/fill volumes with precision

• Multi-format Data Compatibility - Seamless integration with myriad of data collection, AutoCAD®, Civil 3D®, LandXML, DWG, DGN, DXF, and other common industry native file formats

• Intuitive Interface - Clean layout with surveyor-friendly menus, dwg templates, and customizable tool palettes

Why Carlson Survey Leads the Pack?

• No annual subscription – you own your license

• Annual Software Maintenance includes new product enhancements, security patches, support, and CAD engine updates

• Ideal for small firms and independent surveyors seeking full CAD capabilities without the hefty price tag of alternatives like Civil 3D® or AutoCAD®

Carlson Survey with IntelliCAD can be purchased as a standalone module or as part of the Civil Suite or Select Suite. Carlson Survey can be installed standalone with the embedded IntelliCAD license or use with 2020-2026 AutoCAD®, AutoCADMap, or Civil3D® license

Network licenses available. Contact us for more info

Important: The software module is a new, end user perpetual license. If you are an existing Carlson Software user, please contact us regarding renewal or cross-grade options

GENERAL FEATURES

• Built on IntelliCAD 13.1
• Project Setup – Flexible data storage methods
• Drawing Cleanup – Fix common drafting errors
• Data Compatibility – Supports industry standard LandXML and scores of specific data conversions

SURFACES

• Build Surfaces – By triangulation or rectangular grids
• Contouring – One step triangulate and contour from 3D entities as well as contouring from surface files
• Surface Manager – Change surface display properties and adjust surface functions to add and remove points and breaklines and swap edges
• Volumes – Earthwork volumes between triangulation or grid surfaces
• Pad Design – Tie cut/fill slopes from pad perimeter to surface, build pad surface, calculate and balance volumes, and edit pad parameters

CENTERLINES

• Design and Edit Centerlines – Design or input alignments on screen or in dialog with graphics
• Label Stations and Offsets – Annotate station and offsets along centerline and at selected points
• Calculate Offsets – Reports stations and offsets for selected points along centerline
• Create Offset Points – Create points at specified stations and offsets
• Spirals – Flexible handling of the most complex spiral curves including spiral-only, spiral-arc, arc-spiral-line and line-spiral-line

PROFILES

• Create Profiles – From surfaces, screen entities, points on centerline, etc.
• Quick Profile – One step profile creation with real-time update while adjusting centerline
• Input-Edit Profiles – Enter profile data in dual spreadsheet and graphic window, and design in reference to controlling profile grade points
• Draw Profiles – Draws profiles on grids or plan-profile sheets with auto-updating based on edits
• Profiles To 3D – Create points and 3D polylines from profiles

POINTS

• Import/Export – User-defined import and export of point data along with conversions with specific other formats
• Draw Points – Draw points with settings for symbols, layers and styles
• Point Groups – Point group manager to define sets of point by filters
• Coordinate File History – Tracks all changes to points with report and undo functions
• Fix Point Label Overlaps – Finds point label overlaps with rule options to fix automatically
• Point Tools – Utilities for modify point labels such as move with leader, twist and resize

SURVEY

• Data Collection Interfaces – Upload and download to popular data collectors
• Traverse Adjustment – Spreadsheet editor for raw data with graphics and processing for traverse adjustments
• SurvNET – Advanced network least-squares for total station, GPS and level data
• Field-to-Finish – Draw points with styles and in point groups set by point descriptions and draw linework by several flexible methods
• Field-to-Finish Inspector – Inspect all field-to-finish elements, see description source and re-draw based on descriptions edits
• COGO – Streamlined inverse, traverse, sideshot, intersections, interpolation, translate, rotate, scale and align
• Coordinate Transformations – Transform coordinates and screen entities between lat/lon and grid projections as well as local to local by Helmert and least-squares methods
• Deeds – Enter deed by description, read deed data from deed file, deed reports, deed correlation and generate legal description from drawing
• Cut Sheets – Create custom cut sheet reports with reference grades and station-offsets

AREA/LAYOUT

• Label Areas – Customized area label styles and several methods to select areas to label
• Size Areas – Sliding side area, hinged area, area radial from curve and bearing area cutoff
• Lot Manager – Lot definitions by point numbers with functions to create lots, conduct mapcheck for closure, edit in spreadsheet with graphics, report lots and draw lots
• Lot Layout – Size lots along alignment with controls for target area, setback and frontage
• Offsets, Intersection and Cul-de-Sacs – Layout for ROW and EOP linework

ANNOTATION

• Angle & Distance Labels – Flexible routines to label linework in all possible layout combinations plus available rules to automatically fix label overlaps and revise labels when entities move
• Curve Labels – Label curve data in stack, along arc or in table
• Survey Text – Routines to create typical plat labels such as offset and building dimensions
• Label Elevations – Label spot elevations along an alignment
• Linetypes – Draw special linetypes

• Added Path Selection Automation in ASCII TXT import
• Processing GSAL records for RW5 GPS processing supports SurvCE & PC versions
• Edit-Process Raw - Scale Values routine now updates the UN (distance unit) value if explicit destination distance unit is specified by the user
• Edit-Process Raw - Added New/Existing file selection to Edit Process Raw
• Best fit line LSQ - added line printout
• Draw Legend - improved handling text in the entity contents
• SurvNET now handles tilt sensor in GNSS surveys
• Added individual horizontal and vertical residual display and process control in Best-Fit Point
• Added new option in Field to Finish to Auto-Annotate Lines, Arcs, and Areas
• Improved the creation of Point Groups by Prefix/Suffix
• Added "Point Notes" toggle to the "Inverse Options" dialog
• Added option to set a symbol rotation in Field to Finish
• Added option to use Mtext in Label latitude longitude coordinates
• Added more decimal options for Map Check
• Added option in Edit/Process Raw to draw side shots from single occupied point for draw traverse/sideshot lines
• Added Global Edit options for GIS/Note/Point Attribute Labels in Field to Finish
• Added option for reporting residuals between measured and stored points in Edit/Process Raw
• Cutsheet - Added "strip trailing zero decimals" option for offsets
• Enter Deed Description – recalls last entry after Undo
• Interval Along Entity supports 3D distances
• Improvements adding more flexibility using Offset Points by Interval
• Carlson Cloud - Job Share – supports CRD, CRDB, CGC, MDB, ZAK
• Field to Finish - New setting implemented in F2F, which will automatically download missing symbols from the Carlson community
• Improved performance of drawing points in Field to Finish and Draw-Locate Points
• Updates to Legal Description Writer
• New (ADD_TBL) command allows users to add existing linework labels to existing or new tables
• Updated Line & Curve table commands & adjustments
• AUTOPNT: Option for centroid of polylines
• Added warning for bad values when converting Lat/Lon coordinates
• Added ability to parse Multiple Note/attribute fields in Import Text/ASCII files
• LOTNet supports creation of blocks, management of lot types, and lot renumber includes block names