Claris CAD was a two-dimensional computer-aided design program for

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

History

Claris CAD was developed in 1988 by

Claris Claris International Inc., formerly FileMaker Inc., is a computer software development company formed as a subsidiary company of Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) in 1987. It was given the source code and copyrights to several programs that were ...

Corporation in a joint effort with Craig S. Young of Computer Aided Systems for Engineering (CASE). It was based on MacDraw II and Young's earlier CAD application, ''EZ-Draft''.Young, Craig S. "A Few Thoughts on Claris CAD from its Developer: Craig Young of CASE." Introduction. ''Technical Drawing with Claris CAD''. By James K. Anders. ScottForesman, 1991. xi-xiii. Version 1 was released in 1989 for Macintosh computers running

System Software 6 System 6 (or System Software 6) is a graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers, made by Apple Computer It was released in 1988, and is part of the classic Mac OS series. It is a monolithic operating system, with coop ...

or later. The initial releases were plagued with bugs, especially with the bundled plotter driver. Development halted in June 1991 with the release of version 2.0.3.Apple Tech Notes
/ref> Currently, Claris CAD can be run on older Macintoshes using the "Classic" emulator included by Apple in Mac OS X 10.4.11 or older, or on current machines using the

SheepShaver SheepShaver is an open-source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator originally designed for BeOS and Linux. The name is a play on ShapeShifter, a Macintosh II emulator for AmigaOS (made obsolete by Basilisk II). The ShapeShifter and SheepShaver projec ...

open-source "Classic" emulator (tested through Mac OS X 10.7).

Features

Claris CAD uses a drawing system defined by ''Tools'', ''Methods'', and ''Modifiers''. Tools draw objects, methods allow different ways of drawing with the tools, and modifiers help to position objects. Some notable tool functions include: walls, arcs, chamfers, fillets, spline curves, perpendiculars, and tangents. Dimensioning tools can create point-to-point, chain, datum, angle, radius, diameter, and circle-center dimensions. Predefined

ANSI The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organ ...

Y14.5,

ISO ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007 * Is ...

DIN DIN or Din or din may refer to: People and language * Din (name), people with the name * Dīn, an Arabic word with three general senses: judgment, custom, and religion from which the name originates * Dinka language (ISO 639 code: din), spoken by ...

, JIS, and BS-308 drawing standards templates are also included with the software. A special Claris version of Microspot Ltd.'s MacPlot plotter driver was also part of the package, allowing Claris CAD to plot to Hewlett-Packard and Houston Instruments

plotter A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes known as a cutting ...

s. A utility called MacPlot Configure also lets the user specify a plotter model and assign pen colors to carousel positions. The physical software package provides a reference, tutorial, and a videotape tutorial.

Limitations

Though Claris CAD is sufficient for creating

floor plan In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure. Dimensio ...

s and manual

orthographic projection Orthographic projection (also orthogonal projection and analemma) is a means of representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions. Orthographic projection is a form of parallel projection in which all the projection lines are orthogonal ...

s, many users require three-dimensional capability. Most users have abandoned it because it can no longer run natively on modern machines. However, long-term users with numerous files in ClarisCAD format and limited 3D needs continue to use it by running the

Sheepshaver SheepShaver is an open-source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator originally designed for BeOS and Linux. The name is a play on ShapeShifter, a Macintosh II emulator for AmigaOS (made obsolete by Basilisk II). The ShapeShifter and SheepShaver projec ...

"Classic" emulator on current Mac computers. Due to speed/memory increases of current hardware, performance under emulation is superior to native operation on older machines, and stability does not seem to have been compromised. Among its other anomalies, the limited accuracy

QuickDraw A quickdraw (also known as an extender) is a piece of climbing equipment used by rock and ice climbers to allow the climbing rope to run freely through protection such as a bolt anchors or other traditional gear while leading. A quickd ...

routines were not sufficient for direct use with highly accurate applications such as computer

numerical control Numerical control (also computer numerical control, and commonly called CNC) is the automated control of machining tools (such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers) by means of a computer. A CNC machine processes ...

(CNC) machines.Apple Tech Notes
/ref> Some versions of the program (including 2.0 v3) have a bug where users are unable to save their work, encountering an error stating that an additional 1k of disk space is required. This is due to a limitation of saving to large size, HFS+ formatted disks. One can save to a floppy disk or small RAM disk as a workaround, or use the "Save As..." command, renaming the file in the process.

Interoperability

*Claris Graphics Translator by Claris Corp. converts drawings to

IGES The Initial Graphics Exchange Specification (IGES) is a vendor-neutral file format that allows the digital exchange of information among computer-aided design (CAD) systems. It's an ASCII-based textual format. The official title of IGES is ''Di ...

and

AutoCAD AutoCAD is a commercial computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting software application. Developed and marketed by Autodesk, AutoCAD was first released in December 1982 as a desktop app running on microcomputers with internal graphics controllers. ...

DXF AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a CAD data file format developed by Autodesk for enabling data interoperability between AutoCAD and other programs. DXF was introduced in December 1982 as part of AutoCAD ...

formats. *Cadmover by Kandu Software translates drawings many formats, including IGES and DXF formats. *PowerDraw Translator by Engineered Software converts drawings to DXF and EPSF/Illustrator formats. *Three-dimensional modeling: **ModelShop by Paracomp **MacConcept by Klex Software **MacBRAVO! by Schlumberger

References

External links

Claris CAD
at clarislink.net {{DEFAULTSORT:Claris Cad Computer-aided design software