Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing. Designs made through CAD software are helpful in protecting products and inventions when used in patent applications. CAD output is often in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations. The terms computer-aided drafting (CAD) and computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) are also used.
CATIA is a multi-platform software suite for computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), computer-aided engineering (CAE), 3D modeling and product lifecycle management (PLM), developed by the French company Dassault Systèmes.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. The museum was inaugurated on 18 October 1997 by King Juan Carlos I of Spain, with an exhibition of 250 contemporary works of art. Built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Cantabrian Sea, it is one of several museums belonging to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and features permanent and visiting exhibits of works by Spanish and international artists. It is one of the largest museums in Spain.
Dassault Systèmes SE is a French Fortune 50 multinational software corporation which develops software for 3D product design, simulation, manufacturing and other 3D related products.
Creo Parametric, formerly known, together with Creo Elements/Pro, as Pro/Engineer and Wildfire, is a solid modeling or CAD, CAM, CAE, and associative 3D modeling application, running on Microsoft Windows.
Autodesk Alias is a family of computer-aided industrial design (CAID) software predominantly used in automotive design and industrial design for generating class A surfaces using Bézier surface and non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) modeling method.
SolidWorks is a solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) application published by Dassault Systèmes.
Computer Aided Industrial Design (CAID) is a subset of computer-aided design (CAD) software that can assist in creating the look-and-feel or industrial design aspects of a product in development.
Blobitecture, blobism and blobismus are terms for a movement in architecture in which buildings have an organic, amoeba-shaped, building form. Though the term blob architecture was in vogue already in the mid-1990s, the word blobitecture first appeared in print in 2002, in William Safire's "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine in an article entitled "Defenestration". Though intended in the article to have a derogatory meaning, the word stuck and is often used to describe buildings with curved and rounded shapes.
Computer-aided architectural design (CAAD) software programs are the repository of accurate and comprehensive records of buildings and are used by architects and architectural companies for architectural design and architectural engineering. As the latter often involve floor plan designs CAAD software greatly simplifies this task.
In automotive design, a class A surface is any of a set of freeform surfaces of high efficiency and quality. Although, strictly, it is nothing more than saying the surfaces have curvature and tangency alignment – to ideal aesthetical reflection quality, many people interpret class A surfaces to have G2 curvature continuity to one another.
Product and manufacturing information, also abbreviated PMI, conveys non-geometric attributes in 3D computer-aided design (CAD) and Collaborative Product Development systems necessary for manufacturing product components and assemblies. PMI may include geometric dimensions and tolerances, 3D annotation (text) and dimensions, surface finish, and material specifications. PMI is used in conjunction with the 3D model within model-based definition to allow for the elimination of 2D drawings for data set utilization.
Knowledge-based engineering (KBE) is the application of knowledge-based systems technology to the domain of manufacturing design and production. The design process is inherently a knowledge-intensive activity, so a great deal of the emphasis for KBE is on the use of knowledge-based technology to support computer-aided design (CAD) however knowledge-based techniques can be applied to the entire product lifecycle.
Rhinoceros is a commercial 3D computer graphics and computer-aided design (CAD) application software that was developed by Robert McNeel & Associates, an American, privately held, and employee-owned company that was founded in 1978. Rhinoceros geometry is based on the NURBS mathematical model, which focuses on producing mathematically precise representation of curves and freeform surfaces in computer graphics.
Ashlar-Vellum, a dba of Ashlar Incorporated, is a developer of Computer-aided design (CAD) and 3D modeling software for both the Macintosh and Microsoft Windows platforms. Ashlar-Vellum's interface, designed in 1988 by Dr. Martin Newell and Dan Fitzpatrick, featured an automated Drafting Assistant that found useful points in the geometry and allowed the artist to quickly connect to locations like the "midpoint" or "tangent".
The table below provides an overview of notable computer-aided design (CAD) software. It does not judge power, ease of use, or other user-experience aspects. The table does not include software that is still in development. For all-purpose 3D programs, see Comparison of 3D computer graphics software. CAD refers to a specific type of drawing and modelling software application that is used for creating designs and technical drawings. These can be 3D drawings or 2D drawings.
NX, formerly known as "unigraphics", is an advanced high-end CAD/CAM/CAE, which has been owned since 2007 by Siemens Digital Industries Software. In 2000, Unigraphics purchased SDRC I-DEAS and began an effort to integrate aspects of both software packages into a single product which became Unigraphics NX or NX.
Parametric design is a design method in which features, such as building elements and engineering components, are shaped based on algorithmic processes rather than direct manipulation. In this approach, parameters and rules establish the relationship between design intent and design response. The term parametric refers to the input parameters that are fed into the algorithms.
ICEM Surf is a computer-aided industrial design software used for creating 3D digital surfaces for automotive design and industrial design. This software is used to create class A surfaces using the Bézier surface modeling method. ICEMSurf was later purchased by Dassault Systemes. Its similar rival is Autodesk Alias.
Designers have used computers for calculations since their invention. Digital computers were used in power system analysis or optimization as early as proto-"Whirlwind" in 1949. Circuit design theory or power network methodology was algebraic, symbolic, and often vector-based.
