How Autodesk Gets Federal Stimulus Money

One of the conditions for Federal Stimulus money given to states was that it had to be used for “shovel-ready” projects, meaning that the planning was already complete.  NPR’s Joe Greenberg discovered an interesting side effect of this is the influx of stimulus money to an unlikely source: Autodesk.

Shovel-ready projects play a big role in the federal stimulus package. But one New England software company found there’s a lot of stimulus money available for virtual shovel-ready projects. The company also discovered that a touch of Hollywood can go a long way toward winning a job.

From updating decade-old blueprints to tapping their graphics expertise to make high-end graphics of the finished projects, it seems that Autodesk is a good place to be working right now.

via Virtual Shovel-Ready Projects Get Stimulus Money : NPR.

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a computer graphics programmer and news junky that's been working in the field for the last 15 years. He's responsible for visualizations generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, ytnef, mullion support in ParaView, and VizWorld.com.