Tuesday, December 6. 2005

AU-05 - Autodesk Takes on DGN; Will it Open Source the Code?

Ralph Grabowski notes in his review of Autodesk University (soon to be available here, I suspect.):

One of Autodesk's GIS products has always had the ability to read DGN files created by MicroStation from Bentley Systems. A future release of AutoCAD will also read DGN files. At the AU show, there was some controversy over the source of the DGN translator. British CAD editor Martyn Day did the research, and found that "Autodesk reverse-engineered DGN itself, at the cost of something like $400,000 in a cleanroom environment. It's V8 DGN. Autodesk wonders if there would be any advantage in putting the source code up as open source, to keep the cost of development down." That's cheaper than outsourcing!

I've always felt that Autodesk kept the tools to import DGN and shape files in Map and not in AutoCAD simply to boost sales of the former. This note regarding Autodesk consideration of open sourcing its DGN reading technology is interesting on several fronts:

First, it follows the "we love open source" ideas eminating from the Infrastructure Solutions Division. It's be nice to see follow ons to the release of the latest Web mapping software to open source.

Second, it would compete with the Open Design Alliance, which offers libraries, for a fee. Recall that its head, Evan Yares, did not join the CAD technorati at Autodesk University this year.

Third, where would Autodesk put the code? The MapServer Foundation? Another foundation? Out on its own?