AutoCAD-AutoDeskIntelliCADMicrostation-Bentley

2011: What to Expect: CAD Platforms

Hello my friends, the parties, the cohetillos, the nacatamales and New Year's hugs passed. It's good to be back on this side of life, in a good year for news.

Autocad 2012AutoCAD comes from 3 years of having turned the interface and it is said that this could be a milestone year as they were 2000, 20004, 2007 0 2010. 

On the other hand Bentley arrives in its second year after having put the i (plus 3 Select) to version 8 that is almost ten years old. So logically, we assume that both have something on their hands for a year that cannot go unnoticed and the logic of the series that says that the time for big changes in this cannot continue to be four years ... and three already long ago.

AutoCAD:

It is likely that by mid-May we are witnessing the launch of AutoCAD 2012 -Coined this year as Ironman- based on the last two trends that we have seen since 2008. For now there is not much glimpse, because the request lists are going faster than usability and although it is possible Download AutoCAD 2012 Free of charge, for testing purposes, little has been said about it.

Autocad 3 The first option is to insist on migrating the legacy of command-line-based software and force ourselves to use the buttons at all costs. This is good on the large side of the drawing table, because for this you must force yourself to use usability laboratories, where what you want is to make the operation more intuitive every day, thinking about flows of tasks and objects rather than the line drawing of blueprints. Many of the latest developments that AutoDesk has made in the 2010 and 2011 versions go in this direction, although they still do not think about BIM modeling at the level of simple vectors. Note that if you want to do it, you could suggest that 2013 will require another (another) version of dwg, not because it occupies it but because it is a fun practice to turn around potential competitors.

We liked things like transparencies, constraints, and options to hide objects without using express tools; however, functionalities that the competition does, such as independent dynamic views, to get the most out of working with multiple monitors, would not be bad. AutoCAD 2011 has already shown that speed can be made more efficient, hopefully AutoCAD 2012 will continue to do so, although for this we will have to leave the rendering improvements for a long time (which is already outdated for days).

The other trend we will see is to exploit more and more the niche of Mac users. It should not be difficult for you, nor do I think you are thinking of taking ArchiCAD off the market again, which had already established itself quite a bit in the Architects taste. AutoDesk is on a long-term trend, as it visualizes what many have suggested, that the white line company is the promise for the next 5 years before the imminent fall of the term PC as such. In my opinion AutoDesk will insist on working About Ipad And use the arsenal that mean Maya, Revit, Inventor and other specialized contexts such as Civil3D that for this year we believe will come in the manzanita version.

If you do, I swear I bought an Air. Hey andI would like-

However, software with that level of positioning, with a public presence on the stock market, struggles more to reduce competition than to innovate (this is the obvious feeling of investors). Get the most out of your cows before you hit a point of decline. But I do not doubt that a team of furry is locked in a basement thinking unimaginable things, and they surprise us with something more than the same commands on a table more geek, With the known risk of being taken by Gentiles at a business meeting.

Microstation

It is a great year for Bentley, which can no longer continue with its Select Series that more than 4 would be the extreme of absent creativity (in name). What happens is that the smokes of this company, which by not being public but a family legacy gives them more freedom to redesign themselves almost at will. So we could expect a name that exceeds the credibility of the V8, that insists on using it, even if it is to do the same but with a vision beyond the vector.

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In my view, the trends that Bentley will exploit will be the I-model.  This means popularizing the Navigator and dgn, undoubtedly with great credibility, although the challenge is not easy considering that Bentley wants to stop being known by Microstation and introduce Project Wise and Asset Wise beyond its captive market. A good strategy would be to further consolidate the interaction between the lines of engineering, plants, architecture and networks around standardization with a wonderful format that seems to be brought from another planet -although unknown by almost all of this planet-.

The incredible thing is that it will always be over The same dgn v8.

I will wait until they surprise me, because the difficulty of being an emporium that was born out of nowhere and the risk that the grandchildren take little interest in its legacy can lead to the idea of ​​going public or looking for a great buyer (if is that it exists with the same motivation). What is profitable is to develop applications on xfm for gadgets in niches where Microstation is positioned, because there is a guarantee that it will be compatible in the long term. Even if we forget VBA, that just as AutoCAD 2011 abandoned it, Bentley will end up leaving everything in the hands of .net.

Other CAD

In other contexts there are other great ones, here, they are those that appear with more presence.  1292661111310_f Unlike GIS and modeling, Open Source has had little positioning to make serious competition in at least reading and editing a latest version of dwg or dgn. I think the two have a pact with each other not to open spaces, a shame for the OS, although it leaves us the advantage that interoperability between them is closer every day. So I don't know if we could expect news from QCad, BRL-CAD and others that are so unknown that others do not even come to mind.

The one that has come closest is IntelliCAD, which being paid has sought to gain ground from the already existing popularity of AutoCAD. With the disadvantage that this deals with something more than being cheap to impact, with only the Ribbon AutoDesk since 2009 left them on the pavement, a strategy based on the same battle criteria: popularity, autocracy and I do not doubt that some malice simple.

Then?

Nor is it that we expect warm water to be invented in a subject that is so linear (CAD, not applications). But it doesn't hurt that we go back To talent To do the same things as if they were new, like when the removable graphite bars came in, the eraser powder or the eraser, inventions that were not radical but they changed our lives because they made it easier.

The magic of having layers so as not to have to trace each plane long ago stopped captivating us, precisely when the xml gave life to the lines. We have undoubtedly seen many changes in the CAD that have made us mutate more That the position y Name of draftsman to Cadista.

For my part I hope these friends insist on facilitating the things we already do, see not that Steve Jobs wants to take us to make the plans With the nails. His insistence on not wanting to make a pencil for the iPad worries me.

Golgi Alvarez

Writer, researcher, specialist in Land Management Models. He has participated in the conceptualization and implementation of models such as: National Property Administration System SINAP in Honduras, Management Model of Joint Municipalities in Honduras, Integrated Cadastre-Registry Management Model in Nicaragua, Territory Administration System SAT in Colombia . Editor of the Geofumadas knowledge blog since 2007 and creator of the AulaGEO Academy that includes more than 100 courses on GIS - CAD - BIM - Digital Twins topics.

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