New Autodesk Raster Design Enables Customers to Easily Edit, Convert, and Integrate Scanned Drawings and Raster Files into the Digital Design Process

Gives GIS, Manufacturing, and Building Design Professionals Powerful Raster Editing Capabilities; Easily Fits into Designers' Workflow and Design Process

Autodesk University, Las Vegas, November 27, 2001 - Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSK), the world's leading design software and digital content company, today announced Autodesk® Raster Design (previously named Autodesk® CAD Overlay®) for GIS, civil engineering, manufacturing, and building design professionals. Autodesk Raster Design helps designers in these industries manage two of the most difficult challenges they face: integrating legacy and paper-based drawings and photos (aerial/satellite imagery) into the digital design process and keeping the data in a digital format throughout the workflow. New features in Autodesk Raster Design include optical character recognition (OCR), color palette controls, tonal adjustments, and rubber sheeting, helping users eliminate the time- intensive need to digitally re-create drawings from scratch.

Any organization that has designed and built a building, road, or manufactured product has vast amounts of legacy drawings and data that are either too cost prohibitive or time consuming to convert to a digitally re-usable format. Autodesk Raster Design's powerful image-editing tools make it easier than ever to edit any text in the image, correct image distortion and detail problems, and convert images into formats that can be easily integrated into the design process. These capabilities help designers spend less time editing and re-creating drawings, instead allowing them to focus their efforts on the design project at hand.

Autodesk Raster Design works with AutoCAD® and all AutoCAD-based applications, giving users DWG compatibility for seamless file sharing with Autodesk's powerful design applications including:

• GIS - Autodesk® Land Desktop 3, Autodesk® Civil Design 3, Autodesk® Map 5
• Building Industry - Autodesk® Architectural Desktop 3.3, Autodesk® Building Mechanical, and Autodesk® Building Electrical
• Manufacturing - AutoCAD® Mechanical 6 and Autodesk® Mechanical Desktop® 6
• General Digital Design- AutoCAD® 2002

"Integrating paper drawings, maps, aerial photos, and satellite imagery quickly and easily while maintaining accuracy is an important part of the digital design process, whether it is in the civil engineering, GIS, manufacturing, or building design space," said Larry Diamond, vice president of the Autodesk GIS Solutions Division. "Autodesk Raster Design now has a complete set of conversion, editing, and image-processing tools available, helping users to capitalize on legacy documents by integrating them easily into their workflow and design process. The result is that projects are approved more quickly, quality is improved, and it saves hours, possibly even days of redrafting time."

"We frequently use images, aerial photos, and USGS maps in our projects to enhance the final presentation. Our clients tell us having references of a photo or map helps them to more easily understand the project," said Scott Miller, project manager for Continental Landscape Architecture & Planning, P.C. "And with accuracy at a premium, the new triangular method of rubbersheeting in Raster Design will save time and eliminate frustration. Since our software budget is limited, it is exciting to have the functionality like tonal adjustment, inside Autodesk Raster Design. It really helps the work we do and how we do it."

Autodesk Raster Design - New Features and Benefits:

Optical Character Recognition?Recognizes machine and hand-printed text on raster images saving manual entry time and improving the accuracy of converted drawings.

Color Palette Controls?Standardizes the use of color images, improving the efficiency of color usage within images and control of transparency color selection, reducing the need for expensive third-party image-editing software.

Tonal Adjustment?Improves the appearance of scanned imagery by bringing detail out of the shadows without affecting highlights.

Rubber Sheeting Method Enhancements?Automates control point selection using a triangulation method to affect only specific regions of the image for improved accuracy, especially useful when integrating aerial or satellite images into maps.

Autodesk Civil Series

Autodesk Raster Design provides the raster conversion and editing capabilities in the new Autodesk® Civil Series, which was also announced today in another press release. Autodesk Civil Series gives civil engineers and designers a complete and tightly integrated solution for passing survey data to and from the field and performing engineering design that focuses on subdivision, site, road, and sewer and drainage projects. The Civil Series comprises Autodesk Land Desktop 3, Autodesk® Civil Design 3, and Autodesk® Survey 3, and Autodesk Raster Design. Based on AutoCAD, the Civil Series enables users to take advantage of its power and widely used formats, as well as providing interoperability with other industry standards. For more information on the Autodesk Civil Series, visit www.autodesk.com/civilseries.

Availability

Autodesk Raster Design is expected to ship this quarter. To find an Authorized Autodesk Reseller near you at www.autodesk.com/reseller. For more information on Autodesk Raster Design, visit www.autodesk.com/rasterdesign.

About Autodesk

Autodesk is the world's leading design software and digital content company. Founded in 1982, Autodesk provides design software, Internet portal services, wireless development platforms, and point-of-location applications that empower more than four million customers in over 150 countries to drive business and remain competitive. For more information, contact any Authorized Autodesk Reseller, call Autodesk at 800-964-6432, or visit www.autodesk.com. Discreet™ product information is available at 800-869-3504 or on the Web at www.discreet.com.

Autodesk, AutoCAD, CAD Overlay, Mechanical Desktop, and Discreet are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc./Discreet Logic Inc. in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. © Copyright 2001 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

For More Information Contact:
Eric Sutphin, 415-507-6658
Email: eric.sutphin@autodesk.com

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