Originally Posted by
OldDrafter
I'll have to see what I can find about that- linking to spreadsheets early on must have been a huge for folks in that field. I think Autodesk "Microsoft'ed" the CAD industry. Even now most of their new stuff seems like externally developed programs that they bought out and put their name on. I do really like their Inventor program, though the home "makers" have mostly went to Fusion. I must say they have been really good at getting software for students. Kids today have insane power in their laptops if we can just get them to take advantage of it.
There's a very popular database/spreadsheet program used in the entertainment lighting business, called Lightwright. Created by a Broadway designer about 40 years ago in DOS, then ported to Mac. The creator works with Nemetschek, the VW owner, on the data transfer. It's really just a case of the CAD program giving a specific ID for high level drafting objects that are the symbols for the stage lights. Once that specific ID number is shared between programs, information about the object can be filled in, such as electrical load, instrument type, weight, control channel, etc..... Once some of the data is generated, the control channel info gets ported to the computer that actually manipulates the lighting and gets played back during the show. All this data transferring is a monumentally hugh time saver and was a game changing thing to learn in my later career.