I lived that era too... Here is my take or impression...
David Arnold, along with doing the civil line of products, built the AEC product line, Arch, Elev, HVAC, Piping, Structural... He also partnered for a time with Bob Noftle (can't remember the spelling) with a mechanical lineup. David put a lot of resources into moving CAD from lines, arc circles, into objects. Contours, surfaces... In learning objects, and doing some really cool stuff with civil, he realized that he made a wrong move at the beginning of a two year design cycle, and he realized that his company couldn't afford another two years without shipping a new product. My thought is that this is when he marketed his company to Autodesk. I watched an awesome demonstration of what he was building, presented on Micro Station (with Autodesk reps in the room). He didn't tell the audience that he was surface modeling on Microstation, but Autodesk bought the company, before that product could go anywhere!
I really wish we could get more of the tools from the old DCA days back. I think I miss the symbol manager the most!
Objects are really awesome, but we have had to radically change the design processes to keep up with what we can do in the new environments. I often wonder if there is no more "Drafting". In objects, we are designing, and building, not drawing...
My take:
Denton Yoder
denton@vt.edu
AutoCAD programmer since 1985
DCA, ADCADD software, Softdesk, C3D User, Programmer, trainer... since 1989 (Did the C3D training in DC Fall of '03)
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