Autodesk used in former CEO Carol Bartz to be fond of saying: "Look around you: If God did not create, no AutoCAD" This was not just arrogance, either. For some time - especially during the late '80s and early '90s - and Bartz's statement was actually very accurate. During that period, the Autodesk computer-aided drafting (CAD) software and common across a wide range of areas. In fact, the design of most buildings that went up during that period, in some capacity or another, using AutoCAD.
On Thursday, November 15 AutoCAD - and the company that created it - celebrate the anniversary of 25. In that quarter of a century, has not changed much in the world CAD. Has become the industry's most diverse and competitive, but the same things that made the computer-aided design commercially popular 25 years ago remains just as true today.
"What is not AutoCAD, if you look at a snapshot of the past 25 years, was really
the democratic computer-aided drafting," says Mark Fritts, a senior manager at Autodesk, and before that, an engineer licensed in the state of California.
Before the availability of trade, was limited computer-assisted drafting (or design) for large companies or large universities. Such programs are needed not only huge amounts of computing power, but also large areas of space dedicated to accommodate the heavy machinery needed to run it.
All this began to change, but the first time with AutoCAD 1982. At that time, the price of the program about $ 1,000, according to Fritz, or about $ 2160 dollars a day. Today, AutoCAD 2008 to $ 3995 retail. This is definitely not cheap, but then again, it's not expensive almost like something like a book drawing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (also known as the "painter robot") - which ran on the computer giant TX - 2 Lincoln in t
he '50s in the late .
By CAD - and to a degree before AutoCAD - The design of most is still in the architecture, engineering and manufacturing on the one hand, and on the drafting board, with the trusty pencil. Was, as many older, architects and engineers know, and that requires a very labor-intensive process.
Interestingly, the main selling point of software today is the day as it was in the year of his birth: productivity. Whether used in the design of tools and devices on board the aircraft Boeing or stage of the water O Cirque du Soleil, AutoCAD continues to help designers and engineers complete complex projects faster and with far less people.
"I think if we did not have (CAD), and projects will usually take two or three times longer," said Andy Logan, principal designer at Frog Design, consulting and industrial design.
While his company is already using CAD software from another company of Autodesk, Logan estimates companies like his will need to at least double the number of employees CAD If you no longer exist.
"One of the things CAD really well, it allows for a small team of designers to work
like a far wider range of individuals," Logan says. "It puts all that power in your hands. Designer and one that can do what it took two or three days before you do." It is noted that, it's not like the times of transition for designers or engineers are getting any longer.
But there is a dark side of CAD, as well. While it can be used in everything from concept development at an early stage to float on the surface of the final product, it is only a tool. Like any other tool, CAD can be overused, says Logan.
Among other pitfalls, designers often lose a sense of emotional relationship to their products when working in CAD, he says. "It gives you a different level of freedom ... and because the program is very widespread, and some versions is so expensive, you end up getting a lot of drawings and models of industrial waste and bad."
Fritts, who emphasizes that AutoCAD itself is not a designer, seems to have heard this criticism before. Says that, at the end of the day, and almost does not differ much from a pencil - at least to some extent, a magic pen.
"What allows people to AutoCAD to do is see things a little differently, and allowing them to visualize and share that information and then design around it."
