Charles Beagrie Ltd and the Digital Preservation Coalition are delighted to announce the release of the DPC members’ preview of the latest Technology Watch Report ‘Preserving Computer-Aided Design (CAD)’. This is the sixth report in the DPC technology watch series to have been commissioned with Charles Beagrie Ltd as series editors.

Written by Alex Ball, and published in association with Jisc’s Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and Charles Beagrie Ltd, this report provides a comprehensive overview of the development of CAD, the threat caused by its own innovative application and its vendors’ race to continuously upgrade; often leaving users with inaccessible versions and models.

A specialist in digital curation at the DCC and UKOLN at the University of Bath, Alex writes ‘CAD is an area of constant innovation…, resulting in CAD systems that are ephemeral and largely incompatible with each other.’ The report provides valuable insights into the key standards, techniques and technologies developed in an attempt to slow the seemingly inevitable obsolescence associated with native CAD formats.

The report is primarily aimed at those responsible for archives and repositories with CAD content, but will also appeal to creators of CAD content who want to make their models more amenable to preservation.

‘I’m delighted to welcome this report to the series,’ commented William Kilbride of the DPC. ‘Although CAD plans and drawings are limited to specialist domains they are typically complex to maintain and of very high value. Moreover, because they tend to relate to buildings, places or products with long lifecycles their preservation is a pressing issue. Alex’s contribution to the series is eagerly anticipated.’

The report is available as a preview to DPC members: http://www.dpconline.org/component/docman/doc_download/844-preserving-cadpreviewapril2013

If you’re not yet a member of the DPC you can get a preview by joining at: http://www.dpconline.org/join-us

It will be released to the public in the second quarter of 2013.