Now it has millions of users.įrom that unexpected success, staff at Autodesk developed other apps for iOS with full official encouragement, both as handy adjuncts to the computer applications and as standalone apps for getting ideas down, developing visuals and more. When a million people downloaded it in 50 days, Autodesk management took it seriously. Staff in the Toronto office of Autodesk secretly developed the Mac app Sketchbook as an iOS app in 2009, as a paint and drawing program for iDevices.

In an anomalous fashion, though, Autodesk entered the consumer world of mobile devices. This company is software gold standard across the world, and I'm sure many readers have heard of it and some will have used it - you've all certainly seen buildings, products, movies and games designed or at least visualised using this software. A lot of the software is Windows, not just Mac. A relatively new branch is digital prototyping, used in manufacturing to visualise products. There's Maya the famous 3D modelling software, and specialist packages for simulations and other dedicated tasks, plus a whole lot of suites combining various applications targeted at specific segments of the industry.Īnd it's not just architecture - while still significant, all manner of designers use Autodesk software and it features heavily in movies, games and other fields.

But Autodesk's software has moved way beyond AutoCAD, which still ships in eight packs itself, including specialist electrical, civil and other versions. This was designed in AutoCAD, which figures out the construction down to the type of internal metal supports it needs to stand so high. Autodesk is based in San Rafael but it's a multinational - the San Francisco office we visited hosts a gallery of work created thanks its designer software.Īmong the models of amazing buildings, including a replacement bridge for San Francisco with a single cable wrapping it so it can actually pivot in earthquakes, there's a huge dinosaur made from over 62,000 pieces of Lego. The first software was the Computer Aided Design software AutoCAD, well known to architects. The second developer I visited in San Francisco was Autodesk, a company known for its high-end 3D modelling and architectural software.Īutodesk has been around for over 30 years, founded in 1982 by John Walker.

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