Most of us in Civil 3D Land who are paid to oversee and manage our working environments are cognizant of the annual ritual that is the Autodesk Rite of Spring. We pay some attention to those Autodesk backend updates that will continue to trickle out until AutoCAD 2027, the AutoCAD Map 2027 Toolset, and Autodesk Civil 3D 2027 hit the street later this spring.
Obviously, Autodesk is already hard at work preparing the annual updates to the Autodesk Civil 3D Country Kits. Been there. Done that.
People do ask,
“Where is the US Country Kit Autodesk Civil 3D?”
Is a US Country Kit built into the software install?”
Nope. Ok. Maybe it’s my fault.
For reasons few people understand today, the official Autodesk website continues to return some old marketing gobbledygook about the US State DOTs producing State Kits for Civil 3D. Say what?
If we search, we get a reference to the two or three State DOTs (FDOT and WISDOT) who do employ, develop, and maintain recognized Civil 3D State Kits. Many of the links on the page to those resources are broken. We check such things.
Truth be told we built the first State Kit for Civil 3D.
How did that happen?
What planet did the somewhat bizarre US State Kit idea even come from?
Does every civil engineering and survey firm in any state perform and deliver all their work to the State DOT specifications and requirements?
Say what? Can you hear us laughing?
The local county building dept doesn’t even know what these people seem to be talking about.
What about project work for US Federal agencies like the US Army Corp of Engineers, GSA, Veterans Administration, BLM, or the newly renamed Dept of War (DOD)?
This barely there US State Kit thing sounds a lot like Autodesk sales doublespeak.
One might ask,
“Do civil engineer and surveyor lives matter?”
There is a …
US Imperial Country Kit for Autodesk Civil 3D
Look no farther. You have arrived.
Welcome to the Motherlode of Civil 3D Style.
Our Framework for Civil 3D Jump Kit product is the US Imperial Country Kit for Civil 3D.
We support every release of Autodesk Civil 3D anyone might want to use.
The latest releases Autodesk Civil 3D 2026, Autodesk Civil 3D 2025, and Autodesk Civil 3D 2024 will rock your socks off.
See the recent product summary post.
The other day one of our oldest customers reminded us that we should once again do the Paul Harvey thing.
You know. Tell…
The Rest of the Story
Early versions of our Framework for Civil 3D product began as a joint project between myself and a few other interested Autodesk Civil Reseller technical staff. Yes. We were Autodesk Reseller competitors at the time. Players on the US and Canadian Olympic teams all play hockey.
The project enjoyed the support of the Autodesk Civil 3D development team.
Thanks to Dave Simeone and others.
Programmers do like it when customers can actually use their code.
The project did make Civil 3D look good. Still does.
Lofty Goals
The goal was to produce a framework - a generic core of US Imperial Civil 3D Templates, Civil 3D Styles, Civil 3D resource libraries, and a common training and development Sandbox dataset that would allow Civil 3D customers, Autodesk Resellers, Civil 3D consultants, and even the Autodesk Professional Services technical staff to more easily produce and implement customized solutions for Civil 3D.
How this fine idea went to hell in a handbasket is a whale of a tale.
Frozen Fun
A C level executive Autodesk decided that a generic US Country Kit for Civil 3D would be a good thing.
Autodesk and MoreCompetency came to a financial and contractual agreement.
A portion of the project would become a generic US Country Kit.
Autodesk would support the project for three years.
That February in the middle of the coldest European winter in recent memory, I flew off to Paris, France to make the development project into an official US Country Kit.
I had a great time in spite of the wicked weather and the long hours. Many of the Country Kit development consultants became friends. Nothing like shared pain and mutual suffering to bring people together.
Get ‘er Done
There were content resources and documentation in the project not usually included in the current international Country Kits. The official Autodesk installation mechanics were not built into the project. We hashed things out and the Autodesk version of the US Country Kit product headed off towards the next Autodesk Rite of Spring release. I flew back to the US expecting to be back next year. What fun.
Welcome to Autodesk Catch 22
Days before the initial release someone senior in Autodesk Major Account Sales demanded that the project deliverable be renamed to the US California State Kit.
Why?
Given the Autodesk commission structures in place at the time, this demand perhaps had more to do with potential service sales commissions for the new Civil Transportation Group sales staff.
This may have had something to do with the new structure of the Autodesk website itself. How the links to the downloads on those pages were named and supposed to work.
Sad, silly, but maybe true.
Wait a Minute
What?
Everyone involved had already agreed in advance that our mutual project most certainly wasn’t a US State Kit for California.
Mind you, at this time there were no past or current US State Kit development projects at all.
We began the mutual project as a collection of resources to help build potential future US State DOT Kits from.
Someone decided to literally put the cart before the horse.
Where Did a State Kit Come From
A new Civil Transportation Group in Autodesk Major Accounts wanted to sell US State Kit development services to all the US State DOTs. A worthy idea.
Autodesk hired sales staff away from Bentley Systems to sell Civil 3D implementation and services to the State DOTs.
That seemed to make sense.
These new folks already knew the same people they were supposed to sell the product and those significant development and implementation services to.
No one stopped to consider those same people were not interested in purchasing anything new and different except in the couple of rare exceptions that we all know about today.
The head of technology for the State of California DOT explained to me that Caltrans had already invested more than billion dollars in Microstation development and training. Most of their unionized staff would simply refuse to change CAD platforms. I spent time training those same folks. I can testify he was probably right. Caltrans might use Civil 3D in some design groups. They do. Caltrans wasn’t about to replace their primary CAD program any time soon.
