Computer-Aided Design International Yearbook 1985

66 Pages·19.293 MB·English

by  Alison Smith (Eds.)

Editor Contents
Alison Smith .
Managing Editor
Amanda Harper
2 Introduction
Publishing Director
C J Rawlins 4 Computers in design decision-making
T W Maver
Thanks are also due to Joanna Wexler for
8 The CAD industry today
her work on the first edition of the yearbook.
D Palframan
Publishers, Editorial, Advertisement, 13 Lattice Logic
Production and Reprint Offices:
K Lawrence
Butterworth Scientific Ltd, PO Box 63,
Westbury House, Bury Street, Guildford, 16 Case study: Piessey in CAD
Surrey GU2 5BH, UK. Tel: [phone] CAD turnkey systems
Tx: 859556 SCITEC G
31 CAD software
All rights reserved. No part of this 44 CAD system components
publication may be reproduced, stored in a
55 CAD services
retrieval system or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, 60 CAD product guide
photocopying, recording or otherwise, 60 Buyers guide
without the written permission of the 62 Advertisers index
Publisher.
62 Further information
This is a special issue of Computer-Aided 63 Calendar
Design\lo\ 16 No 7 December 1984.
Subscription enquiries and orders to:
Quadrant Subscription Services Ltd,
Oakfield House, Perrymount Road,
Haywards Heath, Sussex RH16 3DH, UK
Tel: [phone]
Annual subscription price:
UK and overseas: £115.00, single copies:
£23.00. Personal subscription price (mailed
to home address) £25.00. Prices include
packing and delivery by seamail overseas.
Airmail prices available on request. Copies
of this journal sent to Canada and USA are
air-speeded for quicker delivery at no extra
cost. Subscription price $230.00. Single
copies $46.00. Personal subscription price
(mailed to home address) $50.00. Second
class postage paid at New York, NY, USA.
Us Mailing Agents: Expediters of the Printed
Word Ltd, 527 Madison Avenue, Suite 1217,
New York, NY 10022, USA. Postmaster send
all address corrections to c/o Expeditors of
the Printed Word Limited.
ISSN 0010-4485 ISBN 0 408 25554 4
Back issues prior to the current volume are
available from: Wm Dawson and Sons Ltd,
Cannon House, Folkestone, Kent CT19 5EE,
UK. Tel: [phone].
Microform copies and reprints are available
from UMI, 300 N Zeeb Rd, Ann Arbor,
Ml 48106, USA and 30/32 Mortimer St,
London, UK.
CADA5 16(7) 1-64 (1984)
© 1984 Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd
Typeset by MC Typeset, Chatham,
Kent, UK
Printed by Grosvenor Press Ltd, Portsmouth
P06 3TG
FRONT COVER Picture Courtesy of Tektronix Information Display Group
CAD International Yearbook 1985 1
Editor Contents
Alison Smith .
Managing Editor
Amanda Harper
2 Introduction
Publishing Director
C J Rawlins 4 Computers in design decision-making
T W Maver
Thanks are also due to Joanna Wexler for
8 The CAD industry today
her work on the first edition of the yearbook.
D Palframan
Publishers, Editorial, Advertisement, 13 Lattice Logic
Production and Reprint Offices:
K Lawrence
Butterworth Scientific Ltd, PO Box 63,
Westbury House, Bury Street, Guildford, 16 Case study: Piessey in CAD
Surrey GU2 5BH, UK. Tel: [phone] CAD turnkey systems
Tx: 859556 SCITEC G
31 CAD software
All rights reserved. No part of this 44 CAD system components
publication may be reproduced, stored in a
55 CAD services
retrieval system or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, 60 CAD product guide
photocopying, recording or otherwise, 60 Buyers guide
without the written permission of the 62 Advertisers index
Publisher.
62 Further information
This is a special issue of Computer-Aided 63 Calendar
Design\lo\ 16 No 7 December 1984.
