Autodesk AutoCAD

AutoCAD is a CAD (Computer Aided Design) software application for 2D and 3D design, drafting, technical drawing, developed and sold by Autodesk, Inc. AutoCAD was one of the first CAD programs to run on personal computers, and notably the IBM PC. Most CAD software at the time ran on graphics terminals connected to mainframe computers or mini-computers.

In earlier releases, AutoCAD used primitive entities — such as lines, polylines, circles, arcs, and text — as the foundation for more complex objects. Modern AutoCAD includes a full set of basic solid modeling and 3D tools. With the release of AutoCAD 2007 came improved 3D modeling functionality, which meant better navigation when working in 3D. Moreover, it became easier to edit 3D models. The mental ray engine was included in rendering, it was now possible to do quality renderings. AutoCAD 2010 introduced parametric functionality and mesh modeling.

AutoCAD supports a number of application programming interfaces (APIs) for customization and automation. These include AutoLISP, Visual LISP, VBA, .NET and ObjectARX. ObjectARX is a C++ class library, which was also the base for products extending AutoCAD functionality to specific fields, to create products such as AutoCAD Architecture, AutoCAD Electrical or third-party AutoCAD-based applications.

AutoCAD native file format is DWG, and to a lesser extent, its interchange file format, DXF, have become de facto standards for CAD data interoperability. AutoCAD in recent years has included support for DWF, a format developed and promoted by Autodesk for publishing CAD data. In 2006, Autodesk estimated the number of active DWG files to be in excess of one billion. In the past, Autodesk has estimated the total number of DWG files in existence to be more than three billion. 

          

AutoCAD currently runs exclusively on Microsoft Windows desktop operating systems. Versions for Unix and Mac OS were released in the 1980s and 1990s, but these were later dropped. AutoCAD can run on an emulator , albeit subject to various performance issues that can often arise when working with 3D objects or large drawings.

AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT software are available for French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese Simplified (No LT), Chinese Traditional, Russian, Czech, Polish, Hungarian (No LT), Brazilian Portuguese (No LT), Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian and Vietnamese. The extent of localization varies from full translation of the product to documentation only.

AutoCAD software is the world's most popular computer-aided drafting software product for the personal computer available in both DOS and windows by Autodesk, Inc. Anything that can be drawn on a drawing board can be drawn by AutoCAD.

AutoCAD software is an interactive drawing system designed to permit a user to construct or edit a drawing on a graphics display screen. It is similar to other word-processing programs except that in this case the thing being processed is a drawing. Each drawing is stored on a disk file, and AutoCAD is only able to edit one drawing at a time.

          

An AutoCAD drawing is made up of entities. All the objects in the drawing space are considered entities such as lines, arcs, circles, text, and so on or blocks (which are groups of entities). The entities are defined geometrically in terms of the normal Cartesian coordinate system (right-handed system with positive X-axis to the right, positive Y-axis up the screen and positive Z-axis coming out of the screen towards the user). For example, lines are defined by their end- point coordinates (x, y and z), while circles are defined by their center coordinates and radius. Each entity also has certain attributes associated with it, such as line style, text font or color.

AutoCAD organizes information in different layers like other programs like Photoshop and Illustrator. This means that any drawing entity can be assigned to any layer of the drawing. This allows separation of portions of the drawing. For example, all parcels could be assigned to one layer and all footprints to another, and so on. This allows plotting selected layers in the drawing.