10 years ago we had the genesis of an idea - to start a publication that catered exclusively to an under-served sector - government CAD users.

Filled with tips, ideas, insights and examples of CAD and digital design at work in government, Acronym Magazine was first published in 2005. Now 10 years later, we've gone completely digital and are still the ONLY blog that addresses the needs of public-sector CAD users.

AutoCAD^® Civil 3D^® software is a civil engineering design and documentation solution that supports Building Information Modeling (BIM) workflows. Using AutoCAD Civil 3D, infrastructure professionals can better understand project performance, maintain more consistent data and processes, and respond faster to change.

With a focus on optimizing transportation design workflows, AutoCAD Civil 3D 2016 offers improved usability and greater efficiency with corridor, profile, and production drafting improvements.

You can import most popular CAD file formats into AutoCAD, including Autodesk Inventor, CATIA, IGES, Rhino, and SolidWorks, and export most AutoCAD drawings just as easily. With complex geometry, not every process is the same, and there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all import with CAD.

Are you a Microsoft Surface user? Check out how AutoCAD 360 is transforming the design and engineering processes for designers and engineers in the field - for free! Watch as AutoCAD 360′s Jonathan Seroussi meets with Baldwin Ng from Microsoft to discuss how AutoCAD 360 for Windows helps save you time and money on site visits and during the drawing mark-up and review process.

Autodesk’s product launch is expected in mid-April; however AutoCAD 2016 is already here!

You can check out what’s new in AutoCAD 2016 here. Highlights include a more comprehensive canvas, richer design context, and intelligent tools such as Smart Dimensioning, Coordination Model, and Enhanced PDFs.

But how does the latest release actually compare to previous versions?

Whether you’re an AutoCAD 2013, 2014, or 2015 user, you can compare what’s different in the chart below.

In the beginning, there were paper documents. Kept in flat files and cabinets and organized rather haphazardly, paper documents offered peace of mind that designers were editing the original file despite the work and effort it took to locate the documents.

Then CAD came along and designers began keeping files on disks (but still inside cabinets). Computerizing the documents, however, soon created a new problem: copies. The fix? Labeling the disk to indicate if it contained the original file.

AutoCAD 2016 is available to your Autodesk Account for you to download if you are an Autodesk Subscription Customer, or you can purchase the 2016 release after April 3, 2015.

Wondering if you want to update to the newest release? This year, Autodesk addressed some of the biggest requests on the Autodesk User Group International Wishlist. Here are some requests from that list:

AUGI Wishlist Feature #2: Geometric Center object snap

Just enter GCE in the command line and you can snap the geometric center polygons and closed polylines.

With nearly 4 million miles of roadways, over 600,000 bridges and multiple transit systems stretched across our nation, infrastructure modernization is a complicated and challenging task.

We all know that Building Information Modeling (BIM) is changing the way both the public and private sector work together to design, communicate, solve problems, and build better projects faster and at less cost. But what is it about BIM that is transforming government digital design and collaboration?

Prior to 2007, drawing in 3D forced the drafter to constantly change the XY plane to draft on a particular face or plane of an object. You had to create a new user coordinate system every time you changed views. This AutoCAD tips and tricks roundup focuses on the Dynamic User Coordinate System (UCS), a feature that automatically creates a temporary XY plane to draw on. Check out these seven videos on AutoCAD UCS.