A significant anniversary for computer-aided design (CAD) passed in 2013, without much notice in the architectural world. In 1963 Ivan Sutherland, then a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), submitted his thesis on the 'Sketchpad' system, one of the most influential doctoral dissertations ever presented. With additional developments by Timothy Johnson and others, Sketchpad contained in embryo most of the features of CAD systems as they have developed over the intervening 50 years. It had the first ever graphical user interface. It allowed both 2D drafting and 3D modelling of designs - the latter displayed not just in wireframe, but with hidden lines removed. It allowed simulation of the performance of designs, for example calculations of the behaviour of engineering structures, or predictions of flows of current through electrical circuits. And Sketchpad was also linked directly to MIT's numerically controlled milling machines in the world's first integrated CAD/CAM system.
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