A screen shot of Autodesk's Revit software

When the U.S. Green Building Council’s big-tent GreenBuild conference sprung up last month in sprawling Atlanta, attendees spied the increased presence of technology.

It didn’t come in the form of wireless gadgets shown off by young techies in wire-rimmed glassed and mock turtlenecks, nor as pyrotechnic shows for keynote speakers storming the podium. The technology most radically transforming green building today comes in the form of design software.

Autodesk, regarded as the global leader in this realm, was a sponsor of this year’s conference. The company is also exploring collaborations with the U.S. Green Building Council and its LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) green building evaluation system.

I recently dropped in on the Autodesk offices in San Francisco for a demo of the company’s Revit software. Much has changed since the days when I was an aspiring architect. I recall early mornings in high school sitting at a drafting table trying to design mansions with a mechanical pencil, rulers and stencils. Computer-aided drafting was just taking root, and while it seemed revolutionary, it seemed to pale in comparison to Atari.

Building Information Modeling, or BIM, is a term Autodesk claims to have invented just recently. “What we’re talking about here is a lot more than 3-D,” said Phil Bernstein, vice president of Autodesk’s building solutions division and a Yale University School of Architecture lecturer.

Of course, Autodesk can’t take all of the credit for Revit — the software was developed by a Waltham, Mass., startup Autodesk bought five years ago. Now priced at $4,695, Revit advances computer-aided drafting much like today’s video games have advanced Atari (and Autodesk makes video games too). But unlike video games wrought with gunfire, guts and blood, these high-tech powers are meant to be acted out literally.