Dive Brief:

• Autodesk, which has helped spread the use of building information modeling and its 3-D renderings for buildings, is developing an open-source software package called Spark that it says can be used to develop and drive 3-D printers.
• The company is also going to debut a 3-D printer that will demonstrate the software's ability and be a publicly available design on which others can build.
• The company's CEO and president, Carl Bass, announced that both the printer and the software will debut later this year.

Dive Insight:

Bass says the Spark software will make it easier for users to drive 3-D printers and give them more control. He says that innovation will make it easier to do things that are being done now, and will enable users to "create all sorts of new things that we haven't even imagined yet."