![]() AutoCAD provides both 2D and 3D capabilities, as do many of its competitors in this list, we focus on products that are primarily for 2D design. What follows is an introduction to the array of commercial 2D CAD products created by vendors other than Autodesk. All the companies listed below offer perpetual use licenses, with extra fees for maintenance and service some also offer licenses by subscription. This report offers an overview of several popular and lesserknown AutoCAD alternatives. Currently, as Autodesk transitions to offering subscription as the only form of acquiring new AutoCAD seats (or keeping existing seats under active maintenance), many companies and individuals who rely on 2D drafting are taking a second look at other options in the marketplace. The IntelliCAD Technology Consortium (ITC) - founded by legal mandate to encourage a competitive landscape in the CAD industry - still publishes an AutoCAD-like UI, but relies on ODA Teigha for its underlying CAD technology.īecause AutoCAD has been so successful, a great number of drawings exist in the DWG file format it popularized - more than 2 billion, according to Autodesk - and the owners of all those drawings expect to be able to access their data whether or not they still have a licensed copy of AutoCAD. The ODA, which counts hundreds of software vendors, academic institutions, and enterprise users of CAD software as members, publishes a reverse-engineered version of DWG for use by its membership hundreds of software products incorporate ODA’s Teigha kernel. It’s a tortuous history, but the outcome can be summarized this way:Īutodesk remains the standard-bearer of the DWG file format, but no company can claim ownership of the name “DWG” Autodesk compensates by saying it publishes “RealDWG.” If a significant portion of your work involves using files created in AutoCAD, test the product with some of your most complicated files to ensure high-fidelity translation, or opt for a vendor you trust implicitly.Īutodesk has initiated several lawsuits over the years as it has sought to be the sole provider of software that uses DWG (or even used the name “DWG” to describe any file format). In recent years, vendors who specialize in CAD file translation have for the most part adopted the Teigha kernel for AutoCAD file translation. If their translation software is based on the Teigha kernel developed by the Open Design Alliance (ODA), the translation will be of high fidelity. Most other 2D CAD products also use the DWG format as their native format those that don’t all offer built-in translation to convert other formats to DWG. Other products in that era also used DWG as a file format for graphics software, including the once-popular Generic CADD. But AutoCAD’s rise in the market meant that “AutoCAD” and “DWG” came to be seen as inseparable. In 1982, Autodesk licensed DWG and made it the native file format for AutoCAD. ![]() The DWG format was created by programmer Mike Riddle as a way to store vector graphics. Some command systems, such as BricsCAD’s Quad cursor, extend the user experience in new and interesting ways.Įvery software product that saves information does so in a standard way we call that a file format. Today the traditional keyboard commands are available in most of these products, but most users rely primarily on the on-screen command system instead. ![]() In the early days of 2D software products supporting the DWG file format, the common (and usually derogatory) nickname for the genre was “AutoCAD clones.” When MS-DOS was the operating system and CAD software relied more heavily on keyboard input, it was all too common for competitors to reverse-engineer the file format and mimic AutoCAD’s command system.Īs Windows replaced DOS and graphical input became common, most AutoCAD competitors started to show more originality in user interface (UI) design. From free solutions (such as Dassault Systèmes DraftSight and the open-source LibreCAD and QCAD) to products in the same price range as AutoCAD (Bentley MicroStation), there are 2D CAD products for every budget and every application. A variety of competing products offer compelling reasons to think outside the AutoCAD box. In the 1980s it emerged from a pack of new CAD products hoping to win over what were then known as “microcomputer users.” Today it and its subset sibling AutoCAD LT are the most widely used CAD brand of all time, with more than 12 million seats sold between the two products (including educational licenses), according to Autodesk.ĪutoCAD has never been the only choice for CAD, however. Today, it offers a variety of mature, thoughtfully designed applications at budget-conscious prices.įor a generation, AutoCAD has been the de facto standard for 2D drafting. Newton Cadalyst Labs Report: When it comes to 2D drafting, the market has moved far beyond copycats and knockoffs. The Wide World of DWG-Compatible CAD Software 15 Mar, 2016 By: Randall S.
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