The future of AutoCAD will not be neglected. In addition to the large number of tasks to be undertaken to help maintain AutoCAD's predominant position in the world of drafting and drawing, AutoCAD would also benefit from the addition of a selected few of these technologies.
The 2D constraint manager, properly integrated, would seem to be an ideal tool for the 2D world, providing additional capability to achieve the goals of our users. The 2D-to-Solids translator also appears to be a natural for AutoCAD. Even without the ability to further manipulate this model, users would be able to easily and quickly see a fully rendered 3D representation of their 2D drawings, obtain cross-section data, generate sophisticated technical illustrations, and obtain mass properties. All of this would be useful, even if a user never explicitly modeled in 3D. Optional features for AutoCAD could include the NURBS-based surface modeler, the facetted conceptual solids modeler, and the ACIS modeler.