MicroSurvey CAD 2026

MicroSurvey brings intuitive calculation tools for land surveyors to popular drafting platforms, including IntelliCAD, BricsCAD, and AutoCAD. The 2026 release brings a very exciting feature—Survey Groups. Survey Groups allow you to automatically filter field data on import into groups by point description using AutoMAP. This allows further data management capabilities reducing the need for elaborate layer naming conventions or organizing what should (and should not) be included in a DTM surface model. Survey Groups can be used to hide CAD entities in your drawing similar to turning off a layer and filter the displayed points in the Active Coordinate Editor. They can contain: points, point nodes, lines, 2D polylines, 3D polylines, LW polylines, splines, symbols/blocks, and text.

What’s New in Version 26.0

What’s New

 

• Ultimate: Support for importing e57, LAS, and PTX point clouds without the need for additional software licenses.
• Ultimate: Support for the Leica LGSx point cloud format.
• Ultimate: Automatic conversion to LGSx upon import of an LGS point cloud.
• Ultimate: The Import PC as LGS command has now been updated to Import PC as LGS/LGSx so that .e57, .las and .ptx files can be converted to LGSx.
• The Survey Group Manager command found on the MsPoints ribbon, next to the Active Coordinate Editor.
• Survey Groups is a powerful data management tool that can control the visibility of entities in your drawing, allowing you to manually (or automatically on import) sort data into groups representative of how that point should be used.
• Survey Groups can contain points, point nodes, lines, 2D polylines, 3D polylines, LW polylines, splines, symbols/blocks, and text.
• Survey Groups can be created from a selection of entities, and have filters applied to only include points within an elevation range.
• The Active Coordinate Editor can have a filtering applied through the Survey Group Manager to list only the points which are currently visible using group visibility. This can be used to list only one group of points, making it easy to export an ascii of points contained in a single group, such as a control, evidence, setout, or surface group.
• AutoMAP has a new field for each description, “Add to Survey Groups:”, where multiple groups can be entered separated by a semicolon. When a field file is imported through the FieldGenius wizard, Leica DBX in, or ASCII in, points with that description and their labels will be added to the corresponding groups. This is useful to automate the sorting of data into a Surface group, excluding points which should not be included in the surface. You can then view only the surface group, and window select in the CAD window to create the surface from the appropriate data.
• Points with a description which are not defined in the current AutoMAP will be sorted into the group “Miscoded Points”. This group provides a first place to look to identify points from the field which may require extra attention.
• Three importers have the ability to place the imported points into a new or existing survey group, they are the ASCII importer, Leica DBX importer, and, of course, our FieldGenius SyncWizard.
• In AutoMAP, Group Codes has been renamed to Relate Codes, and Group Range has been renamed to Apply to Range. This was done to more closely describe the functionality of these boxes, but also to avoid any confusion with the new “Add to Survey Groups” field.
• For floating cloud license customers: we are now populating the computer ID field in our online license management system. This allows you to can see which computer has checked a license out for offline use, and which computers are accessing your license.

What’s Improved

• We resolved many infrequent issues with our cloud-based licensing system to ensure licensing will not get in the way of your work, and your license will be available when you need it.
• When checking a floating network license out for offline use, we now present a confirmation dialog to confirm that the user understands they are taking that license from their available pool of license seats and it will not be available for others to use until it is checked back in, or the time period has elapsed.
• The sysvar REGENTOOLTIP will default to 1, which will automatically regen when it is detected as being needed.

Bug Fixes

• With the increase of label styles in the 2024 release, the configuration file (*.cfg) for exchanging presets between installations and versions of MicroSurvey CAD was not working. We have replaced the *.cfg file with a *.msz which contains all the necessary label style information, and can now read the *.cfg from previous releases.
• Fonts which were set to a *.ttf (True Type Font) were being reset to a *.shx (Shape eXchange) font during some operations in the software, the most commonly reported were MS_RESCALE and Leroy text preset styles. The *.ttf fonts will now be retained through these operations.
• Point coordinates in the active coordinate editor were not being updated in some operations in the program. Mostly commonly the Shift Points (SHIFTP) and Rotate Translate Scale (RTS) commands. The coordinates were correct in the point database, would be exported correctly, and would be displayed correctly when the Active Coordinate Editor was closed and reopened.
• In COGO, when adding a typed angle to an existing angle using the + value, we failed to calculate the resultant angle. Adding an angle in a single line works as expected. For example:
• Enter From Point: <1>(Backup/Toggles/Curve/CB):  1
• Enter Azimuth (DDD.MMSS):<>: (Backup Toggles Points Line Repeat):  +
• Enter first Bearing or Azimuth:DDD.MMSS (or Point / Line): 238.3355
• Enter the Angle to + to the Bearing or Azimuth:  180
• -->Azimuth used = 58°33'55"                          <This is the line that failed to compute>
• The MS_RESCALE command would incorrectly scale ellipses drawn around point IDs.
• When processing XYZ linework with the Active Coordinate Editor open, some datasets would cause a crash.

