Over the years, I’ve used numerous Computer Aided Design (CAD) software packages. I think it would be difficult to overestimate the degree to which CAD has improved the design process!

Here is a list of the applications that I learned well and used regularly (these may be one or two that I’ve forgotten):

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Commodore Vic 20	Super Expander	1981	The super expander cartridge allowed one to create drawings by defining shapes and their properties (e.g. “CIRCLE 1, 20, 30, 40, 40 [,90,180]”)… I remember spending hours drawing a car by typing in numbers to define the coordinates, diameters, etc. of circles rectangles, etc.
Classic Mac OS	Turbo CAD	1994
Classic Mac OS	Ray Dream Studio	1995	I made an animation of an orrery/darrieus-windmill artwork using this program, but I can’t open the video file anymore.
Classic Mac OS	Alias Sketch	1995	Sketch was a great program from “Alias Research”. Sketch combined the accuracy and precision of engineering programs with the intuitiveness of general purpose modelers.
Classic Mac OS	FormZ	1996	FormZ was the first CAD program that I really became proficient with, and also the first piece of software that I paid over $1000 for (something I would never have imagined doing).
Windows 2000	Rhino	1998	I used Rhino quite a lot for modeling things that were difficult to create using other programs.
windows 2000	Alibre Design	2001	This was my primary design tool for years. It was a great value, and even after I switched to the higher-end software Solidworks, I continued to like some aspects of Alibre better.
windows 2000	SketchUp	2001	I learned to use this primarily because others would frequently send me sketchup files. It was intuitive, and I can understand why it became popular.
windows 2000	Materialise Magics RP	2002	Through my work for Helmick and Schechter, I got early exposure to 3d scanning technology. This is the software that we used to repair scanned models. The process is vastly simpler now!
Windows XP	Solidworks	2007	This has been a mainstay for me for many years. It’s amazing that complex machines were designed before the advent of such tools!
Windows XP	Mudbox	2008	This is one of those programs which performed one important task better than anything else I knew of, and so I used it extensively.
Windows XP+	Carveco	2008	Carveco is a CAM application that also has a powerful set of modeling tools geared towards artists and sign-makers
Windows XP+	3d-Coat	2009	This program has been indispensable!
Windows XP+	Rapidform	2009	Like the aforementioned Magics RP, I used this to clean and repair 3d scans.
Windows 10	ZBrush	2021	When I first tried ZBrush, in 2009, I was confounded by its unorthodox interface, but now I’m starting to get it!

In addition to those listed above, I have also worked with these programs:

• Blender –
• Bryce – This came bundled with Ray Dream Studio.
• Cinema 4D
• Poser
• Solid Edge –  I think there was a free academic version of this available for a while, and I used it before adopting Alibre Design.
• Meshlab – This is a great piece of free software which I often use for viewing and calculating the properties of CAD models.
• RasMol and Yasara – I used these and several other molecular modelling programs (mostly for research)
• MiniCAD
• Materialise, Mimics –  Generates CAD files from medical scan data. I’m sure this process is much less painful now than it was when I used this!
• ??? – There was some other program in the 90s where the company dissolved, and the software became free. I can’t recall the name, but I used it and followed its development for quite a while.