Subscription enquiries and orders to:
Quadrant Subscription Services Ltd,
Oakfield House, Perrymount Road,
Haywards Heath, Sussex RH16 3DH, UK
Tel: [phone]
Annual subscription price:
UK and overseas: £115.00, single copies:
£23.00. Personal subscription price (mailed
to home address) £25.00. Prices include
packing and delivery by seamail overseas.
Airmail prices available on request. Copies
of this journal sent to Canada and USA are
air-speeded for quicker delivery at no extra
cost. Subscription price $230.00. Single
copies $46.00. Personal subscription price
(mailed to home address) $50.00. Second
class postage paid at New York, NY, USA.
Us Mailing Agents: Expediters of the Printed
Word Ltd, 527 Madison Avenue, Suite 1217,
New York, NY 10022, USA. Postmaster send
all address corrections to c/o Expeditors of
the Printed Word Limited.
ISSN 0010-4485 ISBN 0 408 25554 4
Back issues prior to the current volume are
available from: Wm Dawson and Sons Ltd,
Cannon House, Folkestone, Kent CT19 5EE,
UK. Tel: [phone].
Microform copies and reprints are available
from UMI, 300 N Zeeb Rd, Ann Arbor,
Ml 48106, USA and 30/32 Mortimer St,
London, UK.
CADA5 16(7) 1-64 (1984)
© 1984 Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd
Typeset by MC Typeset, Chatham,
Kent, UK
Printed by Grosvenor Press Ltd, Portsmouth
P06 3TG
FRONT COVER Picture Courtesy of Tektronix Information Display Group
CAD International Yearbook 1985 1
Introduction
The CAD International Yearbook 1985 covers the developments and trends in
computer-aided design for user and vendor alike.
It assesses the role of the computer in making design decisions and surveys the current
CAD industry. There is a run-down of the latest aquisitions of companies in the field, and a
survey of the major firms currently working in CAD.
The main part of the yearbook is taken up by a directory of products and manufacturers
of CAD equipment. This has grown out of the many requests we receive a tthis office for a
list of suppliers of CAD hardware, software, systems and services. It is mor ethan just a list
of company names and addresses, however. It aims to be a handy source book, to give
the user some idea of where to go for help to ge sttarted, for a first system or just the odd
piece of equipment.
Most information has been culled from questionnaires sent out to all and sundry, with
blunt questions like 'What makes your system differen tfrom all the others?'. Where
questionnaires have not been returned, we have attempted to compile entries from the
published literature, mainly the news pages o fComputer-Aided Design journal. If there are
any glaring omissions, and we don't claim this directory to be exhaustive, please let us
know and next year's edition will be even better.
Entries are organized alphabetically by vendor and are grouped under four.headings:
turnkey systems, software, system components and services. Many vendors appear in
more than one section and if they do, the other entries are cross-referenced back to the
first mention. There are also lists of useful addresses and product indexes. To be
equitable on space/some entries have been condensed to include say only selections
from the bottom end and top end of a range.
Descriptions printed herein are largely the vendor's own, edited for consistency.
Please check the quoted prices with the vendors, there are often discounts to be had!
But watch out for hidden extras. And remember, i fyou want to see any of these systems
Ίη the flesh', visit CAD85 Exhibition, 26-28 March 1985 at the Brighton Metropole,
Brighton, UK, and if you want to learn which system to use come to CAD85 conference
'CAD User: the computer-aided engineering workstation' on 27th March at the same
venue.
