GUEST EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

CAD: Forming the Industry

Burton Grad , Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA
David Kasik , retired, The Boeing Company, Sammamish, WA 98075 USA

S
ince the early 1960s, hundreds of CAD software were able to handle the mathematics and graphics
products and services companies have been needed for 2-D engineering drawings and blueprints,
started worldwide. Today, a relatively few large but mainframes were needed to provide the perfor-
companies dominate the multibillion-dollar CAD mar- mance and memory required to compute 3-D surfaces.
ket, yet there are still many smaller niche firms that Solid models, needed to represent propellers, turbine
specialize in a particular product design area. The data blades, pistons, and other complex parts, had to wait
that CAD systems generate are essential for comput- until the 1980s for new algorithms and more comput-
er-aided manufacturing (CAM) and computer-aided ing power.
engineering (CAE). CAD-defined geometry remains the essential input
The growth of the CAD industry has depended to CAM and CAE. CAM provides the information need-
on (and in some cases driven) many new technology ed to provide the instructions for numerically con-
and equipment developments: mathematical repre- trolled machine tools, human operators, and robots.
sentations and algorithms for complex 3-D surfaces, CAE evaluates performance characteristics, such as
vastly better graphic displays, higher speed computer aerodynamics, tensile strength, etc.
processing, increased memory capacity, lower cost
­ The CAD software industry grew dramatically
interactive operating systems, and readily available
during the 20th century and produced a few compa-
high-speed networks.
nies with annual revenue approaching $1 billion. The
CAD use has expanded across virtually all engi-
growth has been even more striking in the 21st centu-
neering disciplines: mechanical, civil, chemical, and
ry, according to public stock exchange data. There are
electrical. Industrial designers and architects refine
at least five companies with annual revenues of $5–$6
their concepts using CAD-based modeling tech-
billion and market values of more than $50 billion. The
niques. Basic CAD technologies have been applied
whole CAD industry is close to $50 billion in annual
to animation, film special effects, medicine, dentistry,
revenue, with total market value exceeding $500 bil-
computer games, cartography, and many other disci-
lion. This is certainly one of the larger technology seg-
plines. In short, CAD is useful across more fields than
ments of the entire software products industry.
initially imagined and made the computer itself an in-
tegral part of the engineer’s tools. This special issue brings together a variety of per-
Many of these developments were stimulated by the spectives, primarily from insider accounts, which pres-
needs of the military, supported by governments in the ent unique sources for further study. They discuss the
United States, Europe, and Asia. At the same time, some changes, inspirations, initiatives, and impacts of CAD.
leading corporations wanted to improve their business The longer theme pieces are complemented by de-
performance by reducing product development costs, partment materials covering additional aspects of the
improving product designs, and getting the products industry’s history. For chronological considerations,
to market faster, so they developed their own CAD pro- the company articles have been mainly sequenced
grams. CAD markets expanded broadly when software based upon when they first started producing CAD
entrepreneurs who had scientific and business skills took software products.
the risk of starting CAD software product companies.
In the 1960s and 1970s, IBM mainframes and DEC, ARTICLES IN THE FIRST CAD
Data General, Honeywell, Prime, and HP minicomput- SPECIAL ISSUE
ers were used to run the CAD programs. The minis
❯ Daniel Cardoso Llach, a Carnegie Mellon Univer-
1058-6180 © 2024 IEEE
sity historian of computer science and building
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MAHC.2024.3484016 architecture, leads off the issue with his views
Date of current version 10 December 2024. of the early factors influencing the history of the

October-December 2024 Published by the IEEE Computer Society IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 7
GUEST EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

