Jon Peddie on Milestone Moments in the History of CAD

Jon Peddie and Kathleen Maher from the analyst firm JPR have just published a 43-page ebook titled "The Many Paths and Investments in the Development of Modern-Day CAD," spanning the 1950s to the present day. The book recounts the emergence of early CAD programs, such as Pronto (GE) and Sketchpad (MIT), and follows the milestone mergers and acquisitions that marked the era of consolidation, such as Dassault Systemes' purchase of SolidWorks in 1997 and Siemens' purchase of UGS in 2007. 

"CAD industry blossomed and then shrunk due to acquisitions and mergers. Today we have about five or six major companies, but we've had as many as a hundred at one point," Peddie reflects.

Recounting the notable breakthroughs in the evolution of CAD, Peddie points out "The transition from 2D to 3D was easy to say, but difficult to do. We had to basically abandon the old processes and start all over. People resisted that."

When the menu-driven Windows UI became the norm, Autodesk began introducing dynamic inputs and menus in AutoCAD, resulting in the classic command line becoming less prominent. The change upset many users at the time. Peddie admits with a chuckle, "I was one of those people who were unhappy about it." But in retrospect, he says the change was the right decision. "When computers were limited in memory, command line was how you got things done. You had to explicitly tell the computer to do this or that, and you had to say it as briefly as possible," he remembers. 

But the infusion of AI and natural language is about to change CAD UIs further. Peddie says, "In fact, it can be done today. If you want a line connecting A and B, you'll just say, give me a line from A to B, and that line will appear, and it'll be perfect." 

In the late 2000s, programs such as SketchUp and SpaceClaim introduced direct modeling, a method that allows you to push and pull on surfaces and features. The novel approach was a threat to the traditional parametric or history-based modeling. Peddie remembers the battle of these two camps. "The proponents of each approach thought they had the right idea. Also, they were fiercely competitive, so not only did they think they had the right idea, but they had to convince everybody else they had the right idea," he says.

He quips, "We grew up with the people who are running these major corporations today, so there're long standing relationships and histories and stories and stories that should or shouldn't be told."

The book is available for purchase at JPR's website.