Not exactly good news when Autodesk’s corporate offices are less than 90 minutes away. At that time the word of the day for the fourth largest software company on Earth was -“embarrassing”.
Behind the curtain a new CA State Kit for Civil 3D grew a couple of extra heads.
A Driven Sales Vision
Autodesk strategically choose to pursue “individualized” State DOT Kit customizations based on the existing internal specifications of the State DOTs.
Historically, almost all of the US State DOTs employ(ed) Microstation and not Autodesk product.
Many DOTs still do.
Some employ both Civil 3D and Microstation.
MoreCompetency, Inc was a participating bid member for some of the potential State DOT development contracts. We participated in contracted services deliveries at Caltrans and other DOTs.
My Autodesk Reseller firm had recently been a very successful government reseller selling Civil 3D seats into the DOTs in multiple states including California, Florida, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and others. We were successful at selling Civil 3D seats into large and mid-sized commercial civil firms that performed DOT project work in effect by mimicking the existing Microstation DOT deliverable specifications.
Before that memorable Civil 3D release day, I helped Autodesk Country Kit staff rename the project as the CA US State Kit. We updated the Autodesk official install mechanics to match the name change.
At least the product would be available to Civil 3D customers regardless of the somewhat inappropriate name change.
Silly me. What did I know? If you give a mouse a cookie…
On Release Day
In those halcyon days Autodesk previewed the upcoming Civil 3D product releases at public roll out events in major metros in the US. The events were big dog and pony shows. They were fun.
I was invited to attend and actively participate in the first and initial West Coast Autodesk roll out events to help answer questions about the Kit project and the new Civil 3D release capabilities.
When I arrived at the first actual event, I discovered that my planned sessions were canceled. I was asked not to talk about the joint project and the new generic US Country Kit for Civil 3D product.
“Talking about this existing Autodesk project would confuse all Autodesk civil engineering and survey customers who might want to use Civil 3D.”
Huh? The Kit was literally built so customers can employ Civil 3D today with less effort and work.
According to the new Transportation Group sales staff, the initial release of the project did not support the State of California DOT (Caltrans) specification.
It’s not supposed to…It was only called that to make the Autodesk website pages work.
Therefore, this new Autodesk product now available to all Civil 3D customers wasn’t a really an Autodesk US CA State Kit at all.
And?
Even the Civil 3D development staff at these events were confused by this argument.
Most rational people find these stated reasons to be more than a bit bizarre.
In the end Autodesk withdrew their initial financial support after the first release.
We parted ways.
MoreCompetency, Inc retained the development rights to the mutual project. I was well aware that Autodesk sometimes bought products and then quit on them for reasons that were never mentioned.
Autodesk sells code. They are very good at that.
The Framework for Civil 3D isn’t code. Jump Kit is content.
Jump Kit is a managed system to help create, edit, and maintain Civil 3D in a production environment.
To this day Autodesk has been true to their word.
Autodesk staff never talk about the product.
They never talk about the generic US Imperial County Kit for Civil 3D.
Maybe a corporate lawyer explained to them that Autodesk might be sued.
Kinda weird…
Each Year I Ask
Each year I explain to the current Civil 3D Product Manager that I am, as always, happy to help Autodesk produce an official US Country Kit for Civil 3D.
Autodesk is welcome to purchase the entire Jump Kit product or just purchase and include Templates Only for their US customers.
At least those same customers would have Civil 3D Templates and Civil 3D Styles that work.
Maybe they think I am joking. Who knows.
I believe all those sales folk and most of the Civil development folk no longer work at Autodesk.
The Little Engine That Could
We stick to the goal and continue deliver on the promise to our customers.
Today, we basically continue to give away a fully functional Templates Only trial product for a ridiculous and nominal service charge.
“Is something wrong with Templates Only?”
Nothing.
Templates Only is the real deal.
If you were skilled at Civil 3D development and customization, it would take you months of work to duplicate the Templates Only product from scratch. Then you would have to maintain the resources included through multiple Upgrade releases and Civil 3D Updates each year.
That never made much sense for many folks.
Many of our small firm customers employ Templates Only to produce work for their commercial clients and many of the government agencies listed above. The product supports the relevant National CAD Standards (NCS 6.0) specifications.
We do believe our customers need more than Templates Only to artfully employ Civil 3D in production.
Any Civil 3D organization can afford and employ – Jump Kit.
Think of Jump Kit as a Construction Kit for Civil 3D.
In answer to the obvious question:
It’s in There
Unquestionably, our products for Autodesk Civil 3D are the most downloaded and perhaps the most employed Civil 3D products and sets of resources in the history of the software.
Today our Framework for Civil 3D products are in use in every US State, most US Territories, and many foreign countries. That includes many metric standard ones. Metric variants are now the national standard in a few places. We kid you not.
Our international customers often ask for metric support from us.
Why don’t we do it?
In principle, that’s what the Autodesk Civil 3D Country Kit products are there for.
See the recent Civil 3D Country Kit 2026.1 Updates News post.
How many civil engineers, surveyors, and government agencies employ our Framework for Civil 3D products or their own customized versions of those products? We can’t say. It’s a lot.
Plagiarism is a somewhat flattering form of complement.
People sooner or later do tend to come back for updates if they learn the source. Grin.
Strange thing is…
Odds are, even the Civil 3D Template and Civil 3D Styles employed by you today may include renamed parts and pieces of our project to constructed from the ground up to make Autodesk Civil 3D work.
Fine by us.
“It is easier to edit than to create.”
Now you know the Rest of the Story.
Enjoy! Get back to work.
Get Jump Kit
The US Imperial Country Kit for Civil 3D