Date: February 15, 2012

This report describes the variety of AEC CAD applications that exist to create drawings for new and existing construction projects. These applications vary in features, functionality and cost, but all support a subset of geometry export formats that may be the basis for 3D mesh generation tools targeted at Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) application input. A high level summary of some of the tools that were considered during the year 1 GPIC activity are described in the next section. The common file formats which the programs can import or export and listed. In addition, there is another set of formats that may be useful as a basis for creating 3D geometric mesh. These formats include Autodesk 3D StudioMAX binary format, 3DS, Autodesk Maya binary format, OBJ, Autodesk Softimage XSI, Autodesk Kaydara FBX, Web-??friendly VRML and Collada DAE.