CAD industry from a social and cultural as well as Francis Bernard describes how France’s Dassault
a technological perspective. Aviation built early surface modeling and numer-
❯ Dave Kasik has written two articles for the issue. ical control software for its internal use. He then
The first describes his experience at Boeing in became the CEO of Dassault Systèmes, the com-
its early use of CAD and then its unsuccessful pany that was spun out and built into a leading
attempt to produce a marketable CAD software international CAD software company marketing
product. The second gives his recollection and its CATIA products.
analysis of the CAD proprietary system devel- ❯ Dag Spicer edited two oral history interviews
opment work by the aerospace and automotive about the founding and first 10 years of Autodesk,
industries. which led the CAD industry into the PC market
❯ The first article about CAD software companies for use by engineers around the world with its
is a biography by Cheryl Baltes of Patrick Hanrat- AutoCAD products. The first oral history tran-
ty. After doing some of the earliest CAD-related script is with four of the company’s 17 founders.
work at GE and GM, he founded his first CAD The second is with the first nonfounder CEO, who
software company in the mid-1960s and then gave the company a more formal organizational
started another company to license his software structure and better financial management.
to multiple CAD software companies, who used it ❯ Dave Shreiner, a longtime member of the Asso-
as the basis of their products. Fontaine Richard- ciation for Computing Machinery’s SIGGRAPH
son has written an article about his experience organization, has reviewed the commemorative
in founding and growing Applicon, a pioneering book edited by Whitton, Johnson, and Kasik that
CAD software company focused on electronic celebrates SIGGRAPH’s 50 annual graphics con-
circuit design. Ken Versprille, who we are sad to ferences with recollections from hundreds of its
write died prior to publication, wrote an article attendees. The issue concludes with Burt Grad’s
that describes his development of nonuniform brief note providing directions to access the
rational B-splines (NURBSs) as a Syracuse Uni- many CAD transcripts now available at the Com-
versity Ph.D. student and then his employment puter History Museum and the Charles Babbage
at Computervision, an early industry leader that Institute oral history websites.
survived for more than 30 years and produced
significant technological advances. A PREVIEW OF THE PLANNED
❯ The next articles cover two of the companies that FOLLOW-ON CAD ANNALS
led the industry in the 1980s and 1990s. Paul Sick- SPECIAL ISSUE(S)
ing, Wil Valenzuela, and George Allen, key lead-
The current plan is to publish one or two more CAD
ers in Unigraphics for more than 40 years, wrote
special issues, which will focus on covering some of
about their experiences as it became one of the
the CAD companies and topics that could not fit into
larger U.S.-based companies. Kevin Eustace and
the first issue. We are recruiting authors who can write
Al Klosterman follow with a description of lead-
personal histories of the companies that are the indus-
ing Structural Dynamics Research Corporation
try leaders in the 21st century: Autodesk; Bentley Sys-
(SDRC) in its journey up to 2001. SDRC started as
tems; Cadence Design Systems; Dassault Systèmes,
a structural consulting company and then pro-
PTC; Siemens Digital Industries; and Synopsys.
duced CAD software as its primary business. It
merged with Unigraphics, which was owned by
EDS at the time, in 1999. DAVID WEISBERG’S CAD
❯ Michael Evans writes about CAD development in HISTORY BOOK
the United Kingdom and focuses on the technical In 2007, David Weisberg wrote an outstanding de-
and business activities of the Cambridge-based tailed history of the CAD industry up to that point.
CADCentre, which spawned many success- Many of the authors of the articles in these spe-
ful companies. Tom Lazear’s article describes cial issues contributed facts and figures to Weis-
his work for almost 20 years at Fluor, a leading berg. His book, The Engineering Design Revolu-
company in the design and construction of the tion, is considered by many of the Annals authors
complex piping systems needed for oil, gas, and and computer historians to be the most valuable
chemical plants. After leaving Fluor, Tom start- source for those who wish to research the history
ed and grew a series of CAD companies, one of of CAD software companies and the CAD industry.
which is still active in the CAD software market. Any selected chapter is available online through

8 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing October-December 2024

 GUEST EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

the generosity of the Weisberg family for free at and he will be missed by all of his friends in the
http://shapr3d.com/blog/history-of-cad, and the CAD industry.
entire book can be downloaded from https://web. Kenneth J. Versprille received his Ph.D. degree in
archive.org/web/20240423194420/http://images.­ computer science from Syracuse University. He de-
d e s i g n w o r l d o n l i n e.c o m . s 3 . a m a z o n a w s .c o m / veloped NURBSs—highly accurate, general mathe-
CADhistory/85739614-The-Engineering-Design- matical representations of 2-D and 3-D curves and
Revolution-CAD-History.pdf surfaces—which became an international standard in
CAD and computer graphics. Ken worked at Compu-
A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE TO tervision Corporation, where he was a lead architect of
KENNETH VERSPRILLE its CADDS 4 product and 3-D graphics systems before
Ken died shortly after writing the NURBS/Computer- moving into executive positions. He finished his career
vision article for this CAD special issue. His technical as a consultant for CIMData, an Ann Arbor, MI, USA,
and personal contributions were of major significance, consulting company.

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October-December 2024 IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 9