This and, to a lesser extent, its interchange file format DXF, have become de facto, if proprietary, standards for CAD data interoperability, particularly for 2D drawing exchange. The 2021 release marked the 11th consecutive year of AutoCAD for Mac. The 2021 release marked the 35th major release of AutoCAD for Windows. As Autodesk's flagship product, by March 1986 AutoCAD had become the most ubiquitous CAD program worldwide. The first version by Autodesk was demonstrated at the 1982 Comdex and released that December. A man using AutoCAD 2.6 to digitize a drawing of a school building.ĪutoCAD was derived from a program that began in 1977, and then released in 1979 called Interact CAD, also referred to in early Autodesk documents as MicroCAD, which was written prior to Autodesk's (then Marinchip Software Partners) formation by Autodesk cofounder Michael Riddle.
