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The computer-aided design landscape has been shifting and evolving for 60 Industrial Marketing

years and will continue for 60 more. Is your digital catalog future-proof? Parts Management
Classi cation

60 years ago, the “Father of CAD,” Dr. Patrick Hanratty created the rst numerical control system, which would later
become Computer Aided Design or CAD. The precision, versatility, and edit-ability of CAD designs revolutionized PARTsolutions
the engineering, architecture and manufacturing landscape. The importance of CAD cannot be understated.
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While the History of CAD closely parallels the “History of the Computer,” there have been many innovations and Strategic Thinking
iterations along the way. With its introduction in 1957, it was still decades ahead of small and affordable
Team Pro les
computers which could run the software. Pencil and paper would remain the primary way “draftsman” would
create designs for another 30 years. But the groundwork was laid for things to come, CAD software would a
fundamental tool for nearly every industry. RECENT POSTS

Certi ed SAE-AS Native

Do you provide CAD to your customers online? How about in 100+ CAD formats and versions? Find out CAD standards: 3D Parts
how. Models for Dassault
Solidworks

The idea of CAD has grown from simple 2D designs into complex, multi-layered 3D structures with kinematic- Certi ed AIA/NAS Native
movement and detailed meta-data. Similarly, the CADENAS digital catalog has paralleled innovations in the CAD Standard 3D Parts for
industry. The eCATALOG solutions platform is continually evolving to provide native formats as soon as they are Dassault Solidworks
available, often times before they are publicly available. Whether you launch your CADENAS eCATALOG in 2001,
2017 or 2027 all of the CAD models you provide your clients will remain backward compatible and “future-proof.” Case Study: Digital product
catalogs by CADENAS
History of CAD Highlights: optimize development
process for production lines
Built by Patrick Hanratty, this was the rst commercial
numerical-control programming system, sparked everything Monkeytoe Sets Stage for
PRONTO 1957 that is CAD. International and Multi-
  Industry BIM & CAD Solution

Built by Ivan Sutherland, this was the rst to ever use a total Hydro-Gear Launches
graphic user interface, users wrote with a light pen on an x-y Customer Portal with On-
pointer display, let users constrain properties in a drawing, Demand 3D Parts Catalog
Sketchpad 1960
created the use of “objects” and “instances”. Powered by CADENAS
  PARTsolutions

Built by Patrick Hanratty, this interactive graphic design,

drafting and manufacturing system was written in Fortran and
designed to work on virtually every machine, a huge hit that
went on to be updated to work on 16 and 32-bit computers,
1971
ADAM today 80% of CAD programs can be traced back to the roots of
ADAM.

Lets users transfer their 3D designs between CAD software

programs, once STEP was released IGES did not get updated
IGES 1980 anymore, on its way out but still accepted in many places.

by Dassault Systemes – Multi platform CAD software, still in

use today.
CATIA 1981
 

by Autodesk, this was the rst 2D design CAD software made

for PCs instead of mainframe computers or minicomputers.
AutoCAD 1982
 

Now PTC Creo, this was the rst mainstream CAD program that
took the ideas of Sketchpad (Interactive, easy to use, fast) and
made it come to life, based on solid models, history-based
features, and the use of constraints, this was a huge turn in 
CAD history because it completely knocked out any
Pro/Engineer 1987
competition, others were written in Fortran and assembler this
was written in UNIX’s X-Windows which made it faster and user
friendly.

Made the Autodesk program 3D compatible.

Autodesk
1994
AutoCAD R13  

Took over from IGES as the new format to use when

transferring 3D models from one to another, 1994 was the
initial release of STEP that made it an international standard for
STEP 1994
models, still the most used format.

by Dassault Systemes – Another software that succeeded in

ease of use, allowed more engineers than ever to take
SolidWorks
1995 advantage of 3D CAD technology.
95
 

by Siemens Made as a PLM software (Product Lifecycle

Management), functions on Windows, provides solid modeling,
assembly modeling, and 2D orthographic view, response to the
Solid Edge 1995
success of SolidWorks.

Autodesk’s new direction, tried to be more intuitive and simple,

also allowed the creation of complex assemblies in record
Autodesk
1999 time, still in use, really upped the game in the CAD world.
Inventor
 

Autodesk 360 2012 Moved CAD to the cloud.

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Bio Latest Posts

Adam Beck
Director of Marketing at CADENAS PARTsolutions | A graduate of the Richard Farmer School of
Business Marketing at Miami University in Oxford Ohio, Adam has years of experience in
marketing and design for a variety of industries. He enjoys many outlets for creativity including
working on custom cars and guitars. He’s also a fan of Formula1 racing and the Cincinnati
Bengals. Adam currently lives in Ohio with his wife Stephanie, daughter Nora and son Otto.

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