CAD International Yearbook 1985
Computers in design decision-making
T W Maver
The single most important step in the ascent of man, engine, the internal combustion engine, rocket power and
according to Bronowski, was the production, some 30 000 currently nuclear power. The second major stage was
years ago, of the Lascaux cave paintings; their purpose, he concerned with the 'amplification of the senses', first with the
believes, was to allow the young men of the tribe to simple telescope and microscope, subsequently with the
anticipate, and thus be the better able to cope with, the radio telescope and the electron microscope. The third and
future reality of the hunt. Much later - around 5,000 years by far and away the most important stage is occurring now
ago - man developed the skills to model, with plan and and is concerned with the 'amplification of the intellect'.
elevation, design intentions for his habitat. The plan and Needless to say, this capacity for amplification would be
elevation have been with us, in almost unchanged form, ever useless if mankind did not already possess some capacity
since. Only during the past decade, however, have we seen for physical power, some degree of sensory perception and,
the emergence of a new generation of design models - of course, a modicum of intellect.
dynamic rather than static, predictive rather than descrip Tracing the development·of CAD during the past decade
tive, computer based rather than paper based. is fairly easy. One can turn, for instance, to the proceedings
Whatever the prospects and problems presented by CAD, of conference series devoted exclusively to the topic. One
its emergence has usefully focused renewed attention on such series, sponsored by the journal Computer Aided
that most complex of decision-making activities - design, ie Design, has featured conferences every two years from
making explicit proposals for a change from an existing 1974. The 1984 conference was attended by some 600
state to some future state which more closely approximates delegates, with visitors to the associated exhibition of CAD
to the ideal. Ackoff has identified the necessary and systems.
sufficient conditions of the ideal state: plenty (through Within the broad area of mechanical engineering there is
resource management and husbandry), knowledge enormous scope for CAD. Applications include the study of
(through education and training), good (the removal of rotating machines, linkage mechanisms and pressure ves
conflict through consensus) and beauty (the stimulation of sel design. The numerical control of machine tools by data
an expanding set of desires). These conditions may yet generated during CAD operations has led to the concept of
serve as the dimensions on which we measure the success CAD/CAM - that is, computer-aided design and manufac
of our design aspirations. ture. This concept, stimulated by developments in robotics,
There is some agreement among observers of the design has led in turn to the study of flexible manufacturing systems
activity as to the thinking processes which take place. (FMS), seen as vital to the industrial regeneration of
"Analysis" is the process of collecting, collating and correlat developed countries.
ing the information relevant to the design problem; "synth In structural engineering, computers have provided the
esis" is the process of hypothesizing (that is, generating or capability of applying finite element methods of stress
creating) a formal solution to the design problem; and analysis to structures of any complexity: buildings, bridges,
"appraisal" is the process of testing and evaluating that dams, ship hulfs, car bodies, air frames and many other
solution against cost and performance criteria. These structural systems. In aeronautics and naval architecture,
processes operate cyclically at a variety of levels of scale computers aid in the design, and carry out the real-time
and detail as the design idea takes shape. This complexity, control, of navigation and guidance systems.
and the idiosyncratic ways in which designers respond to it, In electrical and electronic engineering the application of
proved too much for both the so-called first and second CAD to power supply and distribution systems and to
generations of design methods, the former rooted in the electric motors is somewhat overshadowed by the enor
traditions of mathematical optimization, the latter in the mous growth in the computer-aided design of circuitry. The
social science of the 1960s. very large scale integration (VLSI) techniques for micro
To understand the importance of computers to design processor circuitry exemplify the use of computers in the
decision-making it is helpful to look for historical precedents design of computers.
in the evolutionary stages in the development of man's Research and development work in CAD addresses the
control over his environment. The first major stage in the three main features common to virtually all CAD applica
exercise of this control was concerned with the 'amplification tions: databases and database management systems;
of physical power' first through simple tools, then the steam computational methods; and interactive graphics. The rela
tionship of these three areas can best be illustrated in the
Reprinted with permission from 'Digital Drawing Boards', The Times 'Higher context of computer-aided architectural design (CAAD). To
Education Supplement, 23 March 1984 use a CAAD system the architect needs to input a design
4 CAD International Yearbook 1985
ψ
TheTurnkey System 9000 from VG
Performance of a vector system
with a raster device
Big System Software
• Runs Standard IBM Compilers and Utilities
• Runs Application Software Developed For IBM VM/CMS
• Runs Full CADAM and Other High-performance CAD/CAM & CAE Software
• Supports Either VG 9250 or VG 8250 Display Stations
VG Systems Limited European Offices: • Cologne
• Copenhagen
• Rotterdam
Imperial Life House, London Road, Guildford, Surrey GU11TE.
