In this post I want to show you that exchanging data between Civil 3D and Carlson Survey is relatively easy. I made two posts today about transferring data using LandXML. Additionally, in this blog post at Carlson Connection you will find that working with Civil 3D data in Carlson/IntelliCAD is not such an impossible chore. Carlson Survey for example has a command to convert a Civil 3D or Land Desktop surface to a Carlson TIN file.
A quick presentation of transferring points and a surface model from Carlson Survey to Civil 3D using LandXML.
Note: In the last part of the video the presenter edits an existing surface style making it look harder that it actually is. 
A style to display contours is already defined in Civil 3D’s drawing template you simply change the style from a drop-down list in the surface properties instead of digging into the guts of an existing style to change settings.
Advanced CAD Technology Blog