AI Cloned Adobe. Is CAD Next? Not So Fast.
AI cloned Adobe and NVIDIA open-sourced a geometry kernel. That doesn't mean a free AutoCAD or SolidWorks is weeks away. A plea for patience, skepticism, and real competition.
Between the Lines Blog
20+ Years of Design, Technology & More
Between the Lines Blog
20+ Years of Design, Technology & More
Read MoreAI Cloned Adobe. Is CAD Next? Not So Fast.
Autodesk Forma, Civil 3D, Revit, and AI. A Major Shift in How We Design
Autodesk is pushing AEC toward connected cloud workflows and AI. The bigger opportunity isn't automation. It's software that cares more about the design than the commands. Reliability, data control, and firms that can't go all-in on the cloud are still open questions.
My AU 2026 Parting Gift Was Influenza A
I came home from Autodesk University 2026 with swag, new connections, and a lab-confirmed case of Influenza A. Plus a modest proposal for germ-free AU 2027: the AU Suit.
Announcing My Free Autodesk CER Viewer for Windows
Shaan's CER Viewer 1.0 helps users analyze crash reports from Autodesk products by reading XML and binary .pb files. It's a free, portable tool that requires no installation or internet connection. The viewer organizes crash data for easy comparison and includes features for batch analysis and anonymization, making troubleshooting efficient.
AU 2026: Four Days, 64 Hours, and One Very Long Nap
A day-by-day look at AU 2026 in Las Vegas - product team meetings, keynotes, a crashed live demo, my standing-room-only session on AI and the CAD manager role, Rebelution at Brooklyn Bowl, and the 36-hour crash afterward.
I Built an Autodesk CER Viewer to Read Civil 3D Crash Reports
Autodesk moved CER crash reports from XML to binary protobuf with the 2025 products. Here is the viewer I built to read both, the parser bug that made me misreport the data twice, and the real numbers on the drawing field.
CER Schema Update: The Data My Parser Missed
In March I said the v7 protobuf crash format had lost most of what made CER useful. The data was there. Two mistakes in how I decoded and parsed the files hid it, and here is what I found once I fixed them.
Discover Stunning Landscapes via ArcGIS and Sky Tour
In scanning through LinkedIn today I noticed a fun diversion that combined places I love from around the world, and ESRI ArcGIS. Yes, all those in a fun web diversion where you can fly around the mapped terrains in your…
Exploring AI in Architectural Design
I gave Illoca's Plamo three photos of my house and a one-sentence prompt. Here's what the AI architectural modeler got right, what it got wrong, and why it feels like a smart SketchUp.
The Autodesk Release History and Codename List Is Updated Through 2027
I updated my AutoCAD Release History and Autodesk Product Codenames page, covering versions from AutoCAD 1.0 in 1982 to 2027. The new entries include AutoCAD 2027 with the codename Xenon. Notably, the Civil 3D 2027 codename remains unconfirmed, while AutoCAD 2027 continues using the AC1032 DWG format.