Autodesk and its partners develop imaging technology for AutoCAD Release 14; users benefit from new imaging capabilities and third-party application interoperability.

SAN RAFAEL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 1, 1997--Autodesk (NASDAQ:ADSK) today revealed that the high-performance technical imaging feature included in the upcoming AutoCAD Release 14 resulted from an 18-month effort driven by Autodesk's core imaging technology group and a consortium of leading plotter, scanner and imaging software companies.

The international consortium formed by Autodesk, known as Autodesk Technical Imaging Partners (ATIP), includes Contex A/S, GTX, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi Software, Oce-Engineering Systems, Peak Geo-Design, Rasterex, Softdesk, Trix Systems and Vidar Systems.

The consortium worked with Autodesk to help establish a de facto standard for exchanging drawings with images, providing AutoCAD users interoperability with ATIP member solutions. These technical imaging capabilities give end users the ability to integrate scanned images, such as legacy drawings, hand-drawn sketches or digital color photographs into CAD, making their work easier, faster, and more cost-effective and accurate.

Now users can access the nearly 10 billion existing paper and film-based drawings and include them in their CAD work, saving many hours of redrawing. For example, users can attach a scanned blueprint or a photograph to their AutoCAD drawing and be guaranteed that the AutoCAD Release 14 colleague they send it to will be able to view and plot it accurately.

"After 15 years as the industry's standard platform for working with vector information, we're expanding the drawing capabilities of AutoCAD customers by combining raster and vector data together," said Robert Carr, vice president of the AutoCAD Market Group at Autodesk. "Imaging technology in AutoCAD Release 14 is a fundamental extension of AutoCAD software's role in the market."

"We are pleased to have been a part of this new advance, as it will allow users to fully utilize the imaging capabilities of HP DesignJet printers," said Bernard Meric, general manager at Hewlett- Packard, Barcelona Division.

"We've been testing and working with AutoCAD Release 14 software's new imaging toolkit under a special agreement with Autodesk since May 1996," said Shoichi Kitaoka, vice president and general manager of Hitachi Software in Boulder, Colorado.

"We found that AutoCAD Release 14 software's imaging APIs enabled us to make our existing advanced raster-to-vector conversion products more powerful and to develop new, special-purpose imaging applications faster."

Users Gain Greater Control Over Their Drawings

By incorporating technical imaging capabilities on every engineering desktop, AutoCAD Release 14 users will be able to work with hybrid drawings, containing both image files or graphics, and tightly integrate them with traditional object or vector data such as lines, arcs and circles. Drafters and designers can simply use AutoCAD software's built-in commands and standard user interface to access these new capabilities.

To offer users interoperability across AutoCAD and third-party applications, Autodesk and its partners will implement raster objects consistently across applications in the upcoming months. For example, users will be able to combine an image-editing application with an image vectorization application and have data interoperability and tight integration between AutoCAD and both the add-ons.

With AutoCAD Release 14 software image engine's advanced memory management technology, raster capacity is virtually unlimited. There is no fixed limit to the number or size of images that may be loaded at a given time and multiple images can appear simultaneously in multiple view ports.

These capabilities will allow AutoCAD Release 14 users to use large legacy drawings without having to re-input all the drawing data -- this lets AutoCAD Release 14 users save time and money. Improving the presentation of users' drawings, AutoCAD Release 14 software now includes standardized support for a wide variety of monochrome, gray-scale, and color-image formats.

Further, the intuitive user interface lets users manage and adjust the appearance of attached images, giving users a high degree of control over their drawing.

Standardization of Imaging Technology Drives Application Development

With display and plotting functions built into AutoCAD Release 14 software, leading technical imaging developers can now focus on advanced image processing and no longer have to invent the horizontal enabling imaging technology. In addition, there is an enormous customer base that will be able to rapidly absorb new applications from technical imaging developers.

"By taking care of display and plotting capabilities, Autodesk has freed my developers to focus on high value end user functionality," said Chris Romes, vice president of product development at GTX Corporation, Arizona.

More About Technical Imaging Technology

The AutoCAD technical imaging feature consists of two key elements: a programmable core image engine for interpreting and processing images, and an ObjectARX module that implements raster objects as first-class entities in the AutoCAD database and serves as a foundation for third-party technical imaging applications.

"The implementation of the raster object in AutoCAD Release 14 makes complete sense," said Jan-Erik Stoll, president of Rasterex International in Norway.

"The use of complex documents that contain images are fundamental to engineering management in the 90's -- as a developer of raster editing and conversion tools since 1987, we are excited that the acceptance of raster inside the DWG file has finally arrived and intend to take full advantage of it with our product line."

