Autodesk, Inc.

Autodesk, Inc. is an American software company headquartered in San Rafael, California, the maker of AutoCAD and other widely used design and engineering software. It was founded in 1982 by John Walker and a group of fellow programmers, and released AutoCAD the same year as one of the first computer-aided design programs built to run on personal computers rather than expensive mainframes, a shift that helped popularize CAD software across architecture, engineering and manufacturing. Autodesk has since expanded its product line into building information modeling software such as Revit, engineering simulation tools, and software used in film, television and video game production. The company's design software is used extensively across the architecture, engineering, construction and media and entertainment industries.