Draftware Inc develops and markets the DraftView line of CAD viewing software. Until 1997 Draftware Inc's office was located in Warsaw, Indiana, which is also home to the nation's foremost Orthopedic companies. With ties to the Orthopedic industry, Draftware Inc developed several X-ray imaging products for key medical manufacturers. The result was Draftware's foray into the medical imaging market, and the development of PolyWare.
DraftView and PolyWare products are now widely used by large and small companies, worldwide, in over 30 countries.
Draftware Inc was founded in 1988 by two business partners. Both partners had worked in CAD Sales & Tech Support for the same national CAD/CAM reseller, based in northern Indiana. The PC CAD market was brand new and booming. With the advent of the IBM/AT, and AutoCAD, manufacturing companies began trading drafting tables for CAD systems at an incredible rate.
Successful AutoCAD viewing software began appearing in the mid-1980s. The founders of Draftware Inc, having extensive knowledge of Autodesk and Computervision products, set out to provide similar viewing software for the untapped Computervision market.
At this time Computervision was the leading CAD vendor, offering CADDS 4X for mid-range and mainframe applications, and a new PC-based product known as Personal Designer. At a time when AutoCAD was strictly 2D, Personal Designer had a distinct advantage as a full 3D CAD package.
Draftware Inc's first offering was a DOS-based Personal Designer CAD viewer, which had been code named "Personal Manager". Programming had begun in August 1988, and upon formal release in 1989, the product debuted as DraftView for Personal Designer. This was followed with the release of DraftView for CADDS in early 1991.
In 1993 development began on a Microsoft Windows version of DraftView. At that time Windows 3.1 was 16-bit, and presented several challenges for CAD software development. In July 1994, Draftware Inc expanded to a four-person operation and moved into new office space in Warsaw, Indiana. With the release of Windows 95, DraftView was ported from Windows 3.1 to the new 32-bit Windows environment.
By 2000 the CAD market had changed drastically. Computervision was consumed by PTC in late 1997, and as a result, CADDS and Personal Designer have become "legacy" CAD systems that are no longer on the cutting-edge of the CAD market. However, Computervision CAD products are still widely used, and large quantities of this CAD data exists. Draftware Inc continues to specialize in software solutions for Computervision CAD users.
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