AutoCAD Release 14 provides a powerful "back end" for high-performance storage and manipulation of technical images, giving users the basic commands necessary to insert, scale, clip, adjust, view and plot a raster image. AutoCAD Release 14 software also provides developers with a set of APIs to create interoperable applications.

Autodesk expects many ATIP developers to offer leading applications that support image editing, manipulation and analysis soon after AutoCAD Release 14 is available. This demonstrates the efficiency and extensibility of Autodesk's industry-leading object and API strategies. ATIP also helped define "raster enabled" output drivers to support hybrid plotting features and allow popular hard-copy devices to intelligently print vector and raster data.

Availability and Pricing

AutoCAD Release 14 software is expected to ship in Autodesk's Q2FY98 (May-July 1997). The suggested retail price (SRP) of Auto CAD Release 14 software on CD-ROM in the U.S. is US$3,750. The upgrade SRP for AutoCAD Release 13 customers in the U.S. is US$495. The upgrade SRP for AutoCAD Release 12 and earlier AutoCAD customers in the U.S. in US$695.

For pricing information outside of the United States, contact local Autodesk offices. AutoCAD Release 14 software runs on Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0/3.51 operating systems, on Intel microprocessor-based systems.

ATIP Consortium Members

"By extending ObjectARX to integrate raster and vector drawings, Autodesk has positioned AutoCAD Release 14 to be the leading platform for advanced image edit and conversion applications. This new level of integration will allow our users to bring legacy drawings into their mainstream CAD solutions more effectively than ever before."

-- Chris Romes, vice president of product development at GTX Corporation

"Contex customers frequently ask, 'How do I get my scanned drawings into AutoCAD?' With AutoCAD Release 14's new imaging capabilities and ATIP consortium products, the question becomes easy to answer. This will definitely help us sell scanners."

-- Steen Borg, sales & marketing director at Contex A/S

"The imaging technology in AutoCAD Release 14 provides us with a solid foundation and API upon which we can build our AEC market-focused imaging enhancements to the benefit of our customers worldwide."

-- Terry D. Bennett, P.L.S.-L.P.F., Civil/Survey/Imaging product manager at Softdesk, Inc.

"The ATIP consortium delivers a choice of powerful, interoperable technical imaging solutions for AutoCAD Release 14 users around the world. Oce is prepared to deliver the most productive scanning and plotting solutions for these customers."

-- Scott Pember, Manager of Partnership Development at Oce-Engineering Systems.

"Our product complements the basic technical imaging capabilities of AutoCAD Release 14. ColorView's powerful image processing tools for aerial photography turn raw pictures into accurate images that can be used directly with AutoCAD."

-- Terry Burky, president at Peak Geo-Design

"Autodesk is the first major CAD vendor to recognize that raster images are fast becoming a fact of life in CAD shops. The new raster image handling features in AutoCAD Release 14 are really excellent and, even at beta, we were delighted with AutoCAD Release 14 software's stability. This, together with the assistance we received as a member of ATIP, enables us to release our new TracTrix for AutoCAD software in record time."

-- Jorgen Frilander, president at Trix Systems AB

"Autodesk's ATIP initiative to standardize the exchange of drawings with images has created a welcome environment for Vidar to design our scanners and software products with the certainty of meeting the demands of our expanding customer base in the CAD marketplace."

-- Christopher Bergman, president at Vidar Systems Corporation

The matters discussed in this news release contain forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected.

These include the timely development and acceptance of the new products discussed, the size of the market for AutoCAD Release 14 technology, the impact of competitive products and pricing, and the other risks detailed from time to time in Autodesk's SEC reports, including the report on Form 10-Q filed in December 1996.

Autodesk is the world's leading supplier of PC design software and PC multimedia tools. The company's 2D and 3D products, geographic information systems, and data management tools are used in many industries for mapping, architectural design, mechanical design, film and video production, video/game development and Web content development.

Its Kinetix division is the leader in PC-based 3D modeling and animation software, providing a full range of products for digital media and design professionals. The fourth largest PC software company in the world, Autodesk has three million customers in more than 150 countries. Autodesk products are sold through Autodesk Systems Centers, Dealers and Distributors worldwide.

For more information, please call 415/507-5000, type GO ADESK on CompuServe, or visit its World Wide Web site at http://www.autodesk.com . Kinetix can be reached by calling 800/879-4233 or through its World Wide Web site at http://www.ktx.com . Autodesk shares are traded on the NASDAQ National Market under the symbol ADSK. -0-

Note to Editors: Autodesk, the Autodesk logo, and AutoCAD are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. Kinetix and ObjectARX are trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. Windows 95 and windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. CompuServe is a registered trademark of H & R Block. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

CONTACT: Autodesk, Inc.

Jennifer Reidy, 415/507-6536

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