For as long as there have been projects, planning has always been a crucial step. Back in the 1970s, this meant that project designers sat at their drafting table with their blueprints and precision equipment. However, as technology began to evolve and make its way throughout society, project design naturally took on new shapes.
In the 1980s, this shape was large and bulky due to the release of the Dimension III Systems, the first CAD-compatible computer. This hardware had a hefty $100,000 price tag, but also gave access to the first CAD program PADL-2. Being the first of its kind, PADL-2 became revolutionary for the project design industry.
Just a decade and a half later, there were already many revisions of both the Dimension III hardware and the PADL-2 CAD software. Silicon Graphics Inc. released their Indigo2 Impact R10000 which was a much more compact and user-friendly model, compared to the original Dimension III Systems. They also reinvented CAD software with their PTC Pro/ENGINEER, which features rule-based constraints and made modeling with it much more intuitive for the user.
Around this time, Acer also released the Aspire (575LB), which had the unique ability to run the most popular operating systems. Previously, the Dimension III and Indigo2 hardware’s ran their own proprietary operating systems, which had to be learned by each user. However, because the Aspire ran on Windows 95 and Linux, picking up this model was much more familiar.
Alongside this model was the companion CAD software SOLIDWORKS 95. Because this software was created to run on Windows 95 and Linux, users did not need specialized hardware to run SOLIDWORKS software. This made it incredibly accessible and exploded the popularity of this CAD software.
Around 30 years later, the next innovation in CAD project design is coming to fruition. SOLIDWORKS and other CAD programs have begun to implement AI to assist users during the project design process. It can be more passively helpful by answering queries or more active by providing predictive assistance in real-time. Ultimately, if you want to harness the future of CAD for your project, taking advantage of AI is the best way to get ahead.
Source: SolidWorks