Known Issues

• When converting an LGS point cloud to an LGSx, if the LGS has a filename with filepath longer than 128 characters MicroSurvey CAD Ultimate will crash. This will be fixed in a future release.

Important Notes

Migrating your MicroSurvey CAD Settings Between Versions

Most MicroSurvey users have customized MicroSurvey CAD to suit their workflows, CAD Standards and regional requirements.  All customizations are stored as settings files that can be transferred from an older release to a newer release, or between workstations within a company.  Please review this article to ease the process of updating from MicroSurvey CAD 2023 (or 2022.1) to 2026 and to optimize your setup to increase efficiency for all future updates.

Customer Care Package (CCP)

• In 2025, the Annual Maintenance Subscription (AMS) program has been renamed to the Customer Care Package (CCP).
• If your CCP has expired, you may not be able to update your key to the current version of MicroSurvey CAD.
• For a detailed explanation of the CCP program and how we use product numbers and USB keys to license our software, please review this article.
• Each key has a different CCP plan, so multiple keys may not have the same expiry date.
• You can confirm your CCP expiry date by reviewing the About screen found in the Help menu.

If your CCP has expired, you can phone us at 1-800-668-3312 or 1-250-707-0000 to renew it. Without a current customer care package plan, you may not be able to update your key to work with the new version.

 

MicroSurvey License Portal for Floating License Users

• If you have purchased a floating license, you may visit our license page to review usage statistics on your license.
• After purchase, you will be asked to create a login for the portal.
• Log in to the portal, click "Licenses & Activations", then the desired license to review its details.

MicroSurvey License Server for Network License Users

• If you have purchased a network license, you must download and install a copy of the MicroSurvey Network License software on your intended license server computer.
• A password is required to install the License Server.

Activating or Updating your USB License Key

• Software licenses are stored on the USB key.  These must be activated after a new purchase, and usually require manual updates when new versions of MicroSurvey CAD are released.
• The process is the same for both; click here for detailed instructions.
• The USB License Manager program is automatically installed with MicroSurvey CAD; it can be found in the MicroSurvey CAD folder in your start menu.  Open it with your USB key inserted and click the “Update Key with New Information” button.
• You must have an internet connection to use the USB License Manager.  You may download the program and install it on another computer to update keys when corporate policy and firewalls prevent access from your work network.

System Requirements

• MicroSurvey CAD 2026 is compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
• A free USB port is required for the USB License Key (local workstation or network server)
• Full administrator rights are required to install MicroSurvey CAD 2026, but it can be run by limited user accounts
• For detailed system requirements and recommendations, please review this online article.

 

Software Requirements

• MicroSurvey CAD Ultimate and Studio require Leica Cyclone Viewer (free download) at a minimum to work with point clouds.  MicroSurvey CAD will be fully functional with an unlicensed version.
• Licenses of Leica Cyclone Publisher, Publisher Pro, or Leica Jetstream may be used to access additional functionality.
• Leica CLM (client license manager) is required to license Leica Cyclone or Jetstream.
• Please visit leica-geosystems.com to download any additional Leica products listed above.  A registered account is required.

Run as Administrator

• You must run the program at least once elevated with "Run as administrator" access
• Clicking “Run” from the installation package does this automatically
• If this step is skipped, you may run as administrator by doing the following:
• Right click on the MicroSurvey CAD 2026 icon.
• Choose "Run as administrator".
• Select "Yes" on the "User Account Control" dialog when prompted to allow the program to make changes to your computer.
• After this step is complete, you may run the program from any user account on the computer, even if they do not have administrative privileges.