Editor’s Note: Welcome to Cadalyst's blog series by Patrick Hughes, A CAD Dinosaur's Journey into Modern Times.” In this three-month series, Hughes chronicles his transition from AutoCAD R14 to v2015 and from an outdated PC to a state-of-the-art professional workstation. Follow along and enjoy!

Hardware Hero

Even dinosaurs need to upgrade their computers once in a while. When I started my business in 1991, I chose to buy the most powerful, yet affordable desktop computer possible. Shopping around the local computer stores I settled on a gleaming Intel 486 equipped with a 17” color monitor. It’s almost embarrassing to remember that the price tag was nearly $4,000 back then, but this Dino was ready to work on CAD with the best of them.

Viktor Nordstrom understands that the future of CAD exists on the cloud. His company, CL3VER, provides a cloud-based platform for interactive 3D presentations for the web and mobile devices to help AEC and manufacturing professionals to engage customers and stakeholders. CL3VER 3.0, released on March 11, was presented at NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference together with the integration of CL3VER with Lightworks’ Iray+ photorealistic rendering solution that enables users to explore a CL3VER presentation via a web browser and generate a photorealistic rendered image of a specific point of view using Iray.

In this interview, Nordstrom discusses the future of CAD and how it is changing along with technology.

In what ways does a cloud-based platform enhance the CAD process?

A cloud-based platform enhances the CAD process by making the time to market for products and projects faster, thanks to the possibility of accessing information in real-time from any location around the globe and at any time. The cloud also provides infinite computer power available on an "on-demand basis," thereby cutting costs traditionally associated with the require

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Cadalyst's blog series by Patrick Hughes, A CAD Dinosaur's Journey into Modern Times.” In this three-month series, Hughes chronicles his transition from AutoCAD R14 to v2015 and from an outdated PC to a state-of-the-art professional workstation. Follow along and enjoy!

As I continue my quest to conquer AutoCAD 2015 and become a thoroughly modern Dinosaur, onto the scene comes AutoCAD 2016. I must leave its study and review to more capable AutoCAD experts, of which there are many. As it is, my tiny arms are full at the moment and I’m having too much fun with AutoCAD 2015.

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Cadalyst's blog series by Patrick Hughes, A CAD Dinosaur's Journey into Modern Times.” In this three-month series, Hughes chronicles his transition from AutoCAD R14 to v2015 and from an outdated PC to a state-of-the-art professional workstation. Follow along and enjoy!

It has been quite a while since I’ve done actual work in AutoCAD Release 14. In fact, since I jumped into 2015, I haven’t looked back. For this article I wanted to grab a few screen shots to compare and contrast the two versions. As I opened Release 14, it struck me how quickly it started, but that's about the only thing I miss. I can live with a longer startup because I’ll typically start AutoCAD and leave it open all day.

Education isn't like it used to be, where you would graduate, grab a piece of paper, and dance into a new career. With technology and industries constantly evolving and being updated, education is an ongoing process.

Like plenty of other job sectors today, public works departments are being challenged to deliver a wider range of services faster and more efficiently with fewer available dollars and staff, says Pam Broviak, manager of Public Works Group, a portal for public works professionals. "This is why we are most interested in headlines and issues related to anything that offers potential to help us perform within these parameters," she adds.

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Cadalyst's blog series by Patrick Hughes, A CAD Dinosaur's Journey into Modern Times.” In this three-month series, Hughes chronicles his transition from AutoCAD R14 to v2015 and from an outdated PC to a state-of-the-art professional workstation. Follow along and enjoy!

At some point, the AutoCAD programmers decided to add dynamic functionality to some AutoCAD features. Dynamic UCS, Dynamic Input, and Dynamic Blocks to name a few! When you typed in DYN at the command prompt, you'd see 13 system variables appear! You would think that the word dynamic would appeal to this dino and, to be honest, it does have a nice ring to it.

Is it CAD or BIM? Vectorworks 2015 combines enough of both to satisfy a variety of design and development needs. In all, reviewers and users have been pleased with what they've seen from this new product. It seems to be an improvement over previous versions in several ways (more discussion on this below), and offers some neat new features that can be helpful in a multitude of situations. Here is what you need to know before investing in this version of Vectorworks.

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Cadalyst's blog series by Patrick Hughes, A CAD Dinosaur's Journey into Modern Times.” In this three-month series, Hughes chronicles his transition from AutoCAD R14 to v2015 and from an outdated PC to a state-of-the-art professional workstation. Follow along and enjoy!

As you know by now I’m a dinosaur. We T-Rexes like to eat meat and I’ve been anxious to sink my teeth into the REAL meat of AutoCAD 2015. I knew there would be plenty of meaty stuff in 2015. I was right, and it’s tasty too.

If DFX sounds like a new product to you, it isn't. For some time, it has been offered as an add-on product called DFMPro, which has been integrated into a number of high-profile CAD software solutions, including SolidWorks, Creo, and NX. DFX is the stand-alone product now offered by Geometric. While DMFPro works within a specific MCAD software package, DFX works with native models and assemblies in almost all CAD software programs. The cool thing about DFX is how easy it makes finding design flaws in the early design stages, helping to eliminate engineering change orders (ECOs).