Tel: [phone] Telex: 859128 VECGEN G and off ices worldwide
hypothesis. The obvious way to represent a building layout tent. At the conceptual stage in design, many more design
is to draw it, and this calls for a sophisticated graphics alternatives will be explored and each will be tested with
interface that can provide the same facility which the greater rigour. This will have the effect of accelerating
architect would enjoy at the drawing board. Once the design innovatory design at the frontier of technological feasibility.
hypothesis is entered, the prediction of its cost and This new capability will bring about powershifts at individual
performance attributes requires a range of complex com and institutional level: for consultant and Chartered Institu
putations concerned with thermal energy flows, lighting tion, the information technology revolution holds the same
levels, movement simulation, structural stability, capital promise as did the industrial revolution for craftsman and
expenditure, recurring expenditure, and so on. The com Trade Guild.
putation draws on data on climate, fuel tariffs, material costs, The implications for education are no less significant.
physical properties, and so on. Output from the program Access to CAD systems holds the promise of an education
should be as user-oriented as the input, making full use of which is much more geared to case study and project-
graphs, histograms and charts as well as representing the based learning. Design may emerge as the intellectual
design in plan, elevation and of course in perspective. The discipline common to all branches of engineering and
whole system must be capable of responding to the technology. Some students will opt to study the design of
dynamics of the architect's search for that design which design aids, and this is likely to develop as an important
offers the best ratio of performance to cost. postgraduate field.
During the past decade CAD systems have developed Design, in its most general educational sense, where it is
dramatically; during the next decade the development will equated with science and the humanities, is concerned with
accelerate. One can anticipate the further incorporation of the configuration, composition, meaning, value and purpose
logic theory in the form of fuzzy sets, the development of in the designed environment as opposed to the natural one.
natural language query systems, and the emergence of Whereas the essential mode of communication in science is
fifth-generation 'expert systems' embodying designer exper mathematics and in the humanities is language, the essen
tise. The implications of these developments - for design tial mode of communication in design is modelling - through
practice and for design education - are worth anticipating. drawings, physical analogues and, above all, through CAD
Design practice will become significantly more compe software.
6 CAD International Yearbook 1985
ψ
The 9250 Graphics
System from VG
x
► To Other VG 9250s or VG 8250s
Coaxial Network
Channel
Data
Monitor
Comm
Unit Raster
MCDU or Display
CDCU Control
Station
Host RDCS
CPU
Function
Digitizer Tablet Light Pen Keyboard
Keyboard
The VG 9250 is designed for high-end High Resolution Color Raster Display
CAD/CAM engineering functions using 1024 x 1024 Pixel Array
CADAM® and similar sophisticated software. 60 Hz Non-Interlace Refresh
Like VG Systems' popular VG 8250 vector Wide Color Range: 16 Simultaneous Colors
display system, the VG 9250 emulates the out or 4096-Color Palette, or 256
IBM 3250 and can operate with any IBM- Simultaneous Colors out of 16-Million-Color
compatible computer. The two VG systems Palette
can be intermixed on the same
communications network and can share the
same control unit.
VG Systems Limited European Offices: · Cologne
• Copenhagen
• Rotterdam
Imperial Life House, London Road, Guildford, Surrey GU11TE.
