ODA updates Teigha for Android

A variety of software products are coming to market on Android using Teigha code.

Open Design Alliance (ODA) today releases support for the Android 5 mobile operating system in the latest release of Teigha, the ODA’s software development platform for engineering applications.

GIS leader ESRI uses Teigha as the foundation for its ArcGIS Runtime SDK for Android. (Source: ESRI)
GIS leader ESRI uses Teigha as the foundation for its ArcGIS Runtime SDK for Android. (Source: ESRI)

Built against the latest Android NDK 10, the new release is designed for ODA members developing Android applications on Teigha, a cross platform solution. Android NDK, a companion tool to Android SDK, allows developers to build the performance-critical portions of an application in native code.

“Our members are using Teigha for a wide variety of Android applications including viewers, utilities, and full CAD systems,” commented Neil Peterson, ODA President. “With our support for Android 5, ODA is keeping pace with the latest improvements to the Android platform.”

The ODA is a non-profit consortium of 1,300 software developers involved in all areas of design. Applications created with Teigha range from custom data access and editing utilities, to visualization projects and full-scale CAD systems. ODA members cooperate by submitting improvements for the common good. Teigha supports .dwg, .dgn, and .pdf files, and the import and export of many other file formats. It runs on Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Unix, and Windows.

What do we think?

No final peace treaty has been signed, but the CAD industry interoperability wars are for the most part over. Everyone recognizes the marketplace superiority of Autodesk and the need to support the .dwg file format popularized by AutoCAD. The ODA has stopped trying to portray itself as David against Goliath, choosing instead to create a great set of software libraries that help extend the reach of CAD technology. This only bodes well for the future of technical software on mobile platforms.