It seems like 2017 is a huge year for birthdays at Autodesk, earlier this year Autodesk celebrated its 35th birthday, Revit celebrated its 15 years' anniversary since acquisition, and now Navisworks is celebrating a double header!
20 years ago, today, the first code was committed to the original commercial release of Navisworks in Sheffield in the UK; and 10 years ago, Autodesk completed its acquisition of NavisWorks Ltd.
Back then NavisWorks was primarily used as a viewer for large files rather than what it is today, but much of that technology and principles are also found in other tools you may use every day like AutoCAD, Revit and BIM 360.
Tim Wiegand, the brains behind NavisWorks, was working on these problems for three years before anything commercial was produced; as architect of the wider BIM 360 portfolio today he had this to say about the anniversary: –
"Whenever I think about the impact Navisworks has had, I find it hard to believe that it all started in the corner of a…