PowerCADD is a computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) software program for the Apple Macintosh platform developed from out of the PowerDraw platform of the mid 1980s by Greensboro, North Carolina

Greensboro, North Carolina

Greensboro is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the third-largest city by population in North Carolina and the largest city in Guilford County and the surrounding Piedmont Triad metropolitan region. According to the 2010 U.S...

-based Engineered Software.

PowerCADD is a 2 dimensional

Dimension

In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a space or object is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus a line has a dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it...

, WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...

 drawing program developed mainly to reproduce the familiarity of manual technical drawing

Technical drawing

Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or has to be constructed.Drafting is the language of industry....

 with the advantages of a full geometry tool set (including bezier) and computer graphics, allowing the full mix of line art and raster images. PowerCADD is a full metaphor for the design board, providing an elegant easy to learn and easy to use interface, with the integration of both Imperial and Metric dimensioning in familiar "real world" scales. An add-on tool set, called WildTools, was developed by an independent programmer, bringing a number of new capabilities to the program, including isometric

Isometric projection

Isometric projection is a method for visually representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions in technical and engineering drawings...

 and perspective

Perspective (graphical)

Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...

-drawing tools. Both are available in "demo" form to allow hands-on trial use.

The current shipping version is PowerCADD 9, which was released August 2010. PowerCADD 9 is an Apple Intel Only application. PowerCADD 7 (also still available) is an Apple PowerPC only application.

History

The development of PowerCADD began with PowerDraw, a true CADD alternative to MacDraw

MacDraw

MacDraw was a vector based drawing application released along with the first Apple Macintosh systems in 1984. MacDraw was one of the first WYSIWYG drawing programs that could be used in collaboration with MacWrite. MacDraw was useful for drawing technical diagrams and floorplans...

 that was released in the mid 1980s. The online user group from GEnie

GEnie

GEnie was an online service created by a General Electric business - GEIS that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. In 1994, GEnie claimed around 350,000 users. Peak simultaneous usage was around 10,000 users...

 that participated in outlining the capabilities of the new CADD program were invited to initiate a graphics forum on Applelink

AppleLink

AppleLink was the name of both Apple Computer's online service for its dealers, third party developers, and users, and the client software used to access it. Prior to the commercialization of the Internet, AppleLink was a popular service for Mac and Apple IIGS users...

 Personal Edition in 1987.

Versions

• PowerDraw 1 for the 680x0 Mac, released September 1987
• PowerDraw 2 for the 680x0 Mac
• PowerDraw 3 for the 680x0 Mac
• PowerDraw 4 for the 680x0 Mac
• PowerDraw 5 for the 680x0 Mac
• PowerDraw 6 for the 680x0 Mac and PowerCADD 1 for the PPC Mac OS 7 (then known as Macintosh System 7)
• PowerCADD 2 released October 1995
• PowerCADD 3 released in late 1996
• PowerCADD 4
• PowerCADD 2000 (PowerCADD 5), released May 2000. Major enhancements to text handling and symbol data.
• PowerCADD 6, released May 2003, the first Mac OS X
  Mac OS X
  Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
  
   native version with Aqua interface
  Aqua (user interface)
  Aqua is the GUI and primary visual theme of Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X operating system. It is based around the theme of water, as its name suggests, with droplet-like elements and liberal use of translucency and reflection effects...
  
  .
• PowerCADD 7, released January 2006. Featuring transparent objects and layers, improved DWG/DXF translation, and global management of drawing attributes.
• PowerCADD 8 for Intel based Apple hardware released March 2008 PDF Brochure Link
• PowerCADD 9 for Intel based Apple hardware released August 2010 PDF Brochure Link

External links

• PowerCADD product page at engsw.com
• PowerCADD forum at designcommunity.com
• The Drawing Room at engsw.com, examples of PowerCADD generated drawings
• CADDpower.com an independent site dedicated to professionals who make their living with PowerCADD and the Mac OS
• Italian Distributor ABACUS Sistemi CAD-CAM The official site of Italian distributor
• Evoy & Associates The official site of Canadian distributor