Tel: [phone] Telex: 859128 VECGEN G and offices worldwide
The CAD industry today
Diane Palframan
There have been some radical changes in the computer- in a share deal said to be worth £10 million.
aided design (CAD) industry since the beginning of 1983: The deal raised a few quizzical eyebrows. Although CIS
had cash flow problems, Prime Computer was the most
• Many companies have changed hands. Mostly they have likely company to bail it out. The US minicomputer manufac
gone from UK to US ownership. (In contrast, in the turer had exclusive marketing rights to CIS's CAD system,
previous two years US industrial giants were battling for Medusa, for everywhere except Western Europe. But
some of the leading US CAD companies.) Prime's bid failed. Early this year Prime and Computervision
• Applications software has become more adventurous. In sorted out the Medusa marketing tangle and agreed to
engineering, companies now talk not merely of CAD but market different versions of Medusa.
of computer-aided design and manufacture (CADCAM), The ink had barely dried on the CIS takeover deal when it
and of computer-integrated manufacture (CIM) - the was announced that Compeda, the British Technology
linking together of many different disciplines such as Group's CAD subsidiary, had been sold to Prime. On this
drafting, analysis, modelling, numerical control, costing occasion Prime pipped Computervision to the post.
and scheduling. The electronics industry too has coined The BTG (British Technology Group) had precipitated
its own buzz word, computer-aided engineering (CAE), Compeda's sale by giving the entire staff notice in October
for the design, simulation and layout of an integrated 1982. It explained that Compeda had been losing a lot of
circuit. money, that it had been allowed to over-expand and
• The variety of CAD systems configurations has soared, become over-ambitious. Compeda had in fact been trying to
as the power of computers has increased and prices sell a major stake in thé company for around £10 million for
have remained static or, in some cases, fallen. They now part of 1981 and the whole of 1982. It was too much to hope
range from the £2 000 microcomputer-based drafting for.
product to the £500 000 mainframe-based design sys When the BTG finally pulled the plug many companies
tem. In between are the multi-user systems based on saw an opportunity to buy Compeda at à knock-down price.
minicomputers and the increasingly popular stand-alone Most were after a package of programs called PDMS (plant
workstation products. design management system) which belonged, not to Com
peda or the BTG, but to the Secretary of State for Industry.
At the same time the market growth has been less than The (then) Department of Industry (Dol) which had been
expected. It slowed to about 33 per cent in 1982 and stayed vetting bidders along with the BTG was prepared to sell
about the same in 1983, but there were many more Compeda to Computervision but at the eleventh hour the
companies competing for the business. Vendors have had deal was halted.
to fight to win orders and maintain their market share. As a Isopipe, a small Nottingham-based company and one of
result margin's were often pared to the bone and inevitably the developers of PDMS, took out a High Court writ and
some companies have failed or been taken over. stopped the Industry Secretary selling Compeda to Com-
They didn't go down without a shout however. Before putervision. A week later a deal was signed with Prime which
1982, the industry had witnessed the multi-million dollar was seen as a much more palatable alternative. Prime is
deals of General Electric of the USA and Schlumberger said to have paid £1 million for Compeda but it did not get
which created hardly a ripple of controversy (at least the intellectual property rights to PDMS. They stay in Britain
publicly). General Electric enveloped one of the major US and the CAD Centre in Cambridge has first refusal on any
turnkey Companys, Calma, and the US software house, development work on PDMS. (The Centre helped to develop
Structural Dynamics Research Corporation, in its bid to lead PDMS originally.)
the world in factory automation. Similarly Schlumberger Once the BTG had washed its hands of Compeda, all
bought Applicon, another leading US turnkey systems hopes of presenting a united British front in CAD were
company, as well as MDSI, a US CAM company, and dashed. The idea, until October 1982, had been to merge
Benson, the French plotter manufacturer. the CAD interests of Compeda, Quest Automation and Racal
Developments in the UK (with some financial incentive from the Dol).
When the talks failed Quest was also left foundering. The
The shake-out of the UK CAD industry, which has occurred company's main business was in printed circuit board
since the end of 1982, was not on this financial scale but it design systems and photoplotters, but it had failed to win
was a much more lively affair. It started at the close of 1982 many orders in the UK, or anywhere else in the west. Its
with the takeover of Cambridge Interactive Systems (CIS) by major market was Eastern Europe. Early in 1983 the Arab
the world's leading turnkey CAD supplier, Computervision, Research and Development Trust sank £2 million into the
8 CAD International Yearbook 1985
-y
■0^ - .. fZU?/-
tes/ '**** -JF'ïitS?'
•^
Sigmex grew up with
amputer Graphics
Now we have a whole
generation to choose from.
^L# Just 10 years ago a new industry was born. new capabilities for CAD/CAM, Image Processing,
During the formative years, Sigmex was one Molecular Modelling, Simulation, Cartography and
who nurtured the infant along it's first faltering steps, Finite Element Analysis. Utilizing upto 8 Mbytes of
through a difficult, often exerting adolescence until local memory, a 24 bit image mode and high or ultra
now, when a strong, confident, mature youngster is high resolution monochrOme or colour displays, the
making rfs true mark on the world. 6100 family is fully interactive with a range of
Sigmex has worked on the industry's peripheral devices.
development Pushing harder, stretching capabilities, Local functions include 2D transformations,
improving techniques—and setting new standards! segment store, dragging, software zoom and hard
"mere is no substitute for experience and the copy output
Sigmex team has that—and talent—in abundance. For anyone adopting a 6100 system there is also
An expertise which few can equal anywhere in DEC vT- 100β/ΤΈΚ4014(!> emulation and GKS software,
Europe as our European offices can testify. development aids and third party application
Now, a new generation of Computer Graphics packages exist for the whole family too.
Display Systems have arrived. The new generation is here today, and Sigmex
The Sigmex 6100 series. are proud of their achievement so take a look
A range of intelligent terminals that provide 6100 series—rfs a generation ahead.
sicmEx
i
Sigmex Ltd, Sigma House North Heath Lane Horsh^W. Sussex RH124U7 England. Td^
OVERSEAS SUBSWARYS
SIGMEX GmbH, Freischutzstiaee 94,8 München 81, West Germany. Tei. No. [phone] Telex 5214262 SIGMEX SA. Bat Evolic H, Za de Courlaboef, Ave du Quebec 91946 Les Ulis Cedex, Paris
France. Tel. No. (6) 4460309 Telex 690267 SIGMEX BV, Vendelier 15/17, Postbus 338,3900 AH Veenendaal. Nederland. Tel. No. (8385) 26226 Telex 37002.
TEK 4104" is a trademark of Tektronks Inc. DEC VT-100' is a trademark of the Digital Equipment Corporation.
CAD business of Quest in return for a controlling interest in interests. Graftek has developed much of its own software,
that business. Quest CAE was set up but it continued to although it is built around a solid geometric modeller from
make a loss. Sales it expected from the Arab world never the UK Cambridge company Shape Data. But the Gould bid
materialised and Quest CAE issued writs against two did not succeed.
companies controlled by the Trust, alleging that they had not Instead Graftek, which made a loss on revenues of $6.5
paid for products they had received. A board room million in the year to the end of June 1983, fell to Burroughs.
shake-up followed and in August Quest CAE went into It is Burroughs' first major move into CAD, although to date
receivership. Graftek has continued to operate autonomously.
A month later Marconi Instruments, the £50 million
subsidiary of GEC, acquired the assets of Quest CAE for Trends towards third party software
about £3 million. Under its wing and management Quest had
Gould has since adopted a different approach to CAD. It has
survived. Its products are also being given added appeal by
decided to enter the market with third party solids modelling
linking them to Marconi's automatic test equipment.
and drafting software. The programs have been developed
The final upheaval in the British CAD industry last year
by Vulcan, a small Californian company, and licensed by
was the sale of the CAD Centre, the government-owned
Gould on a non-exclusive basis. The company expects
software development facility. It too had a chequered
15-20 per cent of Gould SEL's revenues to come from CAD
history. It never made any money in its 14 years under the
in 1985 compared with 6 per cent at present.
Department of Industry and in early 1982 the Dol officially
Many other companies have also tried to increase their
announced that the Centre was up for sale.
appeal in the past 18 months by offering third party software.
There was considerable interest from domestic and
It is a trend which is likely to continue as CAD vendors and
foreign companies in acquiring the Centre. Prime and
computer manufacturers recognise that there is little point in
Computervision were two parties which wanted part (or all)
reinventing the wheel. Developing software is time-
of the Centre. But the Dol sold the Centre to a mostly British
consuming and expensive, and with the exception of the
consortium in April last year. In doing so it avoided most of
resource-rich conglomerates such as General Electric and
the indignation which followed the sale of Compeda to a US
Schlumberger, companies cannot afford to write programs
company.
for every task within a variety of applications.
ICL, Britain's largest computer company, has the biggest
single shareholding in the CAD Centre - 40 per cent. The Integration - a major growth area
French-owned computer bureau, SIA, has 30 per cent;
consulting engineers WS Atkins has 15 per cent as does The CAD industry has also been spurred on by CAD users.
Cambridge University (split between St John's and Trinity Increasingly they want to buy as much of their kit as possible
Colleges). from one company. In theory this makes the support function
They bought the Centre for a mere £1 million and said at easier - there is only one company responsible for the
the time that it would take about three years to turn it into a maintenance and upkeep of the system. There is also more
profitable organisation. The CAD Centre, which operates chance of a customer ending up with a linked (if not
autonomously of its owners, is now aiming to develop integrated) system, rather than what are now generally
state-of-the-art software for very narrow applications - referred to as 'islands of automation'.
predominantly the process plant industry and manufactur More lip service has probably been paid to integration
ing. since the beginning of 1982 than any other topic in CAD. For
CAD vendors supplying the mechanical engineering indus
Struggles for market share in the USA
try it has been an era of computer-integrated manufacture
Loss-making however has not been a prerogative of UK (CIM). Every sizeable company in CAD has claimed to be
CAD companies. Many in the USA, including some of the working on an integrated system which would combine
major turnkey vendors, have been struggling to turn in a design, analysis, drafting, computer numerical control,
profit in the past 18 months. This has not altered the league costing, scheduling and planning. Few came up with the
table of turnkey systems suppliers. The top companies in goods, although a lot of companies increased their software
terms of sales are still Computervision, IBM, Intergraph, offerings.
Calma, Applicon, McAuto and Auto-trol, which are estimated Of the computer manufacturers, Prime has been rapidly
to account for over 80 per cent of the market. boosting its CAD product range for mechanical engineering.
Further down the league some companies have not fared Following the purchase of Compeda, which gave it the
so well. It is estimated that there were over 100 new marketing (but not development) rights to several British
companies entering the CAD business in 1982, many of software packages, Prime also negotiated exclusive market
them US start-ups, backed by US venture capital. Some of ing rights to Ford's drafting software called PDGS. It then
these failed. added a process planning system developed by a small
Yet there has only been one takeover of any note in the US British software house called Logan Associates.
since the beginning of 1982. This was the acquisition this Hewlett Packard decided to build its system on the basis
year of Graftek by the US computer manufacturer, Bur of Shape Data's solid modeller, Romulus. The software will
roughs. Graftek, a four-year-old company based in Colora be mounted on its powerful 32-bit work station, the HP 9000,
do, was originally being wooed by Gould, the US electronic and eventually integrated with its current packages for
company, but the two companies could not agree on a drafting, numerical control and finite element analysis.
purchase price for Graftek and talks were broken off last Both Digital Equipment and Data General signed agree
year. ments with Impeli Corporation, the European distributors of
Gould and Graftek would have been ideal partners. Anvil 4000, a CAD software package originating from
Graftek's CAD system is based on Gould SEL's 32 bit Manufacturing and Consulting Services in the US. (MCS's
minicomputer (as well as Digital Equipment's VAX) and president is Pat Hanratty, a pioneer in CAD software
Gould was eager to strengthen its engineering software development.) Under the terms of the agreements with
10 CAD International Yearbook 1985