Application of Computer Aided Design

There are several CAD software applications. Several of them along with their respective vendors are listed here:

CAD Applications                    Scanner Vendor: Desktop

AlphaCAM                               Canon

Ashlar Vellum                            Epson

AutoCAD                                  Hewlett Packard

CATIA/CADCAM                         UMAX

CAD Applications                    Scanner Vendor: Large Format

Eagle point                               Action Imaging

FastCAD                                 Contex

Pro/E                                      Xerox

FelixCAD                                   Kip

IntelliCAD                                 Ricoh

MasterCAM                               Vidar

MasterStation                           Widecom

There are several more applications not listed in the list specified above.

These applications replicate the old drafting panel as a means to illustrate and create designs. As Computer-Aided-Design applications run on computers they give a great deal more functionality than a drafting board and a great deal more difficulty. The text and lines created in Computer-Aided-Design are vectors. It means that their shapes and positions are explained in mathematical terms. These vectors are stored on computer systems in Computer-Aided-Design files.

There are a great many diverse file formats for Computer-Aided-Design. Most Computer-Aided-Design applications produce their own proprietary file format. The Computer-Aided-Design applications from Auto-Desk Inc. are utilized widely. As a consequence their DWG format is very general. Some other Computer-Aided-Design applications from the other vendors can generate and open DWG files, and also their own proprietary formats. Computer-Aided-Design data is frequently exchanged using DXF format.

Note:   The DWG file format is a computer-aided-design vector format developed through the Autodesk and created through their Auto-CAD application. DXF is also a computer-aided-design vector format. This is designed to permit the exchange of vector information between various CAD applications. Most computer-aided-design applications can save to and read from DXF format.

When computer-aided-design drawings are sent to printers the format usually used is HPGL. HPGL files usually have the extension .plt.

Note: The HPGL file format is a vector format developed through Hewlett Packard for driving plotters. The file extensions used comprise: .plt, .hpg, .hp2, .pl2 and occasionally .prn. Conversely, the use of the .prn extension is not an absolute indicator which the file comprises HPGL code. They are frequently referred to as 'plot files'. Trix Systems gives some options for handling HPGL and the later HPGL2 file formats.