CADCentre

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The Computer-Aided Design Centre (or CADCentre as it was more commonly referred to, and later formally became) was created in Cambridge UK in 1968 by the UK Ministry of Technology (MinTech - later subsumed into the Department of Trade and Industry or DTI) . Its mission - a very far-sighted one at the time, and unusually so for a Government establishment - was to develop computer-aided design techniques and promote their take-up by British industry. Its first director was Arthur Llewelyn. The DTI wisely recognised that it did not have the skills necessary to recruit staff and manage specialist staff so these functions were contracted out to International Computers Ltd.

At its creation it was equipped with an Atlas 2, one of the most advanced and powerful computers in the world.

The centre carried out much pioneering CAD research, and many of its early staff members went on to become prominent in the worldwide CAD community, such as brothers Dick and Martin Newell. Dick Newell oversaw the creation of the extremely successful Plant Design Management System (PDMS) for 3D process plant design, and later co-founded two very successful software companies - Cambridge Interactive Systems (CIS) which was well known from its Medusa 2D/3D CAD system, and Smallworld with its eponymous Smallworld GIS (Geographical Information System). Martin Newell later went to the University of Utah where he did pioneering 3D solid modelling work; he was also one of the progenitors of PostScript.

Along with the Cambridge Science Park, CADCentre was arguably the most important single factor in what became known as the Cambridge Phenomenon - the transformation of Cambridge from a distinguished and beautiful but rather sleepy small University town into one of the world's high technology centres within in a few short years in the 1980s. Many people who had worked at CADCentre went on to found their own successful software companies.

CADCentre became a publicly quoted company in 1996 and later changed its name to AVEVA Solutions Ltd. Well over three decades later, PDMS is still a successful, world-leading product - a remarkable achievement for a software product.