AutoCAD For Dummies (2006).pdf

It?s amazing to think that AutoCAD came into being over two decades ago,

at a time when most people thought that personal computers weren?t

capable of industrial-strength tasks like CAD. (The acronym stands for

Computer-Aided Drafting, Computer-Aided Design, or both, depending on

whom you talk to.) It?s almost as amazing that, more than 20 years after its

birth, AutoCAD remains the king of the microcomputer CAD hill by a tall

margin. Many competing CAD programs have come to challenge AutoCAD;

many have fallen, and a few are still around. One hears rumblings that the

long-term future of CAD may belong to special-purpose, 3D-based software

such as the Autodesk Inventor and Revit programs. Whether those rumblings

amplify into a roar remains to be seen, but for the present and the near future

anyway, AutoCAD is where the CAD action is.