Autodesk and Trimble have entered into a multiyear agreement to exchange sets of their architectural, engineering and construction software products.

Since the previous agreement expired in October 2015, countries now are under a one-year moratorium that bars new unfair trade actions.

But controversial policy riders, including language blocking "waters of the U.S." rule, may sink the measures.

Autodesk’s cloud service, called Forge, is free for developers for the next 90 days, the company announced at its inaugural conference for application programming interface developers. It also announced new investment in three start-ups.

The contract involves the construction, with financing from Italy’s credit agency Servizi Assicuative de Commerce Estero, of the 2,200-MW Koysha Dam on the Omo River in the southern part of the country.

The growth of BIM, with its densely built models, is driving earlier selection of building products in the construction process.