HISTORY OF PRO ENGINEER (Pro E)

Creo Elements/Pro (formerly Pro/ENGINEER), PTC's parametric, integrated 3D CAD/CAM/CAE solution, is used by discrete manufacturers for mechanical engineering, design and manufacturing.

Created by Dr. Samuel P. Geisberg in the mid-1980s, Pro/ENGINEER was the industry's first successful rule-based constraint (sometimes called "parametric" or "variational") 3D CAD modeling system. The parametric modeling approach uses parameters, dimensions, features, and relationships to capture intended product behavior and create a recipe which enables design automation and the optimization of design and product development processes. This design approach is used by companies whose product strategy is family-based or platform-driven, where a prescriptive design strategy is fundamental to the success of the design process by embedding engineering constraints and relationships to quickly optimize the design, or where the resulting geometry may be complex or based upon equations. Creo Elements/Pro provides a complete set of design, analysis and manufacturing capabilities on one, integral, scalable platform. These required capabilities include Solid Modeling, Surfacing, Rendering, Data Interoperability, Routed Systems Design, Simulation, Tolerance Analysis, and NC and Tooling Design.

Companies use Creo Elements/Pro to create a complete 3D digital model of their products. The models consist of 2D and 3D solid model data which can also be used downstream in finite element analysis, rapid prototyping, tooling design, and CNC manufacturing. All data is associative and interchangeable between the CAD, CAE and CAM modules without conversion. A product and its entirebill of materials (BOM) can be modeled accurately with fully associative engineering drawings, and revision control information. The associativity functionality in Creo Elements/Pro enables users to make changes in the design at any time during the product development process and automatically update downstream deliverables. This capability enables concurrent engineering — design, analysis and manufacturing engineers working in parallel — and streamlines product development processes.

Creo Elements/Pro is part of a broader product development system developed by PTC. It connects to PTC’s other solutions that aid product development, including Windchill, ProductView, Mathcadand Arbortext.

AUTOCAD HISTORY

AutoCAD is a CAD software application for 2D and 3D design and drafting. It is developed and sold by Autodesk, Inc. First released in December 1982, AutoCAD was one of the first CAD programs to run on personal computers, notably the IBM PC. At that time, most other CAD programs ran on mainframe computers or mini-computers that were connected to a graphics computer terminal for each user. AutoCAD derived from a program called Interact, which was written in a proprietary language (SPL) and ran on the Marinchip Systems 9900 computer (Marinchip was owned by Autodesk co-founders John Walker and Dan Drake.)

When Marinchip Software Partners (later renamed Autodesk) formed, they decided to re-code Interact in C and PL/1 They chose C because it seemed to be the biggest upcoming language. In the end, the PL/1 version was unsuccessful. The C version was, at the time, one of the most complex programs in that language. Autodesk even had to work with the compiler developer (Lattice) to fix certain limitations to get AutoCAD to run.^[1] Early releases of AutoCAD used primitive entities — lines, polylines, circles, arcs, and text — to construct more complex objects. Since the mid-1990s, AutoCAD has supported custom objects through its C++ Application Programming Interface (API). Modern AutoCAD includes a full set of basic solid modeling and 3D tools. With the release of AutoCAD 2007 came improved 3D modeling, which meant better navigation when working in 3D. Moreover, it became easier to edit 3D models. The mental ray engine was included in rendering, it was now possible to do quality renderings. AutoCAD 2010 introduced parametric functionality and mesh modeling.