The ability to use a computer to fully map out product or building plans was an effect of the microchip revolution. CAD (Computer Aided Design) completely changed the design process for almost all industries, making it easier and simpler to plan, refine, and optimize product designs of almost any size.
The initial development of the CAD system began in the late 1950s, when Dr. Patrick Hanratty helped to design, first a system called PRONTO, a pioneering numerical programming tool, and then the DAC (Design Automated by Computer) system. This was the first computer graphics package that allowed user interactivity with the designs and was the forerunner to the beginning of the CAD system.
The turning point came in 1963 with the unveiling of the SKETCHPAD system by Ivan Sutherland (b. 1938). Developed in the United States at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the first time the computer program allowed the user to draw on the computer screen using a "light pen." Sutherland's system allowed the drawn object to be edited and the view zoom changed, and the design could even be saved to computer memory for future use. He published his invention in his PhD thesis to critical acclaim.
It is generally acknowledged that Sutherland's work was the first of many CAD systems, and the starting point of the industry. Innovations of the basic premise came fast, and by the end of the 1960s the first large-scale commercial applications were being worked up. The technology continued to evolve with the rise of computers, with the industry standard AutoCAD released in the 1980s, eventually with 3D design in Parasolid, and ACIS by the 1990s, both of